Yesterday was a good day to play for a team named the Huskies.
Huskies East Edition
You won't see these Huskies in the Big Dance next week, but they are a hell of a lot cuter than either UCONN or UDUB
Winning 5 basketball games in 5 days isn’t easy under the best of circumstances, and when you are trying to do it in the Big East Tournament, that may just be the most impressive run in College Basketball history. The 19th ranked Huskies started off the Big East Tourney as the #9 seed, which means they got to play an extra game. Of course, that game was against DePaul, the worst team in the Big East, but they still had to play it and win. Once they disposed of the Blue Demons, they then had to run this gamut (these are the national rankings of their opponents): #22 Georgetown, #3 Pitt, #11 Syracuse and #14 Louisville. Granted they did not win any of those games by more than 3 points, but I don’t care who you are, beating 4 ranked teams in 4 days is amazing to say the least. Despite the big MO in the Huskies corner, I think they are in for a letdown in the second round of the Big Dance.
Huskies West Edition
On the other coast, the Washington Huskies, teetering on the bubble and barely surviving their game against WAZZU managed to take out Arizona and win the Pac10 automatic bid. This probably moved the Huskies up to somewhere around a 7 seed in the tournament, but I can’t figure this team out – some days they play like the team that was ranked earlier in the season and some days they play like they can lose to just about anyone. It should be interesting to see whom they end up matched up against when the seedings are announced later today.
It is amazing how deep the Big East is this year – of the 16 teams in the conference, 11 of them finished with a conference record of at least .500, 10 teams had 20 wins, 7 teams were ranked as of last week (including 2 in the top 5) and they will probably send somewhere between 10 and 12 teams to the NCAA tournament.
I don’t think you will ever see a post season tournament quite like this year’s Big East bash in NYC:
The first round games involved a #9 seed (UCONN) that is currently ranked #19 in the nation (and in the quarter finals), a #10 seed (Villanova) that was ranked in the top 10 in the nation just a few weeks ago (but got bounced by the second worst team in the conference) and a #11 seed (Marquette) that is ranked just outside the top 25 (and also in the quarter finals after dumping the #6 seed).
Could this be the best season that a single conference has ever collectively had? I can’t think of a better one.
UW Washington guard Venoy Overton has been suspended for the duration of the Pac-10 tournament as a result of criminal charges:
The gross-misdemeanor charge against Overton stems from a Jan. 8 incident in which Seattle police say he met with two 16-year-old girls and took them to his sister’s apartment in South Seattle. A police report says Overton, 22, furnished the girls with alcohol and engaged in sex acts with both.
Doesn’t the “Pac-10” tournament seem just a little too convenient? It may only be one game if the Huskies lose to the Cougars in the first round. The Huskies currently are slated in the NCAA tournament as about a 9-seed. If they lose tomorrow to the Cougars it probably drops them to about a 10-seed. If the Huskies were to somehow get past (hypothetically) the WSU game, then UCLA, then Arizona… they’d be about a 7 or an 8 seed.
What difference does that make, really?
Huskies as a 10 seed would face UConn, West Virginia, or Georgetown.
Huskies as a 9 seed would face Texas A&M, Kansas St., Xavier, or Vanderbilt.
Huskies as a 7 or 8 seed would face somebody along the lines of Cincinnati, Villanova, Temple, UNLV, or Missouri.
That’s all about a wash.
If the Huskies had suspended Overton for say, 3 games, then it might have involved some of the NCAA tournament. The problem with that approach is that they’d be penalizing the other players for Overton’s [lack of common sense, lack of judgement, stupidity, what do you call that(?)]
The point is, anything less than a supension for the remainder of the season doesn’t really impact their chances of advancing in the NCAA tournament. The suspension the Huskies selected doesn’t really do squat.
Make of this what you will: I was in a adult beverage establishment today and I was told (by someone I believe) that Overton had been there shortly before the original charges were filed .. with two underage girls. They sat in a corner and tried to get served, but when they got carded – and the girls were found to be minors, they were all asked to leave.
I’m not entirely sure it’s appropriate to post that “rumor”, but I can say that I absolutely believe that the person who told me that story wasn’t making it up, and if I were to ask around a little more I could get other people to corroborate it.
As you know, The #3 Ranked BYU Cougars Men’s Basketball team probably cost themselves a legitimate shot at hanging around deep into the NCAA tournament when they kicked Brandon Davies off the team for having pre-marital sex with his girlfriend, which happens to be a violation of the school’s honor code. There was an article posted on ESPN that listed the rules for the honor code. They are:
BYU has had a strict policy of enforcing the honor code. This past football season, running back Harvey Unga was suspended for a violation of the honor code. The BYU honor code statement, from the BYU undergraduate handbook, consists of:
• Be honest
• Live a chaste and virtuous life
• Obey the law and all campus policies
• Use clean language
• Respect others
• Abstain from alcoholic beverages, tobacco, tea, coffee and substance abuse
• Participate regularly in church services
• Observe the Dress and Grooming Standards
• Encourage others in their commitment to comply with the Honor Code
My question – how the hell did Jim McMahon manage to not get himself kicked out of BYU? You can’t tell me that he didn’t violate at least one of these in his time in Salt Lake City. If he managed to remain in compliance, I bet he went on one epic bender after his BYU football career was done.
The WSU Men’s Basketball team defeated UW last night, 80-69. WSU led by as much as 21 before the Huskies pulled to within 6 points with 4:04 to go. Had the Cougars played with better fundamentals late in the second half the score would have never would have gotten that close.
I think the Cougars may have “exposed” the Huskies somewhat.
UW’s 6’3″ guard Abdul Gaddy is out for the year with an ACL injury, suffered in early January. He had been playing 23 minutes per night, averaging 8.5 points and 3.8 assists.
Last night the Huskies distributed the guard minutes as follows: 5’9″ Isaiah Thomas, 35 minutes; 6’0″ Venoy Overton, 26 minutes; 6’5″ C.J. Wilcox, 19 minutes; 6’6″ Terrence Ross, 13 minutes. The two tall guards are both freshmen — they combined to go 1 of 11 from the floor. As for the short guards: 5’9″ and 6’0″ are both generous height estimates. I’d guess they’re really closer to 5’7″ and 5’10”.
The Huskies have been successful this season using their small guards to penetrate and either dish or score.
Here’s the Huskies Achillies Heel:
The Cougar guards measured 6’1″, 6’4″, 6’4″, and 6’6″.
A 2-3 Zone.
The Cougars played a 2-3 zone defense, packing their defenders into the paint. Their guards played an extra half-step off of UW’s quick little guards. This made it very difficult for the UW guards to penetrate, and if they attempted a 3-pointer the Cougs were able to use their relative size advantage to challenge the perimeter shots. The Huskies went 1-13 on 3-pointers in the first half — they didn’t shoot well from anywhere all night: 8-27 from 3, 15-24 from the line, and 33% overall from the floor.
If history repeats itself in the NCAA Tournament, the Huskies are going home.
The UConn women’s basketball team defeated Ohio State today, 81-50. The win gives UConn their 88 straight win, tying them with the 1971-1974 UCLA Bruins.
Some may say women’s basketball doesn’t compare to men’s basketball.
It does — it compares to men’s basketball — of 40 years ago.
Some impressions of two games I watched on Saturday:
UNC-Kentucky: Kentucky entered the game ranked 10th. UNC entered the game unranked due to three (close) early season losses. I don’t really see a dimes worth of difference between them. Both teams feature young players that will be playing in the NBA soon — at times there were as many as about seven NBA guys on the court at once. UNC has more overall depth, especially in the frontcourt. Kentucky has the better guardplay, and their guards should improve between now and the NCAA tournament. (This can’t be said of UNC’s guards — they’re both combo guards who are miscast when playing the point. Neither has good court vision, and neither is very good at creating for other players. I don’t think UNC’s guards will experience any real improvement between now and tournament time.)
Two Players Who Caught My Attention: Kentucky freshman guard Doron Lamb and UNC’s 6’10” sophmore forward John Henson. UNC’s freshman Harrison Barnes was a preseason AP All-American. As of right now he’s shooting 33.8% for the season, and you can see why — too many forced shots. If he gets it together, look out, but I don’t see it yet.
Demetri McCamey
Gonzaga-Illinios at the Key:
Many thanks to the veteran usher who took mercy on us at the Battle in Seattle. The Gonzaga-Illinios game was (predictably) a blowout. We were sitting in relatively inexpensive seats, and our row contained three infants on the laps of parents. (I’m not making that up!) Naturally, this turned into a Chinese Fire Drill of people getting up to use the “facilities.” We vacated our seats to sit somewhere further back, and the young parents didn’t hesitate to wave over a female friend of theirs, who was carrying a fourth(!) infant. (She had a baby in one hand and was texting with the other — I didn’t see a lot of basketball watching happening from any of the parents.) Here’s a tip folks: Next time, hire a sitter.
In any event, kudos to the usher who moved us away from the bedlam and into good seats where we could actually *watch* the game. He took what had been a crappy situation and turned it into a positive experience.
As for the game, Illinios had the two best players on the floor in senior point guard Demetri McCamey and senior center Mike Tisdale. They look like an Elite Eight team to me. (You could argue that Illinois had something like 5 or 6 of the best 7 players in the building.) Gonzaga doesn’t have their usual Big White Scorer (Boldin, Dickau, Morrison, etc) this year. Elias Harris will be an NBA guy, but the rest of the team lacks the ability to consistently get and execute good shots.
Illinois entered the game ranked 21st. Gonzaga was ranked 24th. The final score was 73-61 Illinios, and for most of the second half it wasn’t that close.
Predictions on end-of-season ranks and tournament performance:
Kentucky: 9th. (Sweet 16, due to lack of depth.)
UNC: 11th. (Elite 8.)
Illinois: 15th. (Elite 8. In March, I’m going to like Illinois more than everyone else does, unless everyone likes them by then.)
Gonzaga: 24th-30th. A couple of league losses would knock Gonzaga out of the top 25, and it’s possible they’ll miss the NCAA tournament. Best case is that they make the tournament and survive a round or two.
This is in reference to the Stanford-UConn Women’s Championship Game post. If the Stanford men’s team were to play the UConn women’s team in a pickup game the matchups would look something like this:
Starter
Size
PPG
Starter
Size
PPG (Conf)
Landry Fields
6-7 G/F
22.0
Maya Moore
6-0 F
18.1
Jack Trotter
6-9 F
6.8
Tina Charles
6-4 C
18.9
Jeremy Green
6-4 G
16.6
Tiffany Hayes
5-10 G
8.9
Drew Shiller
6-0 G
7.5
Kalana Green
5-10 G
11.2
Jarret Mann
6-3 PG
5.8
Caroline Doty
5-10 G
6.2
Bench
Bench
Andrew Zimmermann
6-9 F
4.4
Kelly Faris
5-11 G
3.4
Emmanuel Igbinosa
6-2 G
3.9
Megan Gardler
6-0 F
4.3
Da’Veed Dildy
6-4 G
1.1
Lorin Dixon
5-4 G
3.5
Kaili McLaren
6-2 F
3.7
The UConn women have two players on their team over six feet tall. They’d be giving up 5-6 inches per player. If this pickup game happened in real life the shorter team would insist on mixing up the teams. No contest.
#1 UCONN is playing #2 Stanford for the Women’s hoops crown tonight. Why bother? UCONN has won what seems like 5,000 straight games (they last lost in the 2008 final four to Stanford), has beaten 16 (!) ranked opponents this season (including Stanford once this season), has an average margin of victory of 30+ points, hasn’t had an opponent come within less than 20 points of beating them in over a month and has murdered its opponents in the tournament:
Game
Opponent
Opp Rank
Margin Of Victory
1
Southern
NR
56
2
Temple
NR
54
3
Iowa State
#16
38
4
Florida St
#11
40
5
Baylor
#18
20
That Rank column is National Rank, not seed. When was the last time that you saw a top 20 team in any sport get blow out the way that Iowa St, Florida St and Baylor have? This one just won’t be close – unless Stanford’s men’s team shows up for this game.
Steve Lavin (former UCLA coach and ESPN broadcaster) is now at St. Johns.
The really interesting one to me was Tom Izzo of Michigan State denying that he had been contacted by Oregon.
Ernie Kent is gone. Oregon has hundreds of thousands of Phil Knight’s dollars. They have the Nike empire behind them. Expect them to make a huge splash with their next basketball head coach. It may not be Tom Izzo, but don’t be surprised when it’s a household name. Keep in mind that many basketball camps and AAU teams are affiliated with a brand of shoes and clothing, either “Nike” or somebody else — it’s a huge amount of exposure.
Ernie Kent wasn’t a bad coach, but if Oregon gets a really good, really well connected coach and Nike throws its weight behind him — look out.
FlatbreadGarden 