This column piggybacks off of broadcaster quotes. With a bunch of games going on simultaneously, I sometimes don’t get the full quote or even the right commentator, so let’s just call these quotes “approximate”:

Dick Vitale during Wednesday night’s Georgetown vs UConn game. “Jim Calhoun looks like he wants to get out of here. He wants this game to be over as soon as possible.”

Vitale was referring to the fact that UConn was down 10 and with little chance to win, Calhoun wasn’t fouling to extend the game. But given that Calhoun spent the next two days bed-ridden with spinal problems, Vitale’s comment was certainly apropos. Calhoun may miss a few games, or if he elects to have surgery, he may miss the rest of the season. UConn did end a four game losing streak by beating Seton Hall this weekend, but the loss of Calhoun is certainly a concern for the team. While I don’t have the splits in front of me, UConn has performed worse without Calhoun on the sidelines in recent years. 

Seth Davis during Saturday’s half-time show, “Florida St. has been a different team since Ian Miller joined the team in late December.”

I disagree slightly. I actually ran some splits on this for Thursday’s column but cut it due to space considerations. This table does not include Saturday’s game, but on the rest of the season, here are Florida St.’s numbers with and without Miller in the lineup:

Since Ian Miller has debuted, Florida St. has been a better offensive team and a worse defensive team, but their overall performance has been nearly identical. Now part of the reason the splits don’t look better is that Florida St. lost to Princeton and Clemson with Miller in the lineup. You can argue that those games were early and that it took Miller some time to gel with the lineup, but that doesn’t quite match the numbers. If you look at Miller’s statistics, he had a season low in minutes against Duke and North Carolina. In other words, in Florida St.’s bet wins, he was mostly sitting on the bench. I certainly believe having Miller available helps Florida St. If some of the other guards are having trouble scoring, it helps to have another offensive option. But I think it is wrong to assign the turnaround to Miller.

Overall, I feel like this is a team that just had one phenomenal game against North Carolina, and suffered some unfortunate close losses early in the season. This isn’t a team that has fundamentally changed. By winning the close games lately (Duke and Virginia), Florida St.’s record just happens to look a whole lot better in ACC play.

Mark Jones, “Royce White has not attempted a FG today, and Iowa St. is still in the lead.” (Jones said this with 2:30 left in the game. White would attempt and make one FG at the end of the game.) Then with Oklahoma down three in the final minute, an Iowa St. defender ripped the ball from Oklahoma’s Sam Grooms to preserve the win. “Grooms has the best assist to turnover ration in the Big 12, and yet he has the worst timing for a turnover here.” Jalen Rose, “Unfortunately for Oklahoma, Grooms is going to get left at the altar.”

This item was obviously included to point out that Jalen Rose attempted one of the worst puns of the year. But Iowa St. vs Oklahoma might have been the most important game I saw all weekend. By this point in the season there are very few results that truly surprise me, but this game did. This looked like a logical time for Iowa St. to come back to earth. After beating Kansas, and a fantastic comeback to beat Kansas St., no one would fault Iowa St. for losing on the road to Oklahoma. Oklahoma has been playing solid if not spectacular basketball, and Lon Kruger has proven to be a pretty solid defensive coach in his career. I though Kruger would have a gameplan to slow down Royce White, and he did.

If you’ve followed Iowa St. this year, in most close games it has come down to the fact that no one on the opposing team can stop Royce White from scoring. White has carried the Cyclones with clutch baskets all season long. And when White was held to one-point in the first 37:30 of this game, it seemed impossible that Iowa St. would be competitive, let alone in the lead. But the Cyclones found two new ways to win. First, the guards took advantage of the extra attention in the paint and knocked down open shots. Iowa St. was 15 of 30 from three point range. And equally important, the guards were locked in defensively. You often seen steals when teams dribble into traffic or pass into traffic. But Iowa St. had several steals late in the game where they simply reached out and took the ball from a dribbling Oklahoma player. For Iowa St. to be finding new ways to win tells me this team is not just NCAA first-round fodder. This is a team that could make a run in the Big Dance.

Dave Revsine during the Purdue vs Indiana tilt, “Purdue has zero turnovers and we’re halfway through the second half.” For the record, Purdue didn’t record its first turnover against Indiana until 5:15 left in the second half. Jim Jackson, “It just isn’t in Robbie Hummel’s DNA to take over the game.”

That second quote from Jim Jackson stings, but I think there is a lot of truth to it. Robbie Hummel is posting a career low in turnover rate this season, but he also has a career low free throw rate. What that means is that Hummel has basically become a spot-up shooter. I have to believe that his two injuries have played a role in this, but whatever the reason, Hummel has now become a player who must defer and wait for his teammates to set him up. He is no longer a player who can beat a slow-footed forward off the dribble and take it to the basket. And because Hummel can’t create his own shot going to the basket, he is struggling to take over games.

Dave O’Brien during the Wisconsin vs Ohio St. game, “How can Wisconsin win when they can’t make threes (4-of-23 in the game) and can’t get to the free throw line?” Earlier, “Jordan Taylor has one turnover in the last 159 minutes of playing time.”

Both Purdue and Wisconsin lost at home on Saturday. Purdue and Wisconsin know that by almost never turning the ball over, you can have an strong offense. And no one is going to argue that elite teams are careful with the basketball. Phil Pressey’s pass at Tyshawn Taylor’s head notwithstanding, Missouri does a fantastic job taking care of the ball. But the thing that separates Missouri from Wisconsin and Purdue this year is that Missouri is still aggressive. They still try to get the ball inside. Missouri tries to take the ball to the basket AND they avoid turnovers. That’s much more impressive than what Purdue and Wisconsin do, avoiding turnovers by taking a high number of jump shots. To contrast these teams approaches, Missouri is 100^th in the nation in free throw attempts per field goal attempt, whereas Purdue ranks 211^th and Wisconsin ranks 312^th. This reflects the fact that Missouri is simply a much more aggressive offensive team. And in close games, I truly believe you have to take the ball to the basket and make the referees make a call.

There’s obviously a correct ratio of aggressiveness to recklessness, but I feel like Wisconsin and Purdue are leaning too far towards passiveness. Jump shots, even open jump shots, are almost always there. But no one can be a hot shooting team every game, and Wisconsin needs to find a way to win when the shots aren’t falling. And in Purdue’s case, when the defense is struggling, it would help if the Boilermakers could get to the line to slow the other teams momentum. Purdue and Wisconsin are very good teams that can beat anyone in the country. But as Purdue showed in close losses earlier this year to Xavier and Butler, a lack of aggressiveness can be crippling. As long as this remains their DNA, I wouldn’t count on either Purdue or Wisconsin to make a deep run in the NCAA tournament.

LaPhonso Ellis regarding Fran Dunphy’s recently shaved mustache which he had since the Nixon administration, “He was afraid of what he would find underneath there.”

No comment.

Hubert Davis, “UConn needs a steadier lineup.” Digger Phelps, “I don’t care what the new lineup looks like. Shabazz Napier needs to be sitting on the bench.”

In the last three games, Napier is 0-7, 0-9, and 1-6 from the floor. I’ve personally never been that impressed with Napier, but he was performing better earlier in the year.

Mike Patrick, “Alex Len is playing one on three in there.”

Maryland may have lost to North Carolina, but Alex Len was certainly impressive, holding his own against the waves of North Carolina forwards. He gives Maryland fans hope for the future.

Kara Lawson after Alabama’s Trevor Releford got a steal in the 2^nd OT that led to the go-ahead basket, “This is Alabama’s identity.”

Alabama isn’t going to win games with its offense, so the Crimson Tide have to win with hard-work and diving on the floor for steals. Interestingly, defense almost let Alabama down. Three times Alabama held a three point lead with 75 seconds left, and twice Ole Miss hit a three to tie. Ole Miss first hit a three to tie in regulation, and then they did it again in OT. But in double OT, the three point attempt was an airball, and Alabama got back to .500 in the SEC.

Jimmy Dykes, “If you wake Duke up at 3am and ask them to go the gym, they don’t miss six straight free throws as a team. But that’s exactly what they have done in OT.”

Miami has struggled with poor execution in close games the last two years, and it looked like they had done it again when they failed to get a shot off, despite 20 seconds to set up the game winning play in regulation. But Duke’s execution was worse, including a Quin Cook shot that looked like an alley-oop to no one. Miami had just enough to prevail in OT.

Mike Hodgewood, “It might be time for an intentional miss.”

Trailing by two, Clemson drew a foul in the final seconds at Virginia Tech. But they missed the first free throw, calling for an intentional miss on the second shot. Amazingly the ball popped out of the chaos and bounced to the corner where Tanner Smith picked it up and promptly missed the game-tying jumper.

Bob Valvano, “1-7 vs 2-7, quite frankly there is so little confidence on the floor in crunch time, everyone is just looking to see who will make a mistake."

I love these types of comments. Valvano said this regarding Georgia Tech vs Boston College. For those that care about the outcome, Glen Rice Jr. missed a shot, but put-back his own rebound in the final minute to seal the victory for the Yellow Jackets.

Other Notes:

- The game of the weekend was Missouri vs Kansas, and it lived up to the hype with Missouri drawing two huge charges in the final minutes, and Marcus Denmon hitting a number of critical three point shots.  Joe Lunardi now views Missouri as a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.

- LSU was 2-5 in the SEC, so the win against Arkansas hardly qualifies as a big win. But I think it was huge for Trent Johnson’s job security. Johnson has struggled since taking the job in Baton Rouge, but you could at least argue that the team was making progress when they beat Marquette in December. But thanks to a tough opening schedule in the SEC, LSU was starting to look like a team without hope. This win doesn’t get LSU into the NCAA discussion, but it was a quality win over an improved Arkansas team.

- Arkansas remains undefeated at home, and winless away from home this season.

- When Northern Iowa beat Creighton this weekend, it was not only a major upset of a ranked team, it also gave Northern Iowa a victory over their former head coach, Greg McDermott, and a victory over national player-of-the-year candidate, Doug McDermott, who had once given a verbal to the team.

- Indiana’s win at Purdue may have taken a big monkey off of Tom Crean’s back. It was Crean’s first Big Ten road win at somewhere other than Penn St.