What a boring weekend. Most of the games were not even close. Aside from Davidson's decisive win over Wisconsin, and Louisville's win over Tennessee, which was hardly an upset based upon the actual talent each team possessed, nothing happened. Did I still enjoy myself? heck yes. Some thoughts:
I am not discussing UNC because everything I say is, in my warped mind, a potential jinx. That said, they've been playing very well. It should be a good game on Saturday. (jinx free statement? i hope so)
UCLA has looked good, but really, have they played anyone that great? I say no. A& M and Xavier were both good teams, but not great. Kansas, aside from Davidson, also did not play anyone that good. UNC and Memphis had strong showings against strong teams, which bodes very well for them (I hope.)
UCLA and Memphis will be an interesting match up just because of the contrast of styles. Memphis is a team of athletic freaks. Derrick Rose is really, really good. UCLA is a more disciplined team, but they can go cold at times. Also, as great an outlet passer as CBS and ESPN insists Kevin Love is, It may be harder for him to get good looks against a team as athletic as the Tigers.
Credit where it is due, Memphis hit their free throws when it counted yesterday. As long as Chris Douglas- Roberts or Rose are the guys shooting, they are in good shape in that department. That's a large caveat for the final four though.
Speaking of Kevin Love, this video of him making full court shots is impressive. But I have never heard such unnecessary fawning over a particular skill as I heard this weekend. Outlet passing, while a nice skill, is not exactly as important as rebounding, dribbling, scoring, running the floor, or many other skills. I've heard enough about it, who cares.
Stephen Curry, as I have said before, is the truth. is performance against Wisconsin was incredible. I understand that he went cold for a while against Kansas, which seemingly dug them into a hole they could not rise out of. And I understand that that last play call made him look awful. But...
Do not blame young Stephen! For starters, he still kept them in the game by playing amazingly for the middle twenty minutes or so of the game. And he hit a big 3 when they needed it most. Kansas did a great job of guarding him, and no one else, with one exception that I'll get to shortly, stepped up. More importantly, everyone else on the team bricked all of their free throws. You cannot shoot 41 percent from the line against a team as good as Kansas, it is just terrible. Moreover, the last play call was pretty terrible. If you are Bo McKillop, and you call a high screen and roll for your best player at the end of the game, you HAVE TO KNOW that the two defenders are going to stay with him. Two options here are to have the screener roll to the basket, which he did not and would have been a bad choice as they needed to go for the win based on depth issues and whatnot, or you have another 3 shooter set the screen. This would force the defense to either not double Curry, or to leave a shooter open. Instead they had Thomas Sander set the screen and despite his earlier 3 pointer, he is not a real shooting threat at that stage of the game. The man they should of had set that screen was...
The White Lobster! As terrible a nickname as any ( He's from Maine and is White! Very Clever!) This kid was deadly from deep against Kansas. he hit 3 big shots in a row, right when Curry was struggling. He was the only non-curry player to step up in this game. I'm a big Jason Richards fan, but he did not do much when the game was on the line against Kansas. Barr stepped up big, and could of opened things up for Curry or hit the shot himself at the end of the game. Instead, he was stuck in the corner. Davidson had a great run and Curry was incredible, but to blame him for this loss, as many have been, is absurd.
I'm too nervous to write anymore about the final four until next week. I'll probably start writing about baseball or something, ugh.
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