Emptying the March Madness Notebook

As I watched games on TV and in person last week in San Antonio, I kept notes on things far and wide. There were x's and o's notes. There were notes on players, teams and coaches. There were notes (and pictures!) about mascots. This week has been nuts, but before we get to games tonight, it's time to empty the notebook.

Sights and Sounds

After the round of 64, I caught up with two winning point guards: Baylor's Kenny Cherry and Creighton's Austin Chatman. They faced off in the round of 32, a huge Baylor win. After that game I spent a few minutes with Baylor's Cory Jefferson.

When I took this picture, I didn't realize how good it was. It was just a quick snap. However I accidentally framed the picture with the Canadian flag in the top corner. Melvin Ejim is Canadian. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

Seriously. What the hell is this? This is not okay. (It's Providence's mascot. It shouldn't be.)

Teams no longer with us

I was sitting with my friend and fellow Syracuse alum Mike Meltser Sunday night when I decided to finally run the numbers I've been curious about. I knew Trevor Cooney was shooting about 31% in conference. That's awful, but it gets worse.

In the Notre Dame game, Cooney went 9-12 from three. If you take out that game, Trevor Cooney shot 26% in conference. Most players who shoot that much aren't allowed by their coaches to shoot from deep. Syracuse's offense was designed for Cooney to shoot threes. I'm not saying that's a mistake as Cooney's clearly a capable shooter, however this is two years in a row in which he lost his shot and never really got it back. This above all else is why Syracuse is home.

Going after Aaron Craft off the dribble was a deathwish for four years. He had the ability to dominate a game without scoring like few guards we've seen in the last decade of college basketball. Craft has some of the best hands I've ever seen and getting passed him was like trying to run around the Great Wall of China. So naturally his career ended as someone got a step on him. A week later, I still can't believe it happened. Or as my friend Gary Parrish put it:

Aaron Craft’s college career ends with him getting beat off the dribble? Cruel.
— Gary Parrish (@GaryParrishCBS) March 20, 2014

It's hard to judge how well the committee did as the tournament plays out because they aren't doing a predictive exercise. They're doing a reactive exercise to what's happened during the season. That said, BYU getting smoked by Oregon proved they didn't belong. SMU did, but getting three more games at Moody Coliseum hasn't been so bad for the Mustangs.

What a weird situation in the Nebraska-Baylor game. The officiating, led by the notroriously horrific Karl Hess, was horrific. How Miles got thrown out was a total joke, which I’ll explain in a minute. But I’m more concerned conceptually with Miles first technical. It's really hard and a very fine line but Tim Miles was ahead of his team in being hacked off about the refs. That’s bad. It gives your team an excuse. As a coach, you’ve got to tell your guys to play through it. I talked with Kenny Cherry after the game and he said it’s 100% something they talked about once they realized how tight the whistle was. It showed. You’ve gotta stand up for your guys, but you can’t get lost in the officiating like Miles did. His guys followed. They got whacked.
When in doubt late in games, always foul and extend the game. It is absolutely brutal for the fans, but until there’s a rule change where that’s no longer the strategy down the stretch, fouling early is the right play. St. Louis was toast. They fouled. NC State missed a ton of free throws. They get back in the game. Win it in overtime. Especially when it’s 1-and-1. That’s real pressure.

Every detail matters in March. I still don't know why TJ Warren is in the game with 4 fouls when NC State had to foul. He fouled out. The Wolfpack had to try and complete the comeback without the ACC Player of the Year. That's poor coaching in my eyes.

Nobody is better out of timeouts than Bill Self. He steals points on dunks and layups, many of them lobs.  I can think of at least 3 plays yesterday and I was barely watching until the last 10 minutes. They resulted in 7 points. Kansas won by 11.

I was so lucky to be in San Antonio Friday night. I had a courtside seat to what Bryce Cotton did and Bryce Cotton deserved better. At least a chance to fling one from half court. He was the only reason they had a chance for the majority of that game and the game basically ended with the ball going off his hands out of bounds. Most of the time sports are awesome, fair and karma seems to exist. None of that happened with Cotton.

If you missed Luke Winn's piece on Wichita State in Sports Illustrated, I highly recommend it. Link here.

NBA Draft Implications

Duke's Jabari Parker told Andy Katz that his career is incomplete, and that could affect decision on whether to return for sophomore season. It’s easy to say that because it’s true, but it probably won't affect it enough to come back when he’s a lock to be a top 3 pick.
That said, don't be surprised when one player does exactly that. I know for a fact that Embiid saying he hasn't made up his mind isn't lip service because he's telling people privately he hasn't made up his mind. Embiid doesn't feel ready to leave school. College is about more than just your development in sport and Embiid realizes that. He's barely spent any time in the United States and he's said all year he just doesn't feel ready to be on his own out of the college structure. It's very similar to what Marcus Smart felt last year.
That was a bad end for Andrew Wiggins but don't overreact to it. He played all year with mediocre guards and someone getting you the ball matters. They were particularly brutal Sunday outside of Connor Frankamp hitting shots to keep KU alive. That said, the more concerning number is six, not four. Six is the number of shots he took. Four is the number of points he scored. Be more assertive. Then again that goes back in part to the guards. Wiggins defensive level is outrageous for a college freshman. That, plus a high amount of offensive raw skill is why he's a top 3 pick.
He also cares. He took every ounce of blame after that loss. That matters to me too. To me, he's a guy who's very coachable and can learn. He wanted to get better. He did. My only concern with Wiggins makeup is his shyness. The pressure is going to be there. He's gotta be able to deal with it. That said, it's a minor concern. He turned 19 a month ago. He's still so young. He'll grow up and mature and likely will be fine.

Tyler Ennis leaving Syracuse isn't surprising at all. Ennis's stock skyrocketed this year as he was unimaginably good in clutch situations through 25 games. The miracle shot against Pitt was a fun highlight, but he didn't turn the ball over in a clutch spot through 25 games. That's unreal for a freshman. Yes, he struggled in a few games late but that level wasn't sustainable. His appeal to NBA scouts is in his control. He understand pace. He has a deft touch around the rim. His game isn't reliant on athleticism, meaning the jump in athleticism from college to the NBA isn't the end of his effectiveness. He'll be in the lottery, perhaps even the top 10.
In Summary
I asked Dana O'Neill Saturday if that was the best first two days of the tournament we've ever seen. She said she couldn't think of a start of a tournament that was better. Then we got more amazing games Saturday and Sunday. It all starts up again tonight. All hail March and all its madness.

Kentucky vs Wichita State - Where Narratives Went To Die

As Duke, Kansas and Syracuse fell the narrative was growing. The 2012 Kentucky team led by freshmen Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was the exception, not the rule. You couldn't win with one-and-done players. Even that team had a senior leader in Darius Miller. Carmelo Anthony had veterans around him in 2003 too. It just can't be done.

Down went Jabari Parker and Duke. Down went Andrew Wiggins and Kansas.

Julius Randle was next. His Kentucky squad was matched up against a veteran Wichita State team that hadn't lost since they took one too many punches from Louisville in last year's Final Four.

Wichita State pulled ahead early, executing their gameplan to perfection. I, and many others, thought they would win. Kentucky hadn't played smart basketball all year. Kentucky hadn't played together all year. They had 10 good minutes against Florida in the SEC Championship and that's it.

They picked a pretty good time to start. The Harrison twins played their best game all season. Randle was dominant in stretches. The game was played at a level rarely seen in college hoops. Pressure? Instead of folding, both teams rose. Cleanthony Early couldn't miss. The Kentucky freshmen were money from the free throw line down the stretch.

With all that said, the narrative had a chance to play out. The pressure to execute is never greater than a last second inbounds play. As Luke Winn from Sports Illustrated revealed in this brilliant piece, the play was called "Havlicek" and the number one option was a lob to Cleanthony Early.

Here is a freeze frame as the action starts. Early is the player at the most bottom of the screen.

Things that would inhibit a lob -

1) A defender at the rim

2) A defender inhibiting Early so that he wouldn't have a clear path to the rim

3) Ball pressure making a lob difficult

4) Early getting caught up in the screening action

5) Aliens from outer space

None of these things happened.

James Young (#1 in blue) was guarding Early. He was lost. Willie Caulie-Stein (#15 in blue) is one of the best rim protectors in the country. He had no idea someone was sneaking behind him and it looked like protecting the rim wasn't his assignment. He had a man he was supposed to stick with. It appeared as if no one had the specific job of protecting the rim.

As it played out, Early planted his right foot at the very moment captured above and faded to the wing, out of the play. I would love to ask him or Gregg Marshall what he was reading, because watching the video and looking at the freeze frame above, it seems like he made the wrong read. The pass didn't even have to be perfect. Any where where Early could catch it leads to a layup or dunk. Instead he bailed.

Instead Kentucky shut off the 2nd option, Ron Baker (#31 in white) curling to the corner and Wichita State was left with their 3rd option. Fred Van Vleet came to the top of the key, took one rhythm dribble to his right and launched a 25 footer that missed as time expired. Game over.

As the horn sounded, the narrative died.

Talented freshmen can beat an experienced team that plays together. The key is them actually playing together. That's why Kentucky won in 2012. It's the same reason Louisville won last year. It's the same reason any team wins any year.

There is no new narrative.

Talent will always compete. Execution will always matter. When talent executes, it will win.

Sunday we didn't see talent versus execution. We saw Wichita State's talent executing as they had all year versus Kentucky's talent executing like they hadn't all year. The clock ran out while Kentucky had two more points.

A single game cannot define a season. It can end it. Wichita State is one of the ten best teams in the country and probably the best five. Their problem on Sunday is they ran into another one who finally played like it.

Random Rumblings: 4/1/13

With this much basketball you knew I couldn't stay quiet for long. No delay, let's talk hoop.

Cuse to the Final Four

I've written a few stories in the last week about SU over at Orange Fizz but one thing I didn't write on is how to a certain extent the Orange making it to Atlanta isn't a surprise. Both Jay Williams and Stephen Bardo told me in the middle of Syracuse's slide that SU was still a Final Four caliber team and I was right there with them. It sounds crazy, but the talent has always been there.

What is surprising is that the Orange put it together. I still don't think this team has particularly great leadership, but sometimes you don't need it. Instead of a leader rallying them, Syracuse's super talented players had their egos hurt and embarrassment is a powerful motivating factor. It happened at the perfect time culminating with Georgetown beating the $#&% out of them to close the regular season. They re-grouped and went into the Big East Tournament where momentum picks up quickly thanks to playing a game every day. James Southerland got hot. Brandon Triche found himself. Michael Carter-Williams stopped losing the basketball. Baye Moussa-Keita started being impactful. These four things haven't stopped and here we are with the Orange in the Final Four.

You could make a really good argument that if not for a freak injury to Arinze Onuaku and a bizarre suspension to Fab Melo, this would be Syracuse's third Final Four in four years. I think there are two pretty distinctive reasons why and you can read more at Orange Fizz.

Kansas is home

Logistics say I'll have a few Kansas fans click on this link so I might as well dissect why Kansas is not preparing to play SU on Saturday. Before the season, Bill Self said Elijah Johnson's attitude and approach would determine the outcome of his team's season. Weeks later Johnson was suspended for the start of the team's first pre-season game for being late to a class.

Elijah Johnson is a very good basketball player and I enjoyed covering him. I always found him thoughtful and there's no questioning his commitment to his team. However if he's your senior leader who's also playing out of position as your point guard, you're living on the edge of being a Final Four team. That's what Kansas was this season.

Coming down the stretch Kansas ran "the play" multiple times to no success. For those not familiar, "the play" is the one Mario Chalmers hit a three on to send the 2008 national championship game to overtime where Kansas eventually won. Michigan shut down the handoff and denied Ben McLemore on the flare screen. This left Bill Self needing another option and he decided to run a high pick and roll with Johnson and Jeff Withey.

Elijah took a bad angle off the screen. He was way too wide and that's why he wound up under the basket, throwing a cross court pass to Nadir Tharpe who needed a miracle 3 to go down to win it. It's almost as if Johnson forgot the score because he looked to have a layup for the tie. There's no doubt he had a floater, albeit at an awkward angle thanks to the bad angle off the screen, and he also could have forced the issue and created contact. With Jeff Withey rolling hard to the rim in good rebounding position, either would have been a good option. Why didn't he? There's no telling what was going through his head after some key mistakes down the stretch.

As a senior leader point guard Elijah dribbled into a trap and turned it over. He then inexcusably didn't get the ball across halfcourt on a 10 second violation. Then with 12.6 seconds to go he missed the front end of a one-in-one allowing Trey Burke's long distance three to go down. After that many mistakes, anyone's going to have a messed up head. It all lead to another bad play, the end of Kansas's season and the end of Elijah's career.

What's next?

Kansas loses a lot but will be loaded next year. Ben McLemore should declare for the NBA now. Ideally he'd stay and become more consistent with his shot and more importantly develop an off the dribble game. The reality is he needs to get his money now. His mom needs a house where the heat works ASAP and his entire family shouldn't go through another winter with him capable of making millions now. His stock is as high as it could get thanks to his uber potential and a weak draft even though another year of college would make him a better player. Any Kansas fan who thinks he should stay is selfish.

On top of McLemore, Kansas loses Johnson, Withey, Kevin Young and Travis Releford aka their entire starting lineup. They also might lose Rio Adams to a transfer. However back comes Nadir Tharpe who was exceptional in the second half of the year. He'll be joined in the backcourt by freshmen Wayne Seldon and Bill Self's got 3 other 4 star recruits coming in. The Jayhawks are also still alive for #1 player in the country Andrew Wiggins who's flat out nasty. Also back is Perry Ellis who developed into an offensive machine in the back half of the year. I think he could be an All-American next year.

Love for the ladies

Louisville's upset of #1 seed Baylor was monumental. It was bigger than the only time a #16 has beat a #1 when Harvard beat Stanford in 1998. That Stanford team had a number of key players injured late and thus shouldn't have been a 1-seed while the Harvard team was underseeded and shouldn't have been a 16. This Baylor team had everyone back from a national title team last year including arguably the most dominant player in the history of women's college basketball in Britney Griner. They were 75-1 favorites in this game. What that leaves us with is a weird setup for the Final Four.

On one side of the bracket is what's left after Baylor and the other 1-seed Stanford went down. This was also a huge upset but not nearly as big of an upset as Baylor. Cal punched their ticket tonight and the other regional final puts Tennessee against Louisville. The other side of the bracket has UConn, in it's 6th straight Final Four, against the winner of Notre Dame and Duke also known as Notre Dame.

I've written about the three classic battles ND and UConn have had this year and it's a shame that the 4th meeting won't be for a title. I want to be made about them being on the same side of the bracket but Baylor earned the #1 overall seed in the regular season and thus avoiding teams number 2 and 3 until the national final. Those two teams are the Irish and Huskies and this is what we're left with. With Baylor out of the picture, whoever survives that game will be the definitive favorite Tuesday night to win the title. Perhaps their biggest fight will be against fatigue as they'll be exhausted after battle royale #4. Either way I'll be glued to a TV Sunday night ready to see these two duke it out again...assuming Duke doesn't mess it up.

Life Update

Big announcement coming later this week. Don't wanna say more yet. But I will soon. I'm not exactly the patient type. Stay tuned.

Sunflower Showdown - Coaching Nightmare

Sunflower Showdown of Bad Situational Coaching

Last night I was in Manhattan, KS for "The Sunflower Showdown" between Kansas and Kansas State. The game was close although Kansas felt like it had things under control throughout. For my full game story, you can read here if you have a Scout subscription, but there's one thing I didn't get to in that article that needs to be addressed. Bruce Weber is a good coach and Bill Self is a great coach, but the coaching late in that game was about as clueless as it could have been.

It all started with just under 12 minutes to go when after a made basket for his team, Weber called timeout. He said he saw his guys were struggling and in a game that close, every possession matters. His guys needed a breather. Anybody that knows anything about college basketball already knows where the problem with this lies - it was just under 12 minutes to go. The next stoppage in play is a media timeout. Could your guys really not make it to the next stoppage without a sip of water? 

Fast forward to 6:30ish to go in the game. There had been no stoppages since the 8-minute mark so we're due for another media timeout and Weber does the same thing! He's now down to one timeout with over six minutes to play in a close game.

Fast forward to under four minutes to go and a K-State possession is going nowhere fast. With six seconds left on the shot clock, Weber calls his final timeout. If his player, who was trapped on the sideline, had thrown the ball off the guy guarding him's leg out of bounds, it would have been a media timeout, saving the Wildcats' last. Also, if Weber hadn't burned the other two stupid timeouts, having to use one there wouldn't have been a big deal. Instead, Weber burned his final timeout with 3:46 to go, still got a crappy shot out of said timeout and had none remaining down the stretch.

That wasn't where Weber's in game situational nightmare coaching stopped though. In the final minute, Weber was absolutely clueless of when to foul. He was looking back at his assistants going "should we?" and by the time they decided down 5 with just under a minute to go what their strategy was, they had burned enough shot clock to just play out the possession and hope it worked out. They got lucky as Kevin Young turned it over. Shane Southwell hit a layup with 37ish seconds to go to put K-State down 3. 

At this point you have to foul. A 2-point-something second differential is not enough time to play out the shot clock. If Kansas plays it right, you won't get the ball back. They'd shoot as the shot clock expired and either it'd go in and you lose, or the shot misses and by the time the rebound comes off you need to catch and shoot all in one motion from 90 feet. You have to foul and extend the game, especially since Kansas was in the 1-and-1. If they missed their first free throw, they don't get a second and as long as you rebound, you get the ball back without them scoring.

Instead, the clueless Cats didn't foul and eventually, in just as baffling of a move, Bill Self called timeout with 25 seconds to go. I'm willing to let Self off the hook because he had to figure Weber and his staff would figure it out eventually and you might as well get the ball in the guy's hands you want. He did in Nadir Tharpe who's never met a big shot he didn't like, nevertheless one uncovered from the free throw line. In the timeout, the light went on for K-State, they fouled but Tharpe hit both shots. 

Had K-State fouled immediately instead of wasting 15 seconds, who knows what would have happened. The ensuing KU possession after a K-State miss, Ben McLemore missed the front end of his 1-in-1. K-State came down, hit 2 free throws with 5 seconds to go and then had to foul. Elijah Johnson made one of two shots and game over. 

If K-State had 15 more seconds and two more timeouts to play with, maybe they can get off a few more quality shots and that game has an infinitely better chance of going to overtime. Instead, Bruce Weber's late game strategy left everyone scratching their heads and his team looking up at Kansas in first place in the Big 12.