Saturday, March 19, 2011

Day 5 Open Thread

I wanted to set up another open thread for people to discuss games, and this one will be for Saturday's games.

First, some quick notes from Friday's games. The winner of Friday was definitely VCU's band. I'd never seen them live before, but I was at all four games in Chicago on Friday and that VCU band was ridiculous. The band director was constantly jumping around, including one song where he tore his shirt off and threw it into the crowd. During one tv timeout they had a cheerleader walk on her hands from one end of the court, to midcourt, and all the way back. I joked that it was like a traveling circus. But highly entertaining. I was sad every time it was time for Georgetown's band to play, because it meant three minutes without either basketball or VCU's band director in my life. If any of you get a chance to watch VCU play a game, either on a neutral court or at their home gym (so they'll have their band), go do it.

As for the actual basketball, VCU is continuing to play out of their minds on the court as well. They couldn't miss a shot behind the arc against Georgetown. In person, watching the heads of Chris Wright and Austin Freeman slump after every made three was painful. There was a stretch in the second half when VCU missed four out of five at the free throw line, and it was almost like VCU needed to be six feet further back with a Georgetown player's hand in their face to hit shots. But Georgetown's loss wasn't just about VCU's shooting. They also played very, very sloppy. The one highlight was Hollis Thompson, who was Georgetown's best player today, and looks primed to be their next star.

In other games, the biggest disappointment was Tennessee - they just gave up on that game. I know that Michigan can hit threes, and I would have expected Tennessee to be the team committing more turnovers, but to get worked on the boards like that? The Vols quit on this season.

UNLV fans will be disappointed by the way they got throttled, but I actually got a chance to watch a bunch of that one, and it was just Illinois playing really well. The Illini have a very talented team, and they've simply been under-performing for the vast majority of the season. If they can play like this again on Sunday, they could give Kansas a scare.

Only a few lines are up for Sunday's games are up as I type this, so I'm not going to do those previews yet. I'll do those later this afternoon or in the early evening. So just enjoy today's games, and I'll be back to preview Sunday later.

14 comments:

Jeff said...

I was impressed by Florida today. The fact that they were over-seeded as a 2 seed has overshadowed the fact that they're still a very good team.

I picked Florida to make the Elite 8 and I'm sticking with that, but they do have a very plausible path to the Final Four.

Anonymous said...

WTF is San Diego state doing, Steve fisher is drawing up some terrible last second plays, two chances where Leonard doesn't touch the ball at the end of regulation and ot 1.

Anonymous said...

And sd has to run back, just gave wyatt a wide open layup,65-63 still sd by 2.

Anonymous said...

And out of a timeout, sd now throws it out of bounds, just poor execution, good thing temple looks tired and is coming up short on their jumpers right now.

Anonymous said...

67-63, and Thomas throws the ball away to Wyatt again, c'mon Aztecs need to focus.

Anonymous said...

Thomas made up for it with that block, nasty rejection. Still, gay almost lost it at half court by stupidly picking up his dribble which is something that jr. Hig kids know not to do...

Anonymous said...

Butler is up by 2 with like 4 minutes left, but even if they don't win, I have to give them huge props for what the way they are playing, Matt Howard and that other dude who just rained in two very difficult threes are just amazing, the team is a bunch of warriors

Anonymous said...

Embarrassing calls by the refs, 2 awful calls against both teams, those refs should never ref again....I like the Butler head coach, young, cool, confident, and yet humble.

Anonymous said...

How are those embarrassing calls? both were CLEARLY fouls. has anyone EVER seen a game end like this? Wow!

Jeff said...

Hey guys, sorry I couldn't chat! I was watching the games in a sports bar in Chicago:

1) What a miracle cover on that San Diego State. That makes up for one of my bad beats.

2) That Butler game, I have to say, those were clearly fouls. And in fact, the foul that gave Butler the winning foul shots was the more obvious foul. I'm all for refs not deciding finishes, but Howard clearly had his arm grabbed and pulled while he was rebounding. I blame Jamie Dixon for having a brain fart - he's got to take his guys off the free throw line there. The odds of a foul are much higher than the odds of a tip-in with just 1.4 seconds left.

But no, I've never seen a finish like that. I've seen brain-dead fouls 70 feet from the basket to blow a game, but never two in a row back-to-back.

Anonymous said...

jeff, do you think kentucky can win the championship? I know they are playing mostly freshmen, but I think if they can get by ohio state (or luckily get to face george mason), they matchup well against cuse, unc, and washington. I don't like them against Marquette, but I don't see Marquette winning their next two games. So, what do you think? Could they make a run to the final four and then maybe pull off two more upsets?

Anonymous said...

Kentucky does have the ability to beat Ohio state and advance all the way but Ohio state is carried by upperclassman mostly that have a ton of experience. Lighty was a key piece in their title run a couple years back. Experience mean a lot in tournament games.

Anonymous said...

And is anybody impressed how Matt Howard had only ONE foul against Pittsburgh

Jeff said...

Kentucky can win any single game. They can knock off Ohio State. But history tells us that they're too young to win a title. They do have some upperclassmen that play well, but not as many as that Syracuse team with Carmelo, and even that Syracuse run was kind of fluky and it was a weak year for the NCAA.

And yes, Howard's lack of fouls was kind of amazing. Although to be fair, Pitt has no inside offense. Who's going to attack Howard in the post? McGhee? Butler's next opponent, Wisconsin, does have post scoring, but typically they don't draw a lot of fouls. Jon Leuer prefers fadeaway jumpers most of the time, and Keaton Nankivil likes spotting up behind the arc. So Howard should be able to avoid foul trouble against them as well.

But who knows with Howard? I've seen so many games where he picks up 3 or 4 stupid fouls setting picks or hedging off screens 40 feet from the basket. The fact that he's done a great job of avoiding fouls the last three halves of basketball he's played doesn't convince me he'll continue that indefinitely.