Harvard's Upset

There is something about Ivy League schools in the NCAA tournament. In 1995, UCLA won the NCAA title. In 1996, much of the roster had turned over, but UCLA still earned a 4-seed and the Bruins were heavily favored in their first round against Princeton. Pete Carril, the legendary Princeton coach had announced his retirement prior to the game, and the Tigers pulled off a perfect game plan. They worked the clock. They played solid defense. They executed Carril’s classic back-cuts on offense. And in the final seconds, a back-cut led to a lay-up by Gabe Lewullis that finished off the epic win.

At the time it didn’t feel like just another win. I know that victories by 13-seeds hardly qualify as stunners these days. This wasn’t as big a seed upset as 15-seed Norfolk St. beating Missouri last year. The novelty of a defending champion losing is also a lot less special these days. With so many quality players leaving for the NBA, it hardly felt earth-shattering when Robert Morris defeated defending champion Kentucky in the NIT this week.

But at the time, the contrast in basketball power made this one of the biggest NCAA upsets of all time. Here was UCLA with all its legacy and all its resources, losing to a school that didn’t even offer athletic scholarships. It proved that basketball, when played right, and coached right, could be won by any team on any given day.

Thursday’s win by Harvard over New Mexico didn’t have that same dramatic feel. The ending wasn’t close. New Mexico doesn’t have the history or tradition of many power conference schools. (In fact, in many ways it was disappointing that New Mexico wouldn’t get a chance to extend one of the most dominant seasons in school history.)

But there was still something special about this win. Harvard is the quintessential academic school. It ranks in the Top 10 in just about every possible educational category from endowments, to department ratings, to future job earnings of graduates. Harvard students aren’t supposed to win in the NCAA tournament. And yet they did. And not only did they win, it didn’t require a buzzer beater.

Harvard didn’t have to execute some unorthodox strategy. This wasn’t Cornell executing yet another version of Carill’s back-cutting offense in their NCAA win. This wasn’t some completely perimeter focused-team. Tommy Amaker is a more traditional coach. And his team won playing basic basketball. They threw the ball into the paint to Kenyatta Smith and he scored over Alex Kirk and Cameron Bairstow. They attacked the paint and kicked the ball out for three. And most importantly, while they ran clock, they mostly moved the ball with the intention of scoring. Running a traditional based-attack, Harvard beat one of the big boys.

Some will say this is not your vintage Harvard team. Tommy Amaker encouraged the school to relax some of its admission standards to upgrade the basketball program. And those relaxed standards led to a horrific cheating scandal last year that caused the team’s co-captains to be dismissed before the season. But in many ways, that made Thursday’s outcome even more remarkable. Harvard had just one senior in the rotation this year. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year until the suspended players re-enrolled next season. But instead, one of the youngest teams in the nation, playing in a conference without athletic scholarships just defeated the regular season and post-season champion from one of the top conferences in the nation. By any measure, this is a special win. And the image of Wesley Saunders stealing the ball and clinching the victory is the tournament’s signature moment to date.

No Other Slippers

For most of the day, we didn’t seem to be heading towards any Cinderella team.

1pm: “I feel sorry for Bryce Drew, but this game is over.” – Charles Barkley at half-time of Michigan St. vs Valparaiso.

11pm: “Hey, I love 38 point games as much as the next guy…” – Ernie Johnson on Syracuse’s second half-lead against Montana.

And those weren’t the only small conference teams to struggle. A lot of people picked Belmont to upset Arizona based on their ability to knock down three point shots. But given Arizona’s size across the board, Belmont struggled to even get open looks. South Dakota St.’s Nate Wolters was an NCAA hero in his four year career, but Trey Burke hounded him defensively, and Wolters managed only a 3 of 14 shooting night while his team lost convincingly. If that shooting percentage sounds bad enough, New Mexico St. shot 28% as a team against St. Louis. And we’re not even going to talk about how much the basketball gods must hate Akron. Not only did Akron lose its point-guard prior to the game against full-court pressing VCU, then Akron was stricken with the flu this week. The game was ugly from the start. (If anyone picked Akron to win in your pool you should thank them for their donation. But wait, that’s probably the person who will win the whole thing.)

That isn’t to say there wasn’t some Cinderella drama throughout the day. It started with Bucknell-Butler. There was the brief moment when Bucknell took a 37 to 31 lead in the second half. We got a chance to learn about Bucknell’s 6’7” Joe Willman. He was the perfect example of a small conference senior forward playing his best game in the NCAA tournament. He knocked down the jump shots that gave his team the lead, and he even chipped in with three blocks. Willman certainly was not an outstanding athlete. But those blocks really showed that a lot of playing the post is experience and positioning. It isn’t always raw athleticism.

The close game was short lived however.  Butler had started 0-14 from three, but when Butler’s Andrew Smith and Rotnei Clarke finally nailed a pair of outside shots, Butler got on a run and somehow made the final margin a blowout.

Memphis vs St. Mary’s was closer in the final margin, but it wasn’t necessarily a more compelling upset possibility. Memphis has been one of the most fun teams to watch this year because of their fast-pace and the explosive dunking and shot-blocking of DJ Stephens. But while Stephens got his blocks, I only caught one that really showed his explosive leaping ability. And St. Mary’s slowed the game down enough that we didn’t really get to see Memphis’ exciting athleticism in action. At least the ending was a signature moment, and the sheer excitement in Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery’s voice had to make everyone smile.  They both were amazed as St. Mary’s banked in a three to pull within two points. And they were down-right giddy at the subsequent turnover on the inbounds. Mathew Dellavedova’s attempt at a game-winning three was off-the mark, but these two brilliant announcers made it worth all the replays they gave it later in the day.

Gonzaga vs Southern also had its share of close moments. At one point Southern’s Madut Bol’s and Derick Beltran hit back-to-back threes to cut the lead to 41 to 40, and Doug Gottlieb noted that the crowd was starting to get behind the 16 seed. The smell of a historical upset was in the air. And after a pair of Brandon Moore free throws made it 54-54, you could just sense the people getting home from work, turning on their TVs, and getting glued to the action. But that is when Kevin Pangos took over. Pangos hit a three pointer, a dish for a three, and a ridiculous fake-drive, step-back three pointer that put Gonzaga ahead for good.

Davidson vs Marquette was even better, but again the underdog came up short. I loved this game because it showed that sometimes you have to throw logic out the window and realize that anything can happen. The announcers kept harping on the fact that Marquette was the worst outside shooting team in the NCAA tournament and that if they fell behind, Marquette had no chance of winning. The Golden Eagles simply couldn’t hit the threes they would need to complete a comeback. Meanwhile Davidson was the best free throw shooting team in the country and could easily close out any win late. And yet Davidson somehow squandered a 9 point lead. Marquette’s Vander Blue bucked the team stats and hit a pair of late threes, and Jamil Wilson chipped in one of his own. And a turnover with 6 seconds left allowed Marquette to win it with a Vander Blue lay-up at the end of regulation. It was a dramatic win, but it meant that Cinderella was denied once again. The night would have to wait for Harvard.

Dixon Falls Again

Some fans may view Wichita St.’s dominating win over Pittsburgh as another win for Cinderella. But this was far from an epic mismatch. Rather, it was a contrast of two similar teams. Both teams don’t shoot the ball particularly well, but rely on dominating offensive rebounding and physical play to win games. And for most of the game, Wichita St. was simply the better offensive rebounding team. (Pittsburgh chipped in with some late offensive rebounds to make the numbers look more even, but by then the game was out of hand.) It also hurt that 5^th year Pitt senior Tray Woodall had a 1 for 12, five turnover performance in his final game. Woodall was playing so poorly that Jamie Dixon couldn’t even afford to play him in the last five minutes when the team was trying to come back. No one wants to see a senior go out like that. But this certainly didn’t feel like a fluke.

And it brings up more questions about whether there really is an NCAA curse associated with Jamie Dixon. Once again, his team had some of the best points-per-possession numbers in the country in the regular season. And once again Pitt lost earlier than expected. You can say that you need to have elite talent to win in the NCAA tournament, and Dixon relies more on experience and depth. And yet once again Dixon has not lost to a major conference blue blood. It wasn’t North Carolina or Kansas that took Dixon down. It was another mid-major squad. Will Dixon ever avoid NCAA disappointment at this point? You have to wonder if Dixon left for USC (which is a big rumor) whether the Pitt fans would even be disappointed.

Meanwhile, I don’t understand why Gregg Marshall isn’t on more lists for a power conference head coaching job. He took Winthrop to the NCAA tournament 7 times and finally won a tournament game at that small school. And now he has built Wichita St. into a two-year tournament team. Marshall should be on everyone’s short-list.

But even if there were no small conference Cinderalla’s, there were two major seeding upsets. And both suggested that the Pac-12 may finally be back. Early in the season I talked about all the prized freshmen and key transfers on Pac-12 teams. But they weren’t quite ready in November and December to display the conference’s improvement. Through at least one day of the NCAA tournament, the Pac-12 has made a statement.

I thought for sure Oklahoma St. would handle 12-seeded Oregon. Oklahoma St. has been very good at forcing turnovers this year, particularly star freshman Marcus Smart. And I thought with Dominic Artis still limited by injuries, and the fact that Oregon was not great at hanging onto the ball generally, that turnovers would be the difference in the game. Indeed turnovers were the difference, but it was Oregon that forced those turnovers in the first half and built a big lead. And the combination of turnovers and offensive rebounds had Oklahoma St. head coach Travis Ford fuming in his halftime interview. “We aren’t going to win if they get 21 more opportunities!” Oklahoma St. somehow flipped the turnover margin in the second half, but it was too little too late as Oregon kept the game at a manageable margin and pulled the seeding upset. I say seeding upset, because this was really just one good power conference team beating another.

12-seed Cal’s win over UNLV was a little more exciting. Cal’s never-ending string of missed free throws at the end nearly gave UNLV a chance to win in regulation. But Cal eventually hung on while playing in front of a favorable home crowd in San Jose.

Where is the NBA Talent?

At one point in the day, Charles Barkley was reciting his normal line. “Team X has the best player on the floor. He has to play well and then they should win.” But today basically showed that this is a dumb philosophy in this year’s tournament.

First, there aren’t any can’t miss NBA stars in college this year. There’s a reason no one in the NBA is tanking to win the draft this year. It isn’t clear that the top pick is really much better than the 11^th pick. Trey Burke is my personal favorite player because of his all-around ability to manage the game as a point guard, but Burke was a surprising 2 of 12 from the field against South Dakota St. Meanwhile, UNLV’s Anthony Bennett was completely kept under wraps in one of the night games. Bennett did get to 15 points thanks to the free throw line and did grab 11 rebounds, but he wasn’t impacting the game like he sometimes does. That was because California played a very smart zone defense for most of the game. It led to far too many outside shots for UNLV and far too little utilization of UNLV’s future pro.

But that is the other reason Barkley’s philosophy is wrong. In college, the rules aren’t designed for one-on-one basketball. You can always take one player away. And since no one has Kentucky type talent across the board this year, there is no star you can count on to dominate the game. College basketball is a team game, not a star game.

Expected Win in Field of 64

Finally, I end with my traditional table on each day’s winners and losers. The table lists the expected wins in the field of 64 using the Pomeroy Rankings. Arizona was expected to win 1.17 games before Thursday and their own win increased their expectation to 1.87. New Mexico’s loss (and other adjustments in team rankings based on game margins) further increased that expectation to 2.37.

Contrast that to Michigan. The Wolverines won which increased their expected wins by 0.29, but because VCU won (and won in dominant fashion), Michigan’s win expectations decreased by 0.22.

Indiana didn’t play but their expectation fell slightly because Syracuse won and won in impressive fashion.