From True/Slant on March 27, 2010:
Women’s Sweet 16 Tips Today. Who Invited All These Mid-Majors?
The women’s Sweet 16 is set to start today with an unexpectedly diverse field — even with all four No. 1 seeds advancing, there are lots of gate crashers. Only the Kansas City Region has gone according to form and certainly nobody expected to see two mid-majors advance this far, as well as seeing mighty Ohio State and Jantel Lavender go down in the second round.
Down go the Buckeyes.
On Tuesday night at the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh, I parked myself courtside, expecting to see live and in person the Jantel Lavender show. Instead, I witnessed the emergence of rising star Alexis Rack and a Mississippi State Bulldog team that plays some of the best defense outside of Storrs, Connecticut.
Some background. Lavender is likely an All-American. She is huge. She’s 6′ 4″ (which, I would point out to give it perspective, is as tall as Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger.) And she’s solid. No wonder that she led her team in scoring, in shots attempted, in fouls drawn, in rebounds, and in shot blocks. In short, despite considerable contributions from point guard Samantha Prahalis and sharp-shooting forward Sarah Schultze, every thing the Buckeyes do goes through Lavender.
Most of the game, it was Chanel Mokango’s job to neutralize Lavender. During warm ups, I thought there was no way Mokango could handle it, because while she has the height (she’s listed at 6′ 5″), she is ultra-lean. She looks like a model (back when models didn’t look like they were about two weeks away of dying from starvation.) But Mokango handled Lavender by being in the right spot just about every time the Buckeyes fed the ball to her. Coach Sharon Fanning-Otis and her staff clearly did a great job scouting the Ohio State team; Mokango and her teammates followed the road map to stifle and frustrate the inside game that the Buckeyes desperately wanted to establish.
Not to mention that Mokango has a sweet little mid-range jumper, which is totally unexpected from a player who didn’t pick up a basketball until she was 15 years old.
It was quite a performance. To start the game, Bulldogs found themselves quickly down. They never let the Buckeyes build an insurmountable lead and every time it looked like OSU was going to go on a run, the Bulldogs made a key bucket or a big rebound. Halfway through the first half, things started to turn. OSU’s shooters, who had hit everything in the opening minutes, went stone cold, there was a Bulldog player everywhere they looked, everywhere they tried to dribble, in every passing lane pass, challenging every shot. Every move was contested. The Bulldogs caused a dozen turnovers in the first half. And then a dozen more in the second. Truly, even though Alexis Rack put up 30 points, and Mississippi State had four players in double figures, the turnovers were the story of the game. Ohio State’s frustration was palpable.
Playing with four fouls late in the game, Prahalis was pinned along the baseline with the ball by one of the State guards (I think it was Diamber Johnson). She was so frustrated that she started chirping at the official just behind her, then just winged the ball right off Johnson’s knee. She was T’ed up and out of the game. I don’t mean to call out Prahalis, who plays with a lot of emotion, but it pretty much sums up the second half for the Buckeyes nicely.
The Mighty Zags.
The Gonzaga men’s team has become a staple of March Madness. When the boys of Spokane first started making noise, everybody was enamored of them, the little Jesuit college who could. But after a while, we got used to it. The men’s program is now considered to be like a mid-major plus-plus. It’s not a surprise to see them in the Sweet 16 anymore.
But the women? Last year, the Zags made the dance and lost in a close second round game to Pitt. This year, they were determined to make it past the second round and secure their first ever Sweet 16 bid.
I thought going into this game that the biggest challenge to A & M would be Courtney Vandersloot operating on the outside; and the biggest problem for the Zags would be Danielle Adams operating inside. I was kinda sorta right. Kinda.
If you had told me that at the end of the first half, Vandersloot would have six turnovers and be just one for five shooting from the field, I would have told you that the Aggies had a large lead. Although those stats were true, the story of the game was senior forward, Vivian Frieson.
Frieson dominated the game both inside and out. She carried her team. She rebounded at both ends of the floor, she blocked shots, she hit buckets when her team needed them most. Most of the first half, it was the Inside Vivian Frieson show. In the second half, with Vandersloot still discombobulated, Frieson moved outside and distributed the ball to her teammates, while Vandersloot ran the baseline, working for open looks.
Frieson did everything. She was a big physical presence, with the vision of a true point guard, and the shooting touch of a two guard. It was a tremendous singular performance and Frieson is the reason the Zags take on Xavier in the Sweet 16. Welcome to the dance ladies. Good to have you here.
San Diego State? Really?
The Mountaineers never got into any kind of offensive rhythm against the San Diego State Aztecs. The SDSU D was perhaps the most impressive defensive showing in a round chock full of jaw-dropping, lock-down performances.
Here’s an indication of just how dominant the SDSU defense was: On the night, West Virginia had just three assists in the entire game. Three! The only reason that the Mountaineers weren’t completely and totally routed was the individual efforts of both Sarah Miles and Liz Repella, even though Repella’s shooting touch just wasn’t there from the outside. That was just two talented, tough players gutting out points because there was no real offense to speak of.
Meanwhile, SDSU’s Jene Morris was locked and loaded. Every time Repella or Miles made something happen at the offensive end for WVU, Morris would answer for SDSU. In the last five minutes of the game, Morris had 12 points. Some people say there’s no such thing as “clutch,” that stats just bear out over time. Horse-patootey. Morris’ 12 points in these key moments secured the win just as much as the SDSU defense.
What does it all mean?
What do all these teams have in common? They all play stifling defense. They all use their defense to essentially lift them up on the offensive end. They believe that if they create turnovers, foment confusion, frustrate the other team, it will lead to good things.
I can think of another team that does that so well it carries them to national championships. It’s about time other teams started using UConn’s blueprint.
Showing posts with label Basketball. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Basketball. Show all posts
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Ranking March Madness Upsets
From True/Slant on March 21, 2010:
Where Does Northern Iowa’s Upset of Kansas Rank Among NCAA Tournament Upsets?
Pttthhhhhhht. Whoosh. That was the sound of Kansas’ basketball season going up in flames as Northern Iowa’s Adam Koch made a huge put-back layup with a little over a minute left in the second round game. Or maybe you heard it when UNI broke the ferocious Kansas full-court press, the ball found it’s way into the hands of Ali Farokhmanesh who, all alone at the three point stripe, took a moment to look around, thought what the hell, set his feet and launched the three that was the final body blow to the overall No. 1 seed. It was as good a basketball game as I’ve seen in the tournament in a long time. Kansas fought to the end. They did not lose this game. The Northern Iowa Panthers won it.
It started me thinking, where does this upset rank among the great upsets in NCAA tourney history? Clearly Top 10. Is it Top 5? The greatest ever? You can argue greatest ever from now until Dickie V. has nothing else to add, so I thought I’d compile my favorite upsets. The rule of course, being that I had to have actually, you know, watched the game, which means that, sadly, the historic 1966 Texas Western team (now UTEP) is left off the list.
Here are my 10 favorite upsets in NCAA Tournament history:
10. Cleveland State over Indiana, 1986. First Round.
Cleveland State had a really good team that year. They should have received a much higher seed than the 14 spot they got from the selection committee, so while it was surprising that they won, it was not quite the jaw-dropping shocker that the below games were. Not to anybody who had seen their games or even checked their record (27-3.) Still, Indiana? Hoosiers? Bobby Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers? Down in the first round? Gitouttahere.
9. Princeton over UCLA, 1996. First Round.
In Pete Carril’s last year of a legendary coaching career, the Princeton Tigers executed his Princeton offense to perfection. The Bruins never could close the backdoor and Carril’s team backdoor cut them to death. Coach certainly went out with a bang and not a whimper.
8. Vermont over Syracuse, 2005. First Round.
The what? The who? What the hell is a Catamount anyway? The Cats hit consecutive threes in overtime to topple perennial Sweet Sixteen dweller, Syracuse. I thought Boeheim was going to cry. It was awesome. (And I kinda like Boeheim, but still, it was awesome.)
7. Ohio U. over Georgetown, 2010. First Round.
The little Bobs didn’t need a buzzer beater. They didn’t need a miracle steal or a miracle foul or an unlikely bounce of the ball. They rolled big, bad Georgetown. They smoked them. They embarrassed them. They punched the Hoyas right in the snout and never backed down. Nice.
6. Santa Clara over Arizona, 1993. First Round.
Arizona’s been down for a couple of years, but Coach Lute Olson’s program was dominant at the time. A 15 seed taking down a 2 seed is nearly unheard of. In retrospect, it seems so easy to say, “Of course a team lead by Steve Nash won.” But we didn’t know at the time that the goofy looking, smooth, Canadian point guard would turn out to be a future NBA MVP.
5. Weber State over UNC, 1999. First Round.
Golaith, meet David. David was actually a sharpshooting kid named Harold Archeneaux who led little Weber State of Ogden, Utah over the UNC Tarheels in the first round of the tournament in 1999. Tarheels fans feel as though Final Four Appearances are their birthright. Archeneaux felt differently, despite the fact that the odds were against him — UNC had not dropped an opening round game since 1978. Welcome back to earth Tarheels.
4. Villanova over Georgetown, 1985. Final.
I considered putting this lower on the list, because it was, after all, the final game. It’s not like this Patrick Ewing Hoyas team went down in an early round or was felled by a mid-major. No. It was the final. And it was a team from a power conference. Still, context is everything. Georgetown was scary dominant in the Patrick Ewing era. They were to basketball what the 1985 Bears were to the NFL, what the 1927 Yankees and the 1933 Pittsburgh Crawfords were to baseball and what Mike Tyson at his zenith was to boxing. They seemed not only unbeatable, but untouchable. Nobody and I mean, nobody thought little Villanova (who Georgetown had beaten twice in the regular season) had a even a puncher’s chance of upsetting them. Just goes to show that if you shoot nearly 79% from the field, as Nova did that night, you can beat the unbeatable. The Main Line of Philadelphia would never be the same.
3. Northern Iowa over Kansas, 2010. Second Round.
Kansas held the lead for only about 40 seconds of this game. They were not merely A No. 1 seed, but THE No. 1 seed. Plus, Northern Iowa gets points for taking down UNLV in a mini-upset in the first round on a spectacular 3-point shot by Ali Farokhmanesh with time ticking away. And also for not crumbling against Kansas in the last few minutes of the game, when it would have been so easy to panic. So now we all get to say Ali Farokhmanesh for another week. God, I hope they win in the Sweet 16 because I really, really like rolling that name around on my tongue.
2. NC State beats Houston, 1983. Final.
Like the Georgetown-Villanova final, I thought about moving this down the list, because it was a final, but it remains one of the most memorable moments in all of college basketball history. This game had everything. A buzzer beater dunk. A dominant favorite loaded with NBA talent whose margin of victory that season had averaged around 18 points. An catchy, timeless nickname in Phi Slamma Jamma. And a charismatic coach. If I close my eyes, I can see Lorenzo Charles dunking Dereck Whittenberg’s missed Hail Mary, all holy hell breaking loose on the floor, and Jim Valvano in his greyish, tweedy jacket and red tie, racing around the court, just looking for somebody to smother in a bear hug. Okay, if I turn on ESPN this time of year, I can probably see it too, but the over-saturation doesn’t diminish the greatness of the original moment. It is perhaps the single most enduring image in the history of the tournament.
1. George Mason’s run, 2006. Multiple rounds.
On their way to the Final Four, they took down Michigan State, UNC, Wichita State, and UConn before they lost to eventual national champ Florida. The Patriots get the top spot because theirs was not merely a one game upset, but rather the upsets of three huge programs, a steady march through the tournament. It took an overtime period against UConn before they got to cut down the nets on their way to the Final Four. Their run is so miraculous, they’ve become shorthand for a Cinderella capable of making an extended run. Every year since, every bracket preview show poses this question to the panel: Who will be the next George Mason? Rarified air indeed.
Where Does Northern Iowa’s Upset of Kansas Rank Among NCAA Tournament Upsets?
Pttthhhhhhht. Whoosh. That was the sound of Kansas’ basketball season going up in flames as Northern Iowa’s Adam Koch made a huge put-back layup with a little over a minute left in the second round game. Or maybe you heard it when UNI broke the ferocious Kansas full-court press, the ball found it’s way into the hands of Ali Farokhmanesh who, all alone at the three point stripe, took a moment to look around, thought what the hell, set his feet and launched the three that was the final body blow to the overall No. 1 seed. It was as good a basketball game as I’ve seen in the tournament in a long time. Kansas fought to the end. They did not lose this game. The Northern Iowa Panthers won it.
It started me thinking, where does this upset rank among the great upsets in NCAA tourney history? Clearly Top 10. Is it Top 5? The greatest ever? You can argue greatest ever from now until Dickie V. has nothing else to add, so I thought I’d compile my favorite upsets. The rule of course, being that I had to have actually, you know, watched the game, which means that, sadly, the historic 1966 Texas Western team (now UTEP) is left off the list.
Here are my 10 favorite upsets in NCAA Tournament history:
10. Cleveland State over Indiana, 1986. First Round.
Cleveland State had a really good team that year. They should have received a much higher seed than the 14 spot they got from the selection committee, so while it was surprising that they won, it was not quite the jaw-dropping shocker that the below games were. Not to anybody who had seen their games or even checked their record (27-3.) Still, Indiana? Hoosiers? Bobby Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers? Down in the first round? Gitouttahere.
9. Princeton over UCLA, 1996. First Round.
In Pete Carril’s last year of a legendary coaching career, the Princeton Tigers executed his Princeton offense to perfection. The Bruins never could close the backdoor and Carril’s team backdoor cut them to death. Coach certainly went out with a bang and not a whimper.
8. Vermont over Syracuse, 2005. First Round.
The what? The who? What the hell is a Catamount anyway? The Cats hit consecutive threes in overtime to topple perennial Sweet Sixteen dweller, Syracuse. I thought Boeheim was going to cry. It was awesome. (And I kinda like Boeheim, but still, it was awesome.)
7. Ohio U. over Georgetown, 2010. First Round.
The little Bobs didn’t need a buzzer beater. They didn’t need a miracle steal or a miracle foul or an unlikely bounce of the ball. They rolled big, bad Georgetown. They smoked them. They embarrassed them. They punched the Hoyas right in the snout and never backed down. Nice.
6. Santa Clara over Arizona, 1993. First Round.
Arizona’s been down for a couple of years, but Coach Lute Olson’s program was dominant at the time. A 15 seed taking down a 2 seed is nearly unheard of. In retrospect, it seems so easy to say, “Of course a team lead by Steve Nash won.” But we didn’t know at the time that the goofy looking, smooth, Canadian point guard would turn out to be a future NBA MVP.
5. Weber State over UNC, 1999. First Round.
Golaith, meet David. David was actually a sharpshooting kid named Harold Archeneaux who led little Weber State of Ogden, Utah over the UNC Tarheels in the first round of the tournament in 1999. Tarheels fans feel as though Final Four Appearances are their birthright. Archeneaux felt differently, despite the fact that the odds were against him — UNC had not dropped an opening round game since 1978. Welcome back to earth Tarheels.
4. Villanova over Georgetown, 1985. Final.
I considered putting this lower on the list, because it was, after all, the final game. It’s not like this Patrick Ewing Hoyas team went down in an early round or was felled by a mid-major. No. It was the final. And it was a team from a power conference. Still, context is everything. Georgetown was scary dominant in the Patrick Ewing era. They were to basketball what the 1985 Bears were to the NFL, what the 1927 Yankees and the 1933 Pittsburgh Crawfords were to baseball and what Mike Tyson at his zenith was to boxing. They seemed not only unbeatable, but untouchable. Nobody and I mean, nobody thought little Villanova (who Georgetown had beaten twice in the regular season) had a even a puncher’s chance of upsetting them. Just goes to show that if you shoot nearly 79% from the field, as Nova did that night, you can beat the unbeatable. The Main Line of Philadelphia would never be the same.
3. Northern Iowa over Kansas, 2010. Second Round.
Kansas held the lead for only about 40 seconds of this game. They were not merely A No. 1 seed, but THE No. 1 seed. Plus, Northern Iowa gets points for taking down UNLV in a mini-upset in the first round on a spectacular 3-point shot by Ali Farokhmanesh with time ticking away. And also for not crumbling against Kansas in the last few minutes of the game, when it would have been so easy to panic. So now we all get to say Ali Farokhmanesh for another week. God, I hope they win in the Sweet 16 because I really, really like rolling that name around on my tongue.
2. NC State beats Houston, 1983. Final.
Like the Georgetown-Villanova final, I thought about moving this down the list, because it was a final, but it remains one of the most memorable moments in all of college basketball history. This game had everything. A buzzer beater dunk. A dominant favorite loaded with NBA talent whose margin of victory that season had averaged around 18 points. An catchy, timeless nickname in Phi Slamma Jamma. And a charismatic coach. If I close my eyes, I can see Lorenzo Charles dunking Dereck Whittenberg’s missed Hail Mary, all holy hell breaking loose on the floor, and Jim Valvano in his greyish, tweedy jacket and red tie, racing around the court, just looking for somebody to smother in a bear hug. Okay, if I turn on ESPN this time of year, I can probably see it too, but the over-saturation doesn’t diminish the greatness of the original moment. It is perhaps the single most enduring image in the history of the tournament.
1. George Mason’s run, 2006. Multiple rounds.
On their way to the Final Four, they took down Michigan State, UNC, Wichita State, and UConn before they lost to eventual national champ Florida. The Patriots get the top spot because theirs was not merely a one game upset, but rather the upsets of three huge programs, a steady march through the tournament. It took an overtime period against UConn before they got to cut down the nets on their way to the Final Four. Their run is so miraculous, they’ve become shorthand for a Cinderella capable of making an extended run. Every year since, every bracket preview show poses this question to the panel: Who will be the next George Mason? Rarified air indeed.
2010 NCAA Men's Tournament: Bracket of Spite
From True/Slant on March 20, 2010:
The Key to March Madness Happiness: Rationalization.
This year, as Cinderellas crash the ball like a pack of marauding visigoths, unkempt, uninvited guest in glass slippers, my bracket is in worse shape than the crew at Sober House. Thanks to St. Mary’s, Old Dominion and Murray State sacking big favorites, I’m getting my ass kicked by a woman who claims to know less about basketball than I know about cul-de-sacs and carpools, as even the big conference baddies who survived had to fight tooth and nail to fend off the ill-mannered small conference foes.
Nova squeaked by Bobby Mo, Wisconsin narrowly escaped the mighty Wofford Terriers, perennial Elite Eight invitees, Tom Izzo’s Spartans, snatched an ugly victory from New Mexico State, and Tennessee got a scare from the San Diego State Aztecs.
Don’t those guys know they’re supposed to be grateful just to be here?
All of which is to say that, outside of the four No. 1 seeds, there were few convincing wins through the first few days, except for WVU and Pitt, Maryland and Ohio State. Not to mention powerhouses like … Cornell and Ohio U?
So, brackets aflame, I am liberated, yes, truly liberated and free as a bird to add my Sheet of Sh*t (versus my Bracket of Spite) to the compost, sit back and claim that I just picked the wrong upsets. Heck, even Prez. Obama picked Siena to upset Purdue. I am not alone.
Meanwhile, I am free from the hegemony of the Sheet of Sh*t to root for Pitt, WVU and every underdog left from Northern Iowa to St. Mary’s and my favorite little MAC conference team who could, the Ohio U. Bobcats.
Welcoming home my old friend rationalization. Well, it just makes me all, like, tingly ‘n stuff.
I am hoping to do better in my women’s bracket (couldn’t be worse) while I shoot for finishing dead last in the men’s True/Slantment of Champions. If I can pull that off, I’m counting on His High Overlord, Michael Roston, from the comfort of his True/Slant Lair, to give me a little something, you know, for the effort.
So I got that going for me.
The Key to March Madness Happiness: Rationalization.
This year, as Cinderellas crash the ball like a pack of marauding visigoths, unkempt, uninvited guest in glass slippers, my bracket is in worse shape than the crew at Sober House. Thanks to St. Mary’s, Old Dominion and Murray State sacking big favorites, I’m getting my ass kicked by a woman who claims to know less about basketball than I know about cul-de-sacs and carpools, as even the big conference baddies who survived had to fight tooth and nail to fend off the ill-mannered small conference foes.
Nova squeaked by Bobby Mo, Wisconsin narrowly escaped the mighty Wofford Terriers, perennial Elite Eight invitees, Tom Izzo’s Spartans, snatched an ugly victory from New Mexico State, and Tennessee got a scare from the San Diego State Aztecs.
Don’t those guys know they’re supposed to be grateful just to be here?
All of which is to say that, outside of the four No. 1 seeds, there were few convincing wins through the first few days, except for WVU and Pitt, Maryland and Ohio State. Not to mention powerhouses like … Cornell and Ohio U?
So, brackets aflame, I am liberated, yes, truly liberated and free as a bird to add my Sheet of Sh*t (versus my Bracket of Spite) to the compost, sit back and claim that I just picked the wrong upsets. Heck, even Prez. Obama picked Siena to upset Purdue. I am not alone.
Meanwhile, I am free from the hegemony of the Sheet of Sh*t to root for Pitt, WVU and every underdog left from Northern Iowa to St. Mary’s and my favorite little MAC conference team who could, the Ohio U. Bobcats.
Welcoming home my old friend rationalization. Well, it just makes me all, like, tingly ‘n stuff.
I am hoping to do better in my women’s bracket (couldn’t be worse) while I shoot for finishing dead last in the men’s True/Slantment of Champions. If I can pull that off, I’m counting on His High Overlord, Michael Roston, from the comfort of his True/Slant Lair, to give me a little something, you know, for the effort.
So I got that going for me.
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