As Memphis starts out 2-12 from beyond the arc, I think it's worth restating the one real lesson I learned from watching all these games: College teams need to stop shooting so many threes. All of you (except maybe Duke ... you guys do whatever works). I thought maybe it was just Tubby Smith who told his team, "Hey, we're one for nineteen from three ... we're gonna get hot any second now." Nope ... that's the conventional wisdom now.
If there's one thing Strong and I can emphatically agree on, it is that to succeed on offense in college, you take the ball strong to the hoop. Good things will happen. Memphis, as always has the best athletes in the country, and a few of them may even be good basketball players (like Duke transfer Elliot Williams), but there is not a jump shot among this bunch. Jump over people. Dunk the ball. At the very least, shoot from closer in so that your teammates have a chance for the put-back.
Also, I know I've harped on this at some length already (and even won some money doing so) ... but there have been three total assists so far in this game. Seventeen minutes. Two teams. Three assists.
Again, I blame Duke for setting a bad example for all these teams. Forced three-pointers and flopping is not the recipe for success for anyone else.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
7:23 PM: Michigan State 75, Gonzaga 71
Let it be said that I was here first, singing the praises of Future Overlord of All Humanity Durrell Summers. The no-doubt NBA Hall-of-Famer led all scorers with 21 points, missed one shot all night, hit the big shots that put MSU ahead, and calmly drained two free throws to ice it in the end.
Gonzaga, on the other hand, is (obviously) a lot better than people thought they would be, though foul trouble hurt them down the stretch.
All in all, this was absolutely the best game of the marathon so far, and with that, I turn it over to Powers:
"Michigan St. wins, and now for Adam's second favorite thing...Dicky V!!!!!"
Yup. Memphis vs. Kansas in the last game of the night. Prime time for our man Vitale! As if it could be any other way.
Gonzaga, on the other hand, is (obviously) a lot better than people thought they would be, though foul trouble hurt them down the stretch.
All in all, this was absolutely the best game of the marathon so far, and with that, I turn it over to Powers:
"Michigan St. wins, and now for Adam's second favorite thing...Dicky V!!!!!"
Yup. Memphis vs. Kansas in the last game of the night. Prime time for our man Vitale! As if it could be any other way.
6:41 PM: Gonzaga 54, Michigan State 49
Into the second half now, and not much has changed. Gonzaga is hanging around, though it just doesn't seem possible they can hold on for twelve more minutes. Their best player is a German guy who is 5-14 from the field. Michigan State appears to be getting killed on the boards, but in reality they're out-rebounding the Zags by four. As I write this, they take their first lead, but Gonzaga comes right back. Sacre! Bouldin! German Guy!
Furthermore, as a Gopher fan, I'm scared to even mention his name, but future NBA superstar Durrell Summers has eleven rebounds so far. ELEVEN! No one else on the team has more than five, and Michigan State's two crappy centers have four between them. Summers also had a super-athletic play where he blocked a dunk and got a jump ball called.
On the other hand, he (like everyone on MSU, apparently) cannot figure out how to get his feet behind the three-point line. This team leads the world in twenty-foot two-pointers.
Still, Summers: You can work on that in the pros. Please leave early. We are scared of you.
Finally, it's worth mentioning that Tennessee played UT-Asheville today. At one point in the first half, they led 47-6. The final was 124-49. Does it make me kind of a sadistic person that I think I would have enjoyed watching that?
Furthermore, as a Gopher fan, I'm scared to even mention his name, but future NBA superstar Durrell Summers has eleven rebounds so far. ELEVEN! No one else on the team has more than five, and Michigan State's two crappy centers have four between them. Summers also had a super-athletic play where he blocked a dunk and got a jump ball called.
On the other hand, he (like everyone on MSU, apparently) cannot figure out how to get his feet behind the three-point line. This team leads the world in twenty-foot two-pointers.
Still, Summers: You can work on that in the pros. Please leave early. We are scared of you.
Finally, it's worth mentioning that Tennessee played UT-Asheville today. At one point in the first half, they led 47-6. The final was 124-49. Does it make me kind of a sadistic person that I think I would have enjoyed watching that?
5:51 PM: Gonzaga 29, Michigan State 26
Morgan goes out with a sprained ankle, Mark Few takes advantage of the new rule that, when a player can't shoot his free throws, the opposing coach gets to choose any one of the remaining four players on the court to shoot. This is going to lead to an incredible amount of bad blood, isn't it? I see two possible situations:
(1) Coach tells his team, "Foul X, but if you can't get him, just foul anyone and make sure you hit him hard enough to knock him out of the game and we'll just make X shoot it anyway."
(2) The potential to play mind games with a player is just off the charts. Imagine you can choose the shooter, and the other team has a precocious freshman shooter. Maybe he's actually really good at the line, but in crunch time of a close game, the opposing coach looks right past a couple mediocre shooters and chooses the freshman with nothing more than a dismissive, "That guy ... he's gonna miss 'em." If that kid misses ... doesn't the other team just own him for the rest of this career? How great would that be?
Anyway, Michigan State has cut it to three, and I have no doubt they'll win this game, probably fairly easily, but I hope it stays close for awhile.
(1) Coach tells his team, "Foul X, but if you can't get him, just foul anyone and make sure you hit him hard enough to knock him out of the game and we'll just make X shoot it anyway."
(2) The potential to play mind games with a player is just off the charts. Imagine you can choose the shooter, and the other team has a precocious freshman shooter. Maybe he's actually really good at the line, but in crunch time of a close game, the opposing coach looks right past a couple mediocre shooters and chooses the freshman with nothing more than a dismissive, "That guy ... he's gonna miss 'em." If that kid misses ... doesn't the other team just own him for the rest of this career? How great would that be?
Anyway, Michigan State has cut it to three, and I have no doubt they'll win this game, probably fairly easily, but I hope it stays close for awhile.
5:28 PM: Gonzaga 17, Michigan State 6
Gonzaga comes out firing, led by a floppy-haired guard and a Canadian center named "Sacre." I swear, Gonzaga has to have sitcom casting people doing the recruiting for them.
I'm wearing a Gonzaga t-shirt for this game, but only by random chance, as I own three of them, all acquired from different people under totally different circumstances. I guess I'm rooting for them, because it's always more fun to root for the underdog, but I have nothing against Michigan State. Someday, I would like Minnesota to be good enough to consider Michigan State a rival, but that day is probably not coming anytime soon.
So really, I like it that Michigan State is good. I like them as the face of the conference, a reminder that the Big Ten can have elite teams, can make Final Fours, can hang with Carolina and Kentucky and Kansas. Basically, I'm okay with Michigan State because they are the exact opposite of Ohio State football. They play on a big stage, and they never embarass the conference.
Anyway, I'm going to put up intermittent posts and hope to attract a Strong rant in the comments. First incitement: You have four awesome wing players, but apparently nobody who can even kinda play center, and ten minutes into the first game of the year, even a mid-major team is exploiting this. Go.
I'm wearing a Gonzaga t-shirt for this game, but only by random chance, as I own three of them, all acquired from different people under totally different circumstances. I guess I'm rooting for them, because it's always more fun to root for the underdog, but I have nothing against Michigan State. Someday, I would like Minnesota to be good enough to consider Michigan State a rival, but that day is probably not coming anytime soon.
So really, I like it that Michigan State is good. I like them as the face of the conference, a reminder that the Big Ten can have elite teams, can make Final Fours, can hang with Carolina and Kentucky and Kansas. Basically, I'm okay with Michigan State because they are the exact opposite of Ohio State football. They play on a big stage, and they never embarass the conference.
Anyway, I'm going to put up intermittent posts and hope to attract a Strong rant in the comments. First incitement: You have four awesome wing players, but apparently nobody who can even kinda play center, and ten minutes into the first game of the year, even a mid-major team is exploiting this. Go.
5:01 PM: Duke 101, Charlotte 59 (FINAL)
Duke throwing the whitewash out there for the final three minutes or so. You just know the Cameron Crazies are a LOT more comfortable rooting for this team. Not so dark and scary.
And, as we finally leave the Duke game, I want to reprint one of Jerry's comments here on the main page. Nice, concise Duke hate.
While Aaron makes a good point with the flopping thing, it's the east coast prep school date rapey frat boy thing that pisses us all off. So if you like kids who paid more for high school than I did for law school and have a good Roofie hookup by all means root for Duke.
It took me 500 words to explain why flopping upsets me so much. It took Jerry two sentences to explain the much larger socio-economic reasons for the hate. Well said.
And, as we finally leave the Duke game, I want to reprint one of Jerry's comments here on the main page. Nice, concise Duke hate.
While Aaron makes a good point with the flopping thing, it's the east coast prep school date rapey frat boy thing that pisses us all off. So if you like kids who paid more for high school than I did for law school and have a good Roofie hookup by all means root for Duke.
It took me 500 words to explain why flopping upsets me so much. It took Jerry two sentences to explain the much larger socio-economic reasons for the hate. Well said.
4:38 PM: Duke 85, Charlotte 50
I was going to post about how hard it has been to watch all this terrible shooting, and then Duke comes out with 52% FG, 59% 3-PT.
So, let me restate that ... I would like to see some non-Duke players actually make jump shots.
Aaron's Sports Hate List
Teams
(1) University of Wisconsin basketball
(2) New York Yankees
(3) Chicago White Sox
(4) Duke basketball
(5) Green Bay Packers
(6) University of Illinois basketball*
(7) Boston Red Sox
(8) Atlanta Braves
(9) University of Wisconsin football
(10) Chicago Cubs
Announcers
(1) Hawk Harrelson
(2) Joe Buck
(3) Tim McCarver
(4) Billy Packer (though, I guess, retired, so maybe he's off the list)
(5) Michael Kay
*This one is weird because they always have very likeable teams, and I like the orange jerseys, and I almost went there for law school and everything ... but they always, ALWAYS beat Minnesota, even when they are terrible and Minnesota just needs one more win to make the NCAA tournament. They beat them three times a year sometimes. They beat them when they have one good player who can do nothing but shoot threes and Minnesota leaves him open for the entire game even though he is their entire offense (and I'm not just talking about one instance of this ... this has happened SEVERAL TIMES!!!). So I don't know what to say. If Illinios somehow left the Big Ten, I would be an unabashed fan of their squad. On the other hand, I KNOW they will beat the Gophers in heartbreaking fashion somewhere between one and three times this year, despite the fact that Minnesota has a better team.
So, let me restate that ... I would like to see some non-Duke players actually make jump shots.
Aaron's Sports Hate List
Teams
(1) University of Wisconsin basketball
(2) New York Yankees
(3) Chicago White Sox
(4) Duke basketball
(5) Green Bay Packers
(6) University of Illinois basketball*
(7) Boston Red Sox
(8) Atlanta Braves
(9) University of Wisconsin football
(10) Chicago Cubs
Announcers
(1) Hawk Harrelson
(2) Joe Buck
(3) Tim McCarver
(4) Billy Packer (though, I guess, retired, so maybe he's off the list)
(5) Michael Kay
*This one is weird because they always have very likeable teams, and I like the orange jerseys, and I almost went there for law school and everything ... but they always, ALWAYS beat Minnesota, even when they are terrible and Minnesota just needs one more win to make the NCAA tournament. They beat them three times a year sometimes. They beat them when they have one good player who can do nothing but shoot threes and Minnesota leaves him open for the entire game even though he is their entire offense (and I'm not just talking about one instance of this ... this has happened SEVERAL TIMES!!!). So I don't know what to say. If Illinios somehow left the Big Ten, I would be an unabashed fan of their squad. On the other hand, I KNOW they will beat the Gophers in heartbreaking fashion somewhere between one and three times this year, despite the fact that Minnesota has a better team.
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