| 21 March 2011
A whole heck of a lot of stuff happened in this weekend's NCAA Tournament games. Great games, poor shot selection, and some of the worst end of game decision making I can ever remember.
Here are some lingering thoughts, from my head, to your computer:
The Big East: I’m going to start by taking a controversial stand right away (That’s always fun, right?). Here goes. The Big East is not overrated. Not even close. Crazy, I know.
Now based on what happened this weekend, I think you could make a pretty compelling argument against me. Eleven teams entered, and nine teams were eliminated, with the only two who advanced (UConn and Marquette) doing so by beating fellow Big East clubs. In all, the teams which finished in the top eight in the Big East regular season all lost this weekend, including the only No. 1 seed to go down (Pitt) and the only No. 2 seed (Notre Dame), with Syracuse, Louisville, St. John’s and Georgetown all losing to lower seeded teams. Again, it’s hard to argue the Big East’s merits right now. But I’m going to anyway.
Because remember, for all the talk about the conference being overrated, the only tangible measurement we really have to rank conferences in the regular season, is how they perform out of conference play. It’s wins and losses there that drive strength of schedule, RPI, and every other goofy metric we use to put teams in the NCAA Tournament. It's also given Joe Lunardi quite an interesting career arc.
Anyway, remember that the only reason the Big East had so many highly ranked teams heading into the tournament, is because of what they did against everyone else outside the conference. Looking quickly across the board, remember that UConn beat Kentucky, Michigan State and Texas, all on either neutral courts or in true road games. Notre Dame beat Wisconsin, Georgia and Gonzaga. Villanova beat UCLA and Temple. Georgetown beat Missouri in Missouri, and Old Dominion at their place. And the list goes on. West Virginia beat Purdue. St. John’s beat Duke. Syracuse beat both Michigan and Michigan State on neutral courts.
Now obviously that doesn’t mean that no one in the Big East had marquee out of conference losses. Notre Dame and Louisville both lost to Kentucky, Marquette to Wisconsin, Villanova to Temple. It also doesn’t mean that non-Big East schools didn’t have quality out of conference wins of their own (Ohio State at Florida, Illinois over North Carolina). But nobody can match the quantity or the quality of what the Big East did.
And with that said, it’s important to remember that when you have that many good teams in a conference, there’s going to be ebbing and flowing at various points of the season. Especially heading into the NCAA Tournament.
Yes UConn and Louisville (when fully healthy with Preston Knowles) were dynamic in the Big East Tournament. But anyone who watched college basketball also knew that Villanova was a disaster all February long, and Georgetown was a mess without Chris Wright. Realistically, you shouldn’t have been surprised when either of those two teams lost this past weekend. They’ve both been awful for a month.
The difference is that unlike other teams from other conferences who struggled down the stretch, the Big East schools had already done enough early to weather the storm, and make the tournament. You know why you don’t see struggling teams from the Pac-10, ACC, Mountain West, whatever making the NCAA Tournament? It’s because they didn’t do enough early on to warrant consideration. Yeh, I’m talking to you Virginia Tech, Washington State and Nebraska. Well the Big East did.
Ultimately though, what this weekend showed, is that beyond coaching, experience or anything else, this tournament is- and always will be- about matchups.
For weeks I’ve been saying on this very website that any team that really gets after Notre Dame defensively could beat them. It happened early in the year, it happened in the Big East Tournament against Louisville, and it happened against the No. 1 defensive team in the country Florida State on Sunday night. In a different matchup Notre Dame probably wins. Instead they’ll be watching the rest of the tournament from their couches, just like you and me.
Same with everyone else. St. John’s didn’t deal well with size all year long. Well they got one of the biggest teams in the tournament and lost. Syracuse’s zone struggled to slow down Marquette when they played earlier this season, and it happened again Sunday. Louisville only had one real low post threat (Terrence Jennings), and struggled with quality rebounding teams. They faced the team with the No. 1 rebounder in the country, Kenneth Faried. Just as easily as all those teams lost this weekend, they could’ve advanced too if the circumstances were different.
Finally, for those saying the Big East stinks, I’ve got to ask, who exactly should’ve been in the tournament instead of those 11 teams? It’s not like Villanova or Cincinnati got into the field over a bunch of more deserving teams. We struggled to get to 68 to begin with. And while we’re here, I’d make the case that there multiple teams from other conferences that had less impressive resumes than anyone in the Big East. Go ahead and look at the resumes of Penn State, Illinois and Michigan State again. You can’t tell me any of those three were any more or less qualified to be in the field than anyone from the Big East.
I’ll wrap this up where I started it. You get into the field based on what you did in the regular season. You advance based on what you do in the tournament. Plain and simple.
Although, I will add one caveat by saying there’s one team I can’t defend…
Pittsburgh: With all due respect to Texas’ Sunday choke job, I still say Pitt had far and away the worst loss of the weekend.
Look, we could sit here and argue all day about the merits of the refereeing at the end of the game. But ultimately, I think most of us agree that the refs got those two calls in the last five seconds right. Whether it crushed your bracket (like it did mine) or not, the refs have to do their job until the final horn, and that’s exactly what they did. And as much as I feel for Nasir Robinson (and believe me, I absolutely, positively do), he committed a foul, and should’ve been whistled for one. Same with Shelvin Mack a few seconds before.
But to pin this one on the refs, or even talk about them, would be to take away from two truly inexcusable mental lapses from Pitt down the stretch. The first was when Butler got their original lead in the closing seconds. It happened a Zack Smith layup out of a timeout, a play that looked so simple, even a caveman could’ve done it(Ok, I’m sorry. That was a terrible joke). Even still, I forgive Pittsburgh to a degree there. Brad Stevens is a great coach, he drew up a great play, and to their credit, his players executed it.
You know what’s not acceptable though? The fact that on the possession before, Pitt was up one point with the ball, had the opportunity to seal the game and…wait for it… got a SHOT CLOCK VIOLTATION!!!
To which I’ve got to ask, HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? I hate to go all capital letters on you, but how does a No. 1 seed, with all those seniors, and a coach with about a billion wins in his first eight years on the job, do something quite so stupid? How do they not even get a shot up? Isn’t that you practice all year for? To execute in a situation like that? Dumbfounding.
Also, while we’re on the subject, it’s the same reason I don’t really blame the refs at the end of the Washington-North Carolina game either.
Now, should the referees have gone to the monitor after John Henson dropped the ball out of bounds with under a second to go? Absolutely. That’s what the monitor is there for, isn’t it? Still, even if Washington had gotten an extra few tenths of a second, much like Pitt, they shouldn’t have needed them to begin with. The refs were wrong yes. But Washington also made (by my count) four inexcusably dumb plays in the final minute. The point being, that Washington took the game away from themselves way more than the refs did.
Understand that I’m as hard on the refs as anyone. I can’t ever remember being more upset about anything sports related than I was after the Rutgers-St. John’s game.
Just don’t blame them in the case of Washington, and especially Pittsburgh. Both had more than enough chances to win, and blew it. In each case, the team that deserved to win, did.
Texas: Let’s start by saying that a lot of people are making the case that it was actually Texas who had the toughest loss of the weekend, not Pitt. And honestly it’s hard for me to argue with that. The Longhorns had the ball up two, with two timeouts and 14 seconds to go, and lost. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t get much worse than that.
From there, here are a couple quick thoughts.
One, I know how much people love to pile on Rick Barnes, and I feel like Sunday was a great compare/contrast debate on whether it’s fair or not.
Truth be told, you can’t really blame Barnes for a few of the things that happened late. Jordan Hamilton got a rebound with 14 seconds left and called a timeout, when in reality, that was probably the last thing he should’ve actually done. Jordan, take the foul, go to the line, make at least one and you’re in cruise control. As for Barnes, he was on the other end of the court when it happened. What’s a coach to do?
Then there was the Corey Joseph timeout call. Again, you can’t really blame Barnes for Joseph not getting the timeout in time. Still though, Barnes’ players tightened at the worst possible time, and made some truly awful decisions. And really, aren’t the players a reflection of a coach? When it comes to those two plays, I’m not really sure which way to lean. Do I blame the players for their own stupidity? Or the coach for not having them composed in a pressure situation? Again, it goes back to what I said about Pitt before. Don’t you practice all season to be ready for situations just like that?
(The one thing that Barnes absolutely, positively needs to be blamed for though, is J’Covan Brown walking the ball up court on the final possession. Yes J’Covan needed more urgency, and yes he’s been playing basketball long enough to know that.
But again, Texas was coming out of a timeout. Barnes couldn’t have taken, oh I don’t know, two seconds to say, “Hey J’Covan, make sure you get the ball up as quickly as possible, so we’ll have time for a rebound and put back if you miss.” Is that too much to ask for coach?)
As for the previously mentioned five second call, well, that was a case of a referee maybe getting a bit trigger happy. Especially since replays showed that he hadn’t gotten to his fifth count before blowing the whistle.
However, what I found interesting was that after the play, people came out and said that in the NCAA rulebook, it clearly states that once the referee gets to “four,” in his count, a player is not allowed timeout. Which has to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Apparently it was, since Seth Davis later confirmed on Twitter that the rule was changed years ago, and that a player has the full five seconds to get the timeout in.
So what’s my point in all that rambling? Just that I wish the ref had used a little bit of discretion in that situation. Now I know that I just said a few minutes ago that “you’ve got to referee until the final horn,” but this is a little different than the Pitt-Butler game. In that game, the refs made the right calls. In Texas-Arizona, they didn’t. Flat out. And I guess my point is, if you’re going to make a call like that, in that spot, with that much on the line, you better be damn sure you’re right. Well guess what? The ref wasn’t. And whatever scorn he’s getting today is deserved.
Still, what it all comes back to for me, is that plain and simple, based on a full 40 minute body of work, Arizona was the better team. Maybe not the more talented. Maybe not better in the final five minutes. But better in all phases of the game, for all 40 minutes. Hell, if it weren’t for J’Covan Brown’s heroics, that one might have been a 20 point laugher.
And as much as I want to kill the ref for taking that game away from Texas, the Longhorns themselves made 10-15 plays over the course of the game that took a win away from themselves. Based on pure talent alone, that game was a complete mismatch. It was the coaches and players who put the ref in a position to blow a call. Which he did.
The end.
Now, after all that bad, let’s get to some of the good of the third round (Which is really the second round. But that’s another rant for another day):
VCU: Honestly, I’d like to give you a little more perspective on what VCU has done the last few days, but I really can’t. They jumped out to such big leads, so quickly, that I really barely watched either of their games.
What I will say though, is that the comparisons to the 2006 George Mason club are really getting frightening.
It’s easy to forget this now, but that Mason club was about as controversial a pick as there was in the tournament that year, just like VCU this year. They lost to Hofstra twice, finished below them in the conference standings, and yet got into the NCAA Tournament ahead of them. Go ahead and look it up. It happened.
From there though, they went on to beat two single digit seeds (No. 6 Michigan State, and Tyler Hansbrough’s freshman No. 3 North Carolina club), before getting a surprising Sweet 16 date with Wichita State. Afterward, you know the rest, as they beat UConn to get to the Final Four.
I’m not saying the same will happen with VCU this year. But with two wins over single digit seeds, a date with a surprising Florida State team in the Sweet 16, and the opportunity to knock off No. 1 Kansas in the Elite Eight, you’ve got to admit that the parallels are eerie.
Florida: As many of you know, I’ve had an uneasy feeling about the Gators all year. Kind of like when you pick up a ham sandwich at a gas station, you just know that watching Florida will very likely leave you feeling queasy two hours later.
Well, I’ve got to admit that I was wrong on Florida, and that they did sway me a bit this weekend. Erving Walker in specific.
My biggest problem was that if you watched Walker all year, it seemed like every game, he did 2-3 really dumb things that either made you scratch your head, or made you throw your remote control at the TV. Depending on which team you bet on.
What I’ve never given him enough credit for though, is that Walker also puts the Gators on his back down the stretch, and does 2-3 things that are the difference in his team winning the a game. That was the case Saturday afternoon against UCLA, when it seemed like he made every big play in the last five minutes.
In the end, I’m not sure I could stomach watching Walker play for my team 30 games a year. Truth be told, it’d give me gray hairs, and I’m too young to have gray hair.
But it’s hard to deny his impact on this Florida team in specific.
BYU: Now that Pitt has completely blown up my bracket, let me say that I’ll be rooting for BYU to make the Final Four out of this region.
I’ve got to say, that in a season where we’ve spent a lot of time talking about Bruce Pearl’s lies, UConn’s sanctions, and everything else, it’s kind of refreshing to see a team like the Cougars, who (seemingly) do things the right way. Their guys don’t get arrested, they do go to class, and honestly, how can you not root for a team where half their roster is already married? Plus, wherever you stand on the Brandon Davies situation, it’s pretty cool that the school made a stand with him, and stuck to it.
A Few Players To Remember: Look, I know that the overall quality of college basketball is down from what it was, even just a few years ago (As witnessed by all the inexcusably bone-headed plays we saw this weekend).
Still, what always amazes me is this tournament’s ability to produce stars year in and year out, even as the players change so quickly.
Here are a few who’ve stood out to me:
Brandon Knight: Knight and I have spent most of the 2011 season in a situation similar to Ronnie and Sammi’s on Jersey Shore. Sometimes we love each other. Sometimes we hate each other. Sometimes we end up breaking each other’s stuff, and others we dance with other people at the club. It really depends on the day.
But after what Knight did this weekend, I’ve got nothing but respect for the kid. He hit the game-winner against Princeton (after not making a field goal in the first 39 minutes of play), and came up with a career-high 30 points against West Virginia Saturday.
As Bill Raftery would say, "ONIONS!!"
J’Covan Brown: Yes I know that Texas lost on Sunday. I just can’t blame Brown for it (Well except for his idiotic decision to walk the ball up with 10 seconds left, eliminating the possibility of a put back. But other than that, we’re cool).
And while that play was pretty dumb, what you can’t question is Brown’s heart. With his team trailing by 11 at halftime, Brown was Texas’ comeback. He hit runners, jumpers and bankers, was 13-13 from the foul line, and finished with 23 points off the bench.
As a matter of fact, I think you could make the case that Brown was the MVP of Sunday. Yes his team lost. But how much more would they have lost by without him?
Kemba Walker: Duh.
Jimmer Fredette: Double-duh.
One Final Thought: For all the talk about the refereeing, player miscues, dumb fouls and everything else, there’s something much bigger that bothered me this weekend. The commercials.
First things first, let’s talk about that “Like a good neighbor,” State Farm commercial. Because if any reps from the company are reading, just understand that not only does that commercial NOT make me want to buy car insurance from you, it does make me want to go on an eight-state killing spree. One that will probably end with my car bursting into flames after I drive into a State Farm corporate headquarters in Bloomington, IL. Don’t say you weren’t warned State Farm.
While we’re here, what’s up with Alicia Keys? I know that she just wants us to hear Empire State of Mind the way she intended, but, umm, what the hell does that have to do with basketball? Now if Alicia Keys wants to sell me Bud Light, Miller Light or Coors Light, I’m cool with that. But I really couldn’t care less about her signing career. Put that commercial on VH1 during Basketball Wives if you please. Just stop wasting my time with it during the NCAA Tournament.
And finally, I’ve got to admit that after four straight days, I need a little break. From the basketball. From the commercials. From my couch, the TV and my 10,000 calorie splurges while sitting around.
Still, that doesn’t mean I’m not already looking forward to more games tipping off.
I’ll be back Wednesday with my weekend preview!
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