Final Chance Saturday

I haven't heard anyone call this "Final Chance Saturday", so I'm inventing it and taking credit. For many teams, this is their final out of conference game of the season. The final chance to build the RPI and overall resume before conference records start to kick in. A bunch of good matchups, so let's get to the first bunch:

Wisconsin 67, #9 Texas 66
An absolutely great game that I hope everybody got a chance to watch. For those that don't watch a lot of Big Ten basketball, Bo Ryan put on a coaching show. The Badgers were missing their leading scorer (Trevon Hughes), and had inferior athletic ability at every position. But they played sound basketball, and got very big performances out of seniors Michael Flowers (guarded DJ Augustin and hit the final three-pointer) and Brian Butch (21 points and 11 boards). This should put to rest any talk of Wisconsin missing the Tournament for the first time under Ryan. Now, a lot will be made of the coaching decisions made by Rick Barnes at the end of the game. Should have have intentionally fouled Flowers with under ten seconds to go? Should he have called timeout with 2.7 to go? To me, too much ado will be made of that in Longhorns land. Both are debatable questions, and both ignore the fact that Wisconsin still had the ball with a chance to win with under 10 seconds to go. They shouldn't have been in that situation without their leading scorer, and in Austin. To me, the big mistake was that Texas didn't take enough advantage of their athletic advantage. I can understand not pressing the entire game because the Longhorns are thin on the bench. Damion James, Justin Mason, AJ Abrams and Augustin all played 36 minutes or more. They might have really gotten worn out with a constant press. But the real issue to me was that, other than Flowers, nobody on Wisconsin was capable of guarding either Augustin, Mason or Abrams on the perimeter. Rick Barnes tried to do a lot of high screens to get his guys to the hoop. This helped draw a bunch of ticky-tack fouls on Wisconsin, but the Badgers big guys did a good job of coming up over the screen and preventing the drive. Hindsight is 20-20, but I would have called isolation plays. Take whichever guard wasn't being guarded by Flowers, and isolate them on one side. They would be able to get to the basket with ease every time. Either way, Texas is still a good team, and they're still a competitor to win the Big 12. At this point, Wisconsin is probably the third best team in the Big Ten, although Ohio State might be better by the end of the season. As a senior-heavy team, Wisconsin only has so far that they can improve. Teams that start a lot of freshmen, like the Buckeyes, have much more room to grow. Unfortunately, those two only play once all year, in Columbus in late February.

San Diego 81, Kentucky 72
At this point, it's just getting embarrassing for the Wildcats. Even though the announcers spun this as one of the biggest upsets in Toreros history, it wasn't really much of an upset at all. San Diego entered the game with an RPI in the 160s, while Kentucky was at 200. This surely is the worst Kentucky season since Eddie Sutton's last year in 1988-89. That team finished 8-10 in the SEC and 13-19 overall. Of course, that team also got put on probation and was threatened with the death penalty. So, things could be worse. I've already talked about the fact that there is no movement on offense for this Wildcats team. In this one, there wasn't much movement on defense. San Diego outrebounded Kentucky 32-24, and managed to get to the foul line a remarkable 36 times. They hit a solid 32 of those 36 (89%), allowing them to beat a Kentucky team that hit 50% from the field. As recently as a few weeks ago, I still thought this Kentucky team could turn it around and make it back to the Tournament. No longer. It would take a miracle for this team to actually play well enough to win a majority of their SEC games, a minimum requirement for bubble status with this team. One final Kentucky note: I was shocked to see how supportive the Rupp Arena crowd was. No booing that I could hear. After how they ran Tubby Smith out of town, you would have thought they'd have little patience for the new coach. Perhaps they feel guilty about what they did to Tubby, who was a better coach than anyone in Lexington ever gave him credit for. As for San Diego, they have probably lost too many games to be a serious bubble team. But an RPI of 142 is a good start for an improving, young team. The Toreros lack even a single senior on the roster, and could be a serious contender in the WCC next year under Bill Grier.