My observations from another week of basketball and another week of retirement…
Nebraska Fans- Without a doubt, Nebraska fans showed up at OKC. They were loud and proud. It has to be one of the most impressive turnouts by any crowd in NCAA tourney history, especially considering it was 6+ hours drive from Nebraska. And it was a great game.
Last Shot- Easy to second guess but Nebraska defended the last shot poorly. They let Vandy catch the ball on the run and get to half court for a shot. I would have liked to have seen them make the defender go back to the ball. And NEVER let a player dribble into a last second heave going to their strong hand.
Nebraska Offense- I am not a Nebraska fan but one of the reasons they are fun to watch is that their offense is a pleasant variation of the “same old thing” that every college seems to run. There is more movement of players and more movement of the ball. It is not just ball screen after ball screen, and not just zoom action.
Santa Clara Time Out- After hitting the apparent game winner with under 10 seconds left, the Santa Clara hesitated a split second but clearly he was calling a time out. What was the trail official, had turned to run up court. The coach mistakenly was chasing him. Neither the inbounder official and the far official saw it. That needs to be something the officials have talked out. Anytime a team scores, at least one official needs to look to the benches. My opinion is it should have been the far official looking over.
Big Ten Change- The Big Ten historically has been a physical conference with offenses ramming it inside. This year in the tourney, the Big Ten had 3 of top 5 teams in terms of shooting threes- Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Illinois.
Colorado State Women’s Basketball Reversal- Late in the game, CSU took a time out to draw up what they wanted to run with ball out under basket. The opposing team asked for a review of the out of bounds call. Sure enough, the call was reversed and CSU lost possession.
The replay showed the opposing player was inbounds when save the ball back. But it also showed that as she touched the ball, the ref raised their hand to signal it was out of bounds and the play was dead.
On the save the opposing player caught the ball. So the refs awarded them the ball. I would argue that once the ref blew the whistle, all the players thought the play was dead. Yes, the other team caught the saved ball, but do we know if there had been no whistle if CSU player might have gone for the saved ball. I don’t think they can award the ball on a play that is subsequent to what happened.
Talking Heads- I enjoy the old TNT team of Shaq, Kenny, and Barkley covering NBA games. They are entertaining and seem to know the NBA games, players, and have inside info to share. I don’t enjoy them covering the NCAA tourney, when they say things like,”That one guard for Nebraska can shoot.” I don’t know the name of players but I am not being asked to be an expert on the teams, players, and games.
But too many of the in studio and color announcers of the games obviously don’t know anything more than we know watching a game. I would like to see more coaches doing commentary and fewer former NBA players talking about the games. My exception, I would just soon not listen to Bruce Pearl.
Mid-Majors- Wisconsin helped the cause of mid-majors by losing to High Point. The second day of the tourney, no 10-16 seeds pulled an upset in any game. Sadly, with the present day portal and NIL system, the days of the mid-major upsets look like they will be fewer and farther apart.
NBA Draft- It will be interesting to see what happens with the NBA draft. Scott Shaver looked at the best of the college freshmen for me. Scott coached some of the top players and coached vs many of them. The projections by most are that the first ten picks will all be freshmen. Here is Scott’s description of the top players…
Scott Shaver’s Top NBA Prospects to Watch
WNBA Projected Draft- The latest mock draft that I saw was—
1- Awa Fam 6’4 from Spain
2- Azzi Fudd 5’10” from UConn
3- Olivia Miles 5’10” from TCU
4- Lauren Betts 6’7” from UCLA
5- Kiki Rice 5’11” from UCLA
How would you like to be the Dallas GM and have to decide whether or not to draft Azzi Fudd? Personally, I would be all in taking Fudd with the hope of doing everything I could to keep Paige Buecker happy!!
WNBA Settlement- The players and the owners have come to a tentative agreement. This is great news. The biggest winners in the settlement are the WNBA fans who are now assured of having seasons for the next 7 years. Here are details of the settlement…
WNBA Settlement- Great News for Fans & Women’s Basketball
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