Baylor is really good, Longhorn fans aren't happy about things like poor free throw shooting and fading down the stretch. But Baylor is really good and as much as I don't really care all that much for Scott Drew he's a better coach than Shaka Smart. On the positive side the Irish got another blowout win, albeit over a not so good Wake Forrest. Also our big man has played like a big man 2 games in a row now. That's a good thing, we need him to be that guy. Still will be a struggle to get to .500
Go figure. Florida beats Teen by 25 when they are ranked #6, then beats #11 W. Virginia on the road. They return home and lose to S. Carolina who have a losing record. Consistency is not our strong point.
Houston on the verge of a #1 seed lost last night to the last place team in the AAC. Probably killed their chances of being a #1 seed. But looking at Bill's update on the Gators it's pretty clear that it's hard to win them all, upsets just happen more often in Basketball.
Ohio State defeats Iowa this evening in Iowa City 89-85. This team continues to surprise me and win the close ones as well.
Don, we played well. game woulda been easier had we hit FT's and open 3's better as we usually do (though 3 in a row by Ahrens sparked the run that put us up.) Didn't think Garza lived up to his hype in this one. That woulda made it closer or put them over the top.
Stu, I was really concerned about our foul problems in the first half. The situation almost revered itself in the final half. The over all stats were almost identical down the board for both teams. We did a much better job on turnovers as well. Deep and ability to score from the bench was also a big factor. Excellent game to watch either way.
Gators game with LSU is cancelled due to Covid, testing and contact tracing with the Gators. Could likely affect our next couple of games also, one of them with Tennessee.
I can't imagine how the Final Four will work out. It would seem that even having all rounds at one site, Indy for men and San Antonio for women, would result in more than a few being impacted by Covid and it would seem that games could not be rescheduled. If you have say 4 of the games in the round of 64 being canceled, I would assume if one team is ok and one team can't play then it'd be a forfeit and the healthy team moves on, but if both teams can't play That would leave an open slot in the round of 32 and a team could move on to the sweet 16 without playing a game. Lots of permutations. When you get to the Final Four...what are they going to do if a team or teams turn up unable to play?
Tough loss in OT on the road to Oklahoma State by the Longhorns. That good start is slipping away with 3 losses in a row, sitting in 5th right now.
I didn't watch the Texas game, just assumed it was a tough loss since it went 2 OT's. But holy cow how did it get to OT. Longhorns shot 25% from the field and didn't hit a single shot in OT, all points were free throws. Write up from InsideTexas...it wasn't pretty. Longhorns were ranked #6 in both polls before the game, after 3 straight losses and that performance vs Oklahoma State they are going to plunge in the rankings...probably don't deserve to be in the top 25. #1 Texas may have played its worst game of the 2021-22 season. Somehow, it extended past the typical 40 minutes into double overtime. And somehow, Texas still had a chance to overcome the abysmal first 20 minutes thanks to erratic second halves from both teams. But overtime only magnified the problems that put Texas in a hole in the early stages of the game. UT was 5-of-35 from beyond the arc and 20-of-79 from the field. They missed 17 layup attempts according to the official scorekeeper. Despite limiting OSU’s Cade Cunningham to 5-of-19 shooting, Texas fell to Oklahoma State in double-overtime, 75-67. With a closer look at the box score, more wonder grows at how Texas was able to push this game into not one, but two overtime periods. Texas did not hit a single field goal after regulation ended, missing all three field goal attempts. The only scoring in the overtime period came as a result of four free throws from Courtney Ramey and two free throws from Kai Jones.
The game between NC and Duke was a wild one in the last five minutes. NC appeared to be trying to give the game away, and Duke was frantically trying to stop them. Coach K looked pretty dejected at games end.
Iowa seems to have cooled off quite a bit after the really good start, are they dealing with injuries or something? On the one and done phenomenon in college basketball.... I got this from an article on a ND site. College basketball is somewhat trending away from the one-and-done player. If you look at this year's Top 5 of Gonzaga, Baylor, Villanova, Michigan and Houston, those rosters aren't filled with one-and-done players. There is one freshman predicted to be drafted out of the five programs. There is substance to Brey's famous saying of getting old and staying old. You just need the right players and Notre Dame is far from that.
Watched UCONN /South Carolina women tonight. What a great game, UCONN has a freshman, Paige Buechers, who is incredible. UCONN knocked off the Gamecocks in OT. They were #1 and UCONN was #2. Ohio State / Maryland is the late game so I guess it will be a late night for Don!
Both teams start slow then heat up. A game of runs so far. Bucks up five at the half. Wish we didn’t get beat off the dribble so much.
We are up 35-30 at the half thanks to a 12-5 run as we approached the end of the first half. We are giving up a lot of points to the Terps in the paint. Too many fouls on our part as well. The bench is going to need to play well in the next 30 minutes.
We were able to maintain a double digit margin through most of the second half to win 73-65. Kyle Young had an excellent game with 18 points and rebounding the ball. I think we are still very impatient on taking the long treys but it seems to work for the most part. Indiana up next here Saturday.