The NCAA Tournament cut the field from 16 to 4 over the weekend. While the first weekend of the tournament is great from the standpoint of the volume and the diversity of games, this is the weekend where one normally finds the greatest concentration of good, competitive games played by teams who are “on their game”. That is why Friday’s games were hugely disappointing this year.
Syracuse was so far off their game that you wondered how that team could possibly have been a serious factor in the Big East this year. They shot 0-10 on three-point shots in the first half; their first successful try from there was at 17:30 of the second half when they already trailed 48-29. The “nail-biting factor” for this game was nil.
Simultaneously, Louisville was cruising along in another blowout game. At one of the look-ins in my viewing area, the game was 60-33 early in the second half. I merely wrote on my notepad two words relative to the outcome of this contest:
“GAME OVER!”
In the later games, it looked for a while as if UNC/Gonzaga might be a close game. That was a mirage; UNC won handily. Interestingly, it seemed for a while as if UNC had caught the “Memphis Disease” and could not make a foul shot. At one point, they were 4-12 from the free throw line. Nevertheless, they cruised in their game.
Finally, Michigan State/Kansas was a close and competitive game. I do not have this game on tape or DVR so I can’t go back and watch the second half again but Kansas led by about 6 or 8 points with about 12 minutes to play. Then it seemed as if they stopped even looking to get the ball inside to Cole Aldrich. I’d be shocked if he got the ball inside from his teammates more than 3 times in the final 12 minutes of the game. Or perhaps was it some adjustment by Michigan State that did not allow him to get the ball? In any event, Kansas lost and a big part of the reason they lost is that one of their two best scoring options didn’t touch the ball very often in the latter stages of the game.
Let me set the stage for my next comment. I never attended the University of Connecticut; no family members have ever attended the University of Connecticut; I have no particular affection for – or any particular animus toward – the University of Connecticut. They won on Saturday despite being on the short end of EVERY close call by the officials and despite a couple of “phantom foul calls” on their starting players. That UConn won under those conditions shows they are clearly the better team – - and better by a bigger margin than the final game score showed.
If you have read these rants for any time now, you know well that I am not a conspiracy theorist. However, if UConn had lost on Saturday and the conspiracy theorists out there had concocted a cabal in which the NCAA “suggested” to the refs that it would be better if the UConn program now under the microscope for recruiting violations (maybe, maybe not?) didn’t show up in the Final Four and upstage some of the positive vibes there with “scandal vibes”, I might have gone along with that for a few seconds before dismissing it. That was one of the worst officiated games at this level of the tournament I can ever recall seeing. [For the record, the first game I saw was LaSalle/Bradley in 1954.]
Since I have been watching tournament games for a while now, there are individual games that stand out as milestone games. Kansas and UNC went to triple OT in the final game in 1957. Loyola-Chicago in 1963 overcame a double-digit halftime deficit to beat two-time defending champion Cincinnati. There was the “Bird/Magic” game in 1979. NC State upset “Phi Slamma Jamma” in 1983 and Villanova upset Georgetown in 1985. There was the “Grant Hill to Christian Laettner Game” in 1991. Now, add to that list Villanova/Pitt in the Regional Finals in 2009. That was simply a great game from start to finish between two very good teams both of whom were “on their games”.
I think Sam Young is an outstanding college basketball player. I don’t know how or if his skills project to the NBA, but he would be on my draft board if I were running an NBA franchise. The player on the Pitt team that is really enigmatic for me is DeJuan Blair. As a college player, he is also outstanding. But looking at him as an NBA prospect the dilemma is this:
A. Is he the reincarnation of Wayne Embry and/or Wes Unseld? If so, that’s great; take him near the top of the draft.
B. Is he the second coming of Oliver Miller and/or Erick Dampier? If so, he’s not worth a high pick in the draft and maybe not a pick at any point.
Regarding the Michigan State/Louisville game, was there a pod under Goran Suton’s bed on Sunday morning? And by the way when you throw up a three-point shot with someone in your face as the shot clock is running down and it goes in off a bank, you can be confident that :
It is YOUR day.
The UNC/Oklahoma game showed for the umpteenth time that five guys will beat one guy in a game that takes 40 minutes to play. Blake Griffin is a singular talent on a collegiate basketball court but without some help – - particularly from guys who might once in a while sink an outside jump shot – - he cannot beat five or maybe even eight competent players from the other squad.
Finally, here is a comment about the NCAA Tournament on TV and its impact in South Florida from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:
“So far, local TV ratings for March Madness have been somewhat disappointing, in that South Florida ranks dead last among 56 U.S. markets. On the local CBS affiliate, the only show with a lower rating than NCAA basketball is an infomercial in which a man speaking Arabic is selling used dental tools for home self-surgery.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…