First weekend
Quick thoughts on an incredible first two rounds:
-Stephen Curry's three (right around the 40 second mark, sorry about the ad) over Jeremiah Rivers to put Davidson up five late against Georgetown had me more excited about a basketball game than any shot since T.J. Sorrentine's 27-footer lifted Vermont over Syracuse in 2005 (about 1:00 in to that link). Just had a stupid grin on my face for a good 60 seconds afterwards.
Billy Packer had a nice tidbit -- Curry's 30-point performance against Georgetown tied his NCAA Tournament career-low (he had 40 in the opening round vs. Gonzaga, and 30 in last year's opening-round loss to Maryland). How about this one, though? In two tourney games this year, Curry is averaging 27.5 points per game in the second half alone. Amazing.
Georgetown guarded him well, too. You'd think that his second-half exploits could be attributed to defenders tiring while chasing him around the court, unused to defending the pro sets Gonzaga runs for him. But the kid had a defender on him and a hand in his face for most of the game Sunday, and it didn't matter down the stretch.
-I've been down on North Carolina because of their defense, but if they continue to play offense like this and like this, there defense won't matter that much.
-That Clemson-Villanova game was a microcosm of the two team's seasons. Villanova spent all year digging itself into holes before climbing out of them, and Clemson had famously blown it's opportunity to break a 52-game road losing at North Carolina earlier in the year with a similar second-half collapse. The line for the second half of Friday night's game was a pick 'em at halftime, and it had to have been one of the easiest bets of the tournament.
-I wrote in the past of Frank Martin's skill at going offense-defense with his star freshman, Michael Beasley, when the kid got into foul trouble. He did it again in the Wildcats' first-round win over USC. I haven't been very impressed with Martin in his first year as head coach, but give him credit for that.
-A lot of people will point to the turnover on the inbounds pass with 4 seconds left as the key play in Belmont's 71-70 loss to Duke on Thursday, but they wasted several possessions just a few minutes later, before they took the lead. Down three, there were at least two trips where they took bad threes, apparently thinking "If I can just make this shot, we'll be tied with Duke!" You can't waste possessions like that when you're trying to pull a big upset.
-Speaking of the Devils, no team should ever have a stretch where they go 0-15 from three-point land, as Duke did on Saturday in their loss to West Virginia. Once you miss 14 in a row, it's time to stop taking them. I think my buddy Kyle said it best: "The drive and kick offense needs someone to drive to get open shots." Well put.
-Don't know of a single American University alum who isn't proud of the way our boys played on Friday.
-Stephen Curry's three (right around the 40 second mark, sorry about the ad) over Jeremiah Rivers to put Davidson up five late against Georgetown had me more excited about a basketball game than any shot since T.J. Sorrentine's 27-footer lifted Vermont over Syracuse in 2005 (about 1:00 in to that link). Just had a stupid grin on my face for a good 60 seconds afterwards.
Billy Packer had a nice tidbit -- Curry's 30-point performance against Georgetown tied his NCAA Tournament career-low (he had 40 in the opening round vs. Gonzaga, and 30 in last year's opening-round loss to Maryland). How about this one, though? In two tourney games this year, Curry is averaging 27.5 points per game in the second half alone. Amazing.
Georgetown guarded him well, too. You'd think that his second-half exploits could be attributed to defenders tiring while chasing him around the court, unused to defending the pro sets Gonzaga runs for him. But the kid had a defender on him and a hand in his face for most of the game Sunday, and it didn't matter down the stretch.
-I've been down on North Carolina because of their defense, but if they continue to play offense like this and like this, there defense won't matter that much.
-That Clemson-Villanova game was a microcosm of the two team's seasons. Villanova spent all year digging itself into holes before climbing out of them, and Clemson had famously blown it's opportunity to break a 52-game road losing at North Carolina earlier in the year with a similar second-half collapse. The line for the second half of Friday night's game was a pick 'em at halftime, and it had to have been one of the easiest bets of the tournament.
-I wrote in the past of Frank Martin's skill at going offense-defense with his star freshman, Michael Beasley, when the kid got into foul trouble. He did it again in the Wildcats' first-round win over USC. I haven't been very impressed with Martin in his first year as head coach, but give him credit for that.
-A lot of people will point to the turnover on the inbounds pass with 4 seconds left as the key play in Belmont's 71-70 loss to Duke on Thursday, but they wasted several possessions just a few minutes later, before they took the lead. Down three, there were at least two trips where they took bad threes, apparently thinking "If I can just make this shot, we'll be tied with Duke!" You can't waste possessions like that when you're trying to pull a big upset.
-Speaking of the Devils, no team should ever have a stretch where they go 0-15 from three-point land, as Duke did on Saturday in their loss to West Virginia. Once you miss 14 in a row, it's time to stop taking them. I think my buddy Kyle said it best: "The drive and kick offense needs someone to drive to get open shots." Well put.
-Don't know of a single American University alum who isn't proud of the way our boys played on Friday.
posted by H.S. Slam, Ph.D at 11:20 PM
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