Thursday, January 06, 2011

UConn Nearly Upsets Notre Dame

#15 Notre Dame 73, #9 UConn 70
Notre Dame was underwhelming in this game. They led the entire way, but they could never get the lead past about ten, and they allowed UConn to get on a run late to make things nervous, although the Huskies never cut the lead closer than three. Notre Dame held Kemba Walker to another inefficient night (8-for-23 from the field), so the star for UConn was actually Shabazz Napier. If I was a coach, Napier is the type of player that would drive me nuts. He has great talent and is a bundle of energy, but he's utterly out of control at all times. This was the best I've ever seen him play (3-for-4 on threes, 1-for-2 on twos and 7-for-7 at the line, along with 5 assists), but even so he had at least two inexplicably stupid plays that killed possessions. More often than not this season he's going to be a detriment to his team, but every once in a while everything will click and he'll play like he did here. The Irish were out of sync offensively - they kept trying to feed the ball into Tyrone Nash, convinced that there was a mis-match that I couldn't see and that Nash certainly wasn't able to take advantage of (3-for-8 from the field). Notre Dame is now 2-1 in Big East play with all three games coming against teams ranked in the Top Ten at the time the game was played (obviously UConn won't be Top Ten by Selection Sunday, but they might still be in the Top 25). The Irish next play the resurgent Johnnies at home on Saturday night, and then head on the road to Marquette and St. John's. Proving that they can win on the road will be the key to a possible top three or four finish in the Big East. As for UConn, they head to Texas on Saturday, and then get back into Big East play with Rutgers and DePaul ahead - the perfect remedy for a 1-2 start. I don't see UConn finishing higher than fifth in the Big East, but if they drop one of those two games against the Big East bottom feeders they could start to slip further.

Florida 84, Rhode Island 59
Certainly a dominant way for Florida to head into SEC play. Chandler Parsons was tremendous in all aspects, combining 3-for-4 three point shooting with 7 offensive rebounds and 5 assists. Florida isn't spectacular at first glance, but they're a solid team that's putting together a decent resume. They have wins over Kansas State, Florida State and Xavier, and only one bad loss (against Jacksonville). The one missing piece is Patric Young, who was one of the most hyped freshmen coming into this season and just hasn't really performed yet. He's not at a Fab Melo level of play, but he hasn't been able to earn more than 15-20 minutes per game either. The SEC isn't a strong conference as a whole, but the SEC East is pretty good, so even a 9-7 record should probably get Florida into the Tournament. They open SEC play against Ole Miss on Saturday, and then head to Tennessee on Tuesday. Rhode Island heads into Atlantic Ten play 9-5 overall with wins over Boston College and Drexel, and losses to Quinnipiac and Illinois-Chicago. Obviously that's not a Tournament resume, but Rhode Island will be able to beef up their computer numbers if they play well in A-10 play. Their biggest problem will be a lack of a glamor win.

#5 Pittsburgh 83, Providence 79
Providence impressed me by hanging in this game the entire way, and actually grabbing a lead with under a minute to go. Gary McGhee continued his strong play with 4 offensive rebounds, and 13 points in the second half alone. He's the type of big athletic body that every elite Big East team needs - McGhee will be able to bang with any of the big men that Pitt's opponents will be able to throw on the floor. But Providence deserves a lot of credit for keeping this game close with their defense. They forced 14 steals (Vincent Council had six by himself) and completely contained Pitt's key guards (Ashton Gibbs, Brad Wanamaker and Travon Woodall). I've talked a few times about how this was going to be a key year for Keno Davis at Providence (see here for an example). I was willing to give him a pass in his first two years because he was cleansing the roster and bringing in his own guys, but now he's got two full recruiting classes of players and I wanted to at least see some solid improvement. And right now he's getting almost all of his production from his freshmen and sophomores, and they've been very good. I don't see Providence making the Tournament this season, but I like the path that they're on, and I can easily see them getting back to the Tournament in 2012. Still, when you're not Tournament quality the Big East schedule can be rough, and Providence is now 0-3 with road games coming up against Rutgers, West Virginia and South Florida. If they're going to make any kind of run at the bubble they've got to win at least two of those three games. As for Pitt, it wasn't pretty but they're now 2-0 with a home game against Marquette coming up on Saturday afternoon. After that it's off to Georgetown on Wednesday night for their biggest test so far. That will be their only game of the season against the Hoyas, and on January 17th they'll play their only game of the season against Syracuse (the game will be played in Pittsburgh). If they can somehow win both of those games they'll be very much in control of the Big East.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

In all fairness to Notre Dame, they were missing perhaps their best player in Carleton Scott, and were playing essentially a 6+1 man rotation. The fact that the Irish didn't lose this game (which was 50/50 before the Scott injury) was nothing short of amazing.

Jeff said...

I don't think so. UConn just isn't that good.

I don't think Notre Dame played too poorly - they were more disjointed than usual, but they weren't awful. Shabazz Napier just had a tremendous game, and he kept sparking UConn's comebacks whenever Notre Dame stretched the lead out to 10.

I'm lucky I wasn't in Vegas on the day of this game. When I saw that the spread was only 4 I remarked to somebody I was with that it was the easiest money on the board that night and i would have gone heavy on it - particularly after I went heavy in Vegas on Pitt -7.5 against UConn a week or so earlier. UConn's backdoor cover would have been brutal to my psychological well-being.

Bryce said...

Same dude as above. Perhaps the outcome wasn't too amazing.

However, I did mean to point out that the reason ND looked "disjointed" probably came from not having Carleton Scott. He's big enough to score inside, but prefer to shoot the three, and so poses a dual threat to the opposition.

Napier is a pretty cool customer. I was impressed that Napier kept his cool, even once the crowd kicked in.