With Andrew Wiggins joining Kansas, the Jayhawks should stay at the Top of the Big 12. But the projection for West Virginia, Kansas St., and Oklahoma is entirely different from last season. Read More. Written by Dan Hanner on May 19, 2013
Tyus Jones, the No. 2 overall recruit for 2014 and an excellent point guard, was selected by Paul Biancardi, Adam Finkelstein and John Stovall. Read More.
The event gives front offices the opportunity to evaluate D-League players with the possibility of offering Summer League or training camp invites. Read More.
Tyus Jones, the No. 2 overall recruit for 2014 and an excellent point guard, was selected by Paul Biancardi, Adam Finkelstein and John Stovall. Read More.
Once again, I have to turn this over to Bill Walton:
On the loss of Jordan Adams, “Shabazz Muhammad, he’ll get more shots, and what could be better than that?”
“The game needs a rhythm, it needs a flow. Every possession has been a turnover.”
Dave Pasch, “I don’t know if you were watching the games today at your pool party.” Bill Walton, “I was at the pool party, there was plenty to see there.”
“After as poor a start as you could possibly have, the Ducks have found their way on the Oregon Trail. Lewis and Clark would be so proud.”
“I love little fast guys. I used to be one. And then I turned 14. And hurt my knee.”
Shabazz Muhammad is sitting with two personal fouls in the first half. Pasch “So you disagree with the decision to sit him?” Walton, “Close enough.” Pasch, “Is that a yes or no?” Next Walton suggests Muhammad could just substitute himself back in. “Just walk to the scorer’s table and ask to replace somebody.” Pasch, “Would John Wooden have let you get away with that?” Walton, “I don’t remember sitting on the bench.”
“Nobody in this tournament has been able to keep any of the guards in front of them.” Ah, but that is why the Pac-12 is so fun to watch.
“I think they should play every game here in Las Vegas forever.”
“Kyle Anderson isn’t one of those guys with the bulging veins who can push everyone around, he is just a basketball player – I love it.”
“There is a way through, Lewis and Clark were right!” And the Pac-12 tournament title goes to Oregon.
Louisville wins Big East Tournament
So that is what a 27-3 run looks like.
My favorite note from the broadcast:
When Jim Larranaga left George Mason for Miami FL, Luke Hancock wanted out. Rick Pitino called and asked Larranaga about Hancock’s game. “If you need a big bucket, he is your man. If you need a big rebound, he is your man. If you need someone to play defense, he isn’t your man.” But Hancock did force a key turnover during Louisville’s big run, and I have rarely seen Rick Pitino so happy.
As sad as I am to see the Big East tournament come to the end, it certainly isn’t the end of the world. I’m looking forward to a crazy ACC tournament semifinal in two years when Syracuse, Louisville, Duke, and North Carolina all advance to the Final Four. Conference realignment is tough, but not every future scenario is bad.
Kansas wins Big 12 Tournament
Perry Ellis shot 23 of 30 in the final four games of the season. Meanwhile Naadir Tharpe dished 8 assists against Iowa St. and had a season high 12 points against Kansas St. in the Big 12 final. The best thing about players breaking out late in the year is that the scouting report isn’t out on them. For players that break out in November and December, there are plenty of conference games to analyze their game and look for weakness. When a player starts shining late in the year, it is extremely hard to game plan for because you haven’t seen what works best to slow them down.
Ole Miss wins SEC Tournament
Marshall Henderson is a loose cannon. The factoid about how he plays better in the second half because Andy Kennedy is on the same side of the court as him and can shout at him and keep him under control is one of the scariest factoids I’ve heard all year. And his Gator axe-move with his team just leading by 6 points with 8 minutes left could have drawn a technical. At minimum it was horrible judgment. But when you are a Mississippi fan and you haven’t won the SEC in 30 years, or made the tournament under Andy Kennedy, Henderson is your favorite player in the world.
Miami wins the ACC Tournament
Shane Larkin didn’t show up anywhere on Ken Pomeroy’s player-of-the-year ballot (in part because he only uses 21% of the Hurricanes possessions). But there is no doubt he is the difference between Miami being an NIT team and an ACC champion. Jim Larranaga handed him the keys to the team late last season, and he has thrived in every big moment. When the Boston College game was tight on the Friday, he was there hitting the pull-ahead three point shot. When his team needed a bucket to stay ahead of NC State and North Carolina, there he was making the perfect assist. And when those teams turned up the pressure to try to get back in the game, he avoided the costly turnover. Finally, his free throw shooting sealed both weekend games without a hiccup. In February and March, Larkin has only posted an ORtg below 100 in one game. He clearly has the heart of a champion.
Ohio St. wins the Big Ten Tournament
Maybe I’m just grumpy after another Wisconsin game in the 40’s. But the Big Ten tournament made me more angry than excited this year.
It started on Friday, when Mike Tirico and Dan Dakich noted that after speaking to the Indiana staff, the feeling was that the conference tournament was not that important. The real test of accomplishment was winning the outright regular season title. No one disagrees with that in principle. (Except Steve Alford. He still thinks he won a Big Ten title thanks to Iowa’s tournament win.) But when Indiana lost in the semifinals you could tell in Tom Crean’s voice that the Big Ten tournament just wasn’t that important to him. He said he would have “liked” to win, but that the Hoosier’s overall body of work spoke for itself. You don’t win key games in March without some chip on your shoulder. Wisconsin felt they were robbed of a regular season title. Indiana never had to come to Wisconsin and play in their building. They blew a late home game against Purdue. They wanted it. Ohio St. felt like they were always an after-thought all season after spending most of the season in 5th place in the league. Those teams wanted to prove they were legitimate on the national stage. And Crean’s under-estimate of the conference tournament is likely why Louisville will be playing in Indianapolis in the Sweet Sixteen and not Indiana.
I don’t understand why Big Ten coaches don’t value this tournament more. Tom Izzo is a fabulous NCAA tournament coach, but his teams are more likely to struggle to bubble team’s on Friday night of the Big Ten tournament than they are to bring home a Big Ten Tournament title. Indiana still has never won the tournament. Until those marquee names start making this tournament into a big deal, it will never be as fun as the other conference clashes. It obviously hurts that the Big Ten tournament final is often too late to count as part of the selection process. But as many have said, you only have so many chances in life to cut down the nets and win a title.
Congratulations to Ohio St. for winning their 5th Big Ten title, the most of any team. But too bad Thad Matta isn’t John Thompson Jr. I’d love for Matta to boast how Ohio St. owns the Big Ten tournament. Then this thing might start to mean something.
The Pac-12 has brought cool back with Bill Walton and Las Vegas. The Big East will still have Madison Square Garden (even if it doesn’t have Syracuse.) The new ACC will have the most exciting tournament in the land. The Big Ten can do better.
A growing group of college basketball experts have argued that we should eliminate the conference tournaments. They argue that the regular season champion is the team most deserving of the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, and smaller conferences often end up sending a less deserving teams to the Big Dance. I agree that the regular season champion is usually the best team. But college basketball is not inherently about having the best teams around at the end. If it was, the NCAA tournament itself would not be a single elimination format. Instead, I continue to love the win-or-go-home drama the conference tournaments present.
Last year, Isaiah Canaan led Murray St. to a near undefeated campaign. But with a number of his teammates graduating this off-season, Canaan’s team was not a legitimate at-large candidate this year. To make the tournament, Murray St. had to win the OVC tournament and beat a juggernaut Belmont team in the process. And since Belmont would probably receive an at-large bid (if eliminated in the OVC final), bubble teams everywhere were forced to root for Belmont and against NCAA hero Isaiah Canaan.
And even though Belmont was clearly the deeper and better team, Canaan did everything he could to will his team to victory on Saturday. After Belmont had come back from 10 down to tie the game in the second half, there was Canaan making a three and drawing the foul to give his team a 4 point lead. Fans of bubble teams everywhere were panicking. But missed free throw by Murray St. gave Belmont’s Kerron Johnson a chance. Down two in regulation, Johnson drove into the lane and looked for an open three point shooter who he could feed for a game-winning shot attempt. But since no double team was forthcoming, Johnson turned around calmly knocked down a face-up jumper to send the game into the extra session. And then Canaan and Johnson dueled some more. The game finally ended with Belmont’s Johnson hitting a pull-up jumper for the game-winner with 2 seconds left in OT.
Conference tournaments ensure that for every team there is one last chance for redemption. Whether your last game is the OVC final, the first game of the Pac-12 tournament, or the round of 64, everyone eventually faces lose-or-go-home.
The Big Ten was the top conference in the nation and the finale between Indiana and Michigan lived up to the hype. The Hoosiers won the outright conference title, but it came down to a ball hanging on the edge of the rim at the end of regulation. A simple half centimeter difference and there would have been a 4-way tie for first place. Still, for those of us who like to think teams make their own luck, I flash back to a play Indiana’s Victor Oladipo made two minutes earlier. With Christian Watford hanging in the air and taking a bad shot, Oladipo ran to get the ball, and made the lay-up as the shot-clock expired. If it wasn’t for Oladipo’s awareness, the Hoosiers wouldn’t have even been in position to win at the end. Indiana may have locked up a 1-seed by winning the outright title in the best league in the country this year, but the winner of the tournament will also have a serious claim to at least a 2-seed.
Bubble Banter: Iowa may have more conference wins than Minnesota and Illinois, but they have only four wins against the Top 50, and only one win against teams ranked 51-100. Keep in mind that the Hawkeyes were the only team in the Big Ten to play Purdue, Northwestern, Nebraska, and Penn St. twice. That combined with a weak non-conference schedule is why the Hawkeyes probably need at least one more Top 50 win (against Michigan St. in the quarterfinals) to make the tournament field. Purdue has only three top 50 wins to go along with 16 losses. That is why, even with the same record as Minnesota and Illinois, Purdue is not an at-large candidate at this point.
While Illinois and Minnesota’s numbers do look slightly more impressive, perception matters a lot. This isn’t all about numbers. It is about committee members voting to put these teams in the field. The loser of the Minnesota vs Illinois first round game is going to end the season with a three game losing streak and be extremely nervous on selection Sunday.
Wyoming gave the MWC a huge gift this year. Wyoming was undefeated in non-conference play, and then lost their leading scorer, which basically made them a cupcake in conference play. Wyoming effectively boosted all of the team’s power numbers, including giving 1-2 free Top 100 wins to each team. I don’t actually see the MWC as a league that will earn a lot of NCAA tournament wins this year, but they absolutely will get some quality seeds.
Bubble Banter: If Air Force can beat UNLV on Wednesday, they might actually make the MWC into a six-bid league. At this point, I think that is more likely than Boise St. or San Diego St. getting left out.
After sweeping Syracuse to become co-Big East champions, John Thompson III didn’t make any grand sweeping pronouncements. No “Manley Fieldhouse is Officially Closed” was uttered by Georgetown’s current coach. And I loved how Dana O’Neil of ESPN put it. JT3 is neither self-indulgent nor arrogant enough to make a statement like that. Georgetown and Louisville both have a chance to earn a 1-seed in the NCAA tournament if they can follow-up their shared regular season title with a conference tournament title. And Marquette might be able to do it too. The Golden Eagles will have a couple more losses on the full season, but three more Top 50 wins would also put them in the discussion.
Bubble Banter: Providence is playing much better basketball lately, but has many more bad losses than Cincinnati. Realistically, there may not be much bubble intrigue in the Big East, as the line below Cincinnati is fairly clear.
If Duke wins the ACC tournament, is everyone going to pick them to win it all? The stat that Duke is “undefeated with Ryan Kelly in the lineup” is getting a lot of press lately, and while I believe they are a better team, I think the hype may be getting a little out of hand. I don’t believe we should completely dismiss losses (such as what happened at Virginia) because of one player. But yes, Duke is clearly a favorite at this point.
Bubble Banter: North Carolina’s profile is eerily weak at this point. It is hard to believe that teams like Minnesota, Boise St., and Cincinnati can have better profiles than a 12-6 Tar Heel team. North Carolina’s improved play down the stretch is going to sway public opinion in their favor (and it should), but if they get a poor seed, the lack of quality wins is going to be the reason.
Virginia (like Iowa above) has one huge red-mark on their resume, that 300+ NCSOS. The NCAA tournament committee almost always punishes at least one team for soft scheduling by leaving them out of the field. Right now Virginia has that target on their back, so avoiding a quarterfinal loss in the ACC tournament is critical. Florida St. and Maryland just don’t have tournament profiles at this point.
It sort of seems hard to believe that Kansas has so many Top 50 wins at this point, but some of their non-conference victories (like Belmont and St. Louis) look really good right now. The Jayhawks certainly make a better than expected case for a 1-seed in the tournament. But they may need to win the Big 12 tournament to get it, especially with the Big East, Big Ten, Duke, and Gonzaga all making cases for 1’s. Kansas St. may have shared the Big 12 regular season title, but their profile is not nearly as impressive. They are actually 5-6 against the Top 50, and while they’ve avoided bad losses, I think some people will be surprised how different the seeds are for Kansas and Kansas St. on selection Sunday.
Bubble Banter: The officiating error at the end of Iowa St.’s loss to Kansas might give the Cyclones some support in the committee room. Remember, the committee is made up of people. Whether or not they should count that fact, I’m sure some of them will. Baylor’s win against Kansas may have saved their season, but with only 3 top 50 wins and 13 losses, they could use a little more padding on their resume. Baylor must beat Oklahoma St. in the Big 12 quarterfinals if they want to make the field.
UCLA is going to be a trendy bracket pick next week, but I see a four-seed in UCLA’s future. They just don’t have the quality wins of the other conference champions.
Bubble Banter: People get a little too hung up on Top 50 wins sometimes. Arizona St.’s record of 1-4 against the next 50, and Arizona St.’s three bad losses are crippling. Throw in a NCSOS near 300 and I would draw the cut-off between Colorado and Arizona St. But as John Gasaway has noted frequently at Basketball Prospectus, the difference between the top and bottom of the Pac-12 is not huge this year. A surprise Pac-12 winner is not out of the question.
I might be looking forward to the A10 tournament more than any other conference this year. The twelve seed Dayton is extremely dangerous (having lost a lot of close games due to poor perimeter defense.) Pre-season favorite St. Joseph’s is seeded tenth. And a whole host of quality teams know that 2-3 wins in this tournament is the difference between being a 9-seed on selection Sunday and heading to the NIT.
Bubble Banter: Realistically, while Butler plays on Thursday, and La Salle is off until Friday, La Salle is the bubble team here. La Salle desperately needs to win Friday’s quarterfinal match-up.
I actually think a number of teams at the top of the SEC seem to be playing better basketball. But the season was lost in November and December. The SEC simply lost too many games and that destroyed everyone’s profile.
Bubble Banter: Kentucky still has just two Top 50 wins at this point. They may need to make it to the SEC final to secure an at-large bid. Ole Miss and Alabama also lack the quality wins to make a legitimate case for the tournament. And Arkansas has just one win this year away from home.
Missouri is in the best shape with the lack of bad losses and three quality wins, but even Missouri’s resume isn’t perfect. Tennessee is also making a late charge at a bid. Thus even though they must play on Thursday, Tennessee and Missouri might be favored to reach the SEC semifinals.
The older I get, the more I see that one of the things I love most about sports is the variety of it, the diversity of it and the CHARACTERS. Men’s tennis is at its best in many years because, for the first time in a long time, the top three or four players all have wildly different styles. The Tim Tebow story was fun on so many levels, but one of those levels was that he was just SO DIFFERENT in how he played — I’d say we are entering a great time for quarterbacks, because Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers and Eli Manning and Drew Brees and Michael Vick and Cam Newton and Tebow and others are not really alike at all.
As a basketball fan, I’ve never understood the division that exists between fans of the NBA and the NCAA. While the NBA has the best basketball players in the world, March Madness is compelling in its own right and as entertaining as anything that happens on the professional level.
In the NBA, the owners of the 30 franchises consider turning a profit and getting an equal shot at the top players a right, regardless of how well (or how poorly) they run their organization and the respective size of their fan-bases. Since every losing team is a few ping pong balls from the rights to a LeBron James, Kevin Durant or Dwight Howard, personnel determines scheme in the NBA.
In contrast, the vast majority of the 344 Division I programs in college basketball have little chance of ever receiving a commitment from a McDonald’s All-American. But instead of petulantly trying to sabotage the sport in a misguided effort to legislate fairness, schools try many creative ways of leveraging the talents of the players they can recruit. As a result, scheme determines personnel in the NCAA.
At Syracuse, Jim Boeheim has made a Hall of Fame career out of running a contrarian scheme, in his case an aggressive 2-3 zone. The Orange traditionally have rosters full of “1.5’s”, 6’3+ combo guards lacking the quickness to defend elite PG’s and the size to defend SG’s, and “3.5’s”, 6’8+ combo forwards lacking the quickness to defend elite SF’s and the size to defend PF’s. However, because Syracuse never plays man defense, the athletic deficiencies of their players are minimized.
So while nearly every NBA team runs a fairly similar system of isolations, pick-and-rolls and man defense, an incredibly diverse array of styles can be found in the college game. On one end of the spectrum, teams like Missouri play four guards and pressure the ball 94 feet for 48 minutes, on the other, teams like Wisconsin run a deliberate motion offense, trying to minimize the number of possessions and shoot at the very end of the shot-clock.
In the NBA, the players are too good for the “40 Minutes of Hell” system (which Mike Anderson has brought to Missouri and Arkansas in the last few years) to be successful. Like Mike Leach’s bizarre pass-happy offense in college football, Anderson’s system, which he learned as a member of Nolan Richardson’s staff in Arkansas in the 1990’s, has philosophical holes that professional athletes can exploit. Nevertheless, that doesn’t make them any less entertaining on the collegiate level.
And with 68 teams set to compete in the NCAA Tournament, there are a lot more surprises in the college game. Even programs ranked in the top-15 like Murray State have barely been on national TV this season.
We have a pretty good idea of how teams like the Pacers and the 76ers match up with the top of the Eastern Conference but not whether an undersized Murray State squad can handle the size of an elite team from a Power Six conference. It’s an open question how Isaiah Canaan’s speed and athleticism translates outside of the Ohio Valley Conference. Non-conference play in college basketball generally ends in late December, so it’s almost impossible to gauge how younger teams like Texas, Washington and Tennessee who have found their groove in the last two months will fare in March.
In the NBA, it’s hard to envision a scenario where Chicago, Miami and Oklahoma City aren’t three of the final four teams left in the playoffs. In the NCAA, as many as two dozen teams have a legitimate shot at making a run at the Final Four.
Of course, in terms of entertainment, none of this makes the NCAA necessarily better or worse than the NBA, just different. But, as Posnanski writes, there’s something to be said for the concept of “different” in the modern sports world. Basketball fans of all stripes should enjoy March Madness; the NBA will still be here in a few weeks.
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