NCAA Tournament Day 3

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NCAA Tournament Day 3 

Post#1 » by RealGM Articles » Sun Mar 22, 2015 6:38 am

#3 Notre Dame defeated #6 Butler


This game was billed as the battle for Indiana. But it was also a battle among two of the most improved teams in the country. Here is a list of teams with the biggest improvements in efficiency who ended up in the Top 75 of the Pomeroy Rankings:



















































Team



Pomeroy Rank This Year



Pomeroy Rank Last Year



TCU



60



234



Valparaiso



61



169



Old Dominion



66



170



Notre Dame



12



99



Northern Iowa



9



94



Temple



62



159



Butler



20



104



Illinois St.



54



142



For both Butler and Notre Dame, a player returned from missing the previous season and received significant credit for the team’s improvement. In Butler’s case, it was Roosevelt Jones who returned from injury and helped spark the turnaround. And in Notre Dame’s case it was Jerian Grant who returned from an ineligibility issue and helped spark the turnaround.


Both players proved why they were so valuable on Saturday. Despite injuring his knee on Thursday, Roosevelt Jones battled back and scored 23 of Butler’s 64 points, including a few huge drives late in the game.


And Jerian Grant was just as critical. Though he was held in check offensively for much of the game, he had a big tie-up and big contest at the end of regulation. And then in OT, Grant drew Butler’s Alex Barlow into the air and drew a foul on a three. It not only earned the team a few critical points, it also fouled Barlow out of the game. Then, nursing a three point lead at the end of OT, Grant drove and got the game-sealing basket.


Other players deserve credit for their team’s improvement. And Notre Dame wouldn’t be advancing without sophomore Steve Vasturia’s huge night. But in a game that matched up two of the most improved teams in the country, Jones and Grant reminded us why they do deserve so much of the credit.


#4 North Carolina defeated #5 Arkansas


I wanted to watch this game in its entirety due to the matchup of the two fastest-paced teams left in the tournament. And thanks to the wonder of the DVR, I was able to watch it all. The up-and-down action did lead to some fun situations. We saw players diving over tables for loose balls. We saw a bunch of balls on the ground and saw players dive and twist to gain possession. We saw some incredible out-of-nowhere blocks. And we saw bizarre plays like when Michael Qualls drove to the basket in the first half, had his shot blocked at the rim, watched it pop up above the shot-clock, and then watched it fall right into the middle of the net.


But while the game did get to 78 possessions, it didn’t quite live up to the track meet I expected. There were far too many whistles. The 64 foul shots combined for the two teams meant this wasn’t exactly a free flowing up-and-down game.


And Roy Williams chose to play zone in the middle of the first half, which really slowed down the pace somewhat. Roy Williams obviously is getting paid to win, not to entertain me, but it annoyed me that one of the fast-paced teams in the country chose to utilize a stalling defense.


Probably the most fun thing for me was that with North Carolina’s Isaiah Hicks and Kennedy Meeks in foul trouble, we actually got to see what a smaller North Carolina lineup looked like this year. And honestly, it was much better than I imagined. I’m starting to think that North Carolina might have made a mistake by playing Justin Jackson on the perimeter all year, because he had a couple of fantastic offensive rebounds when he was playing in the paint. Jackson shooting over guards this year hasn’t really worked (28% from three). But I wonder if he had been matched-up against slower ACC forwards if we would have seen more of his athleticism this year. Jackson still needs to add muscle to play in the paint against some opponents, but in a free-flowing game like this, he was fun to watch.


North Carolina won the game mostly by winning the turnover battle and by making their free throws late in the game.


#4 Utah defeated #5 Georgetown


Georgetown is the kind of team you can scout, but with so many inconsistent freshmen, you never know which team is going to show up. And with only one day to prep, I thought Utah might not be prepared for all of Georgetown’s wrinkles.  Utah had to figure out how to cover Joshua Smith in the post; Utah had to remember how to defend back-cuts; Utah had to figure out how to defend the drives from Georgetown’s Jabril Trawick, D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera, and LJ Peak; and Utah had to figure out how to defend the outside shot of players like Georgetown’s Isaac Copeland.


In the early going Utah seemed to do everything right except guard the perimeter. Georgetown hit 6 of its first 9 threes and took an early 11 point lead. At this point a lot of teams would have panicked. They would have tightened up on the perimeter and given up more back-cuts. They would have given up more driving angles.


But Utah head coach Larry Krystkowiak chose not to change his game-plan. He just counted on his players to execute better. Yes, Georgetown had a lot of wrinkles to defend, but Utah has had a Top 10 defense this year. They have the players to guard all sorts of situations.


Krystkowiak was asked about Georgetown’s threes at half-time and he didn’t flinch. He decided to play the percentages by not adjusting. He felt that Georgetown wouldn’t be able to keep shooting threes at such a high clip, and that giving up back-cuts would be the cardinal sin. And he was right. Georgetown was just 3 of 16 the rest of the way. By not adjusting, by driving on Joshua Smith and getting him out of the game, by Jakob Poeltl unintentionally giving Jabril Trawick a hard foul and hurting Trawick’s elbow, Utah finally caused Georgetown to have a scoring drought in the second half.


And with Georgetown switching to a zone in the second half with its foul trouble, Utah caught fire from deep. Jordan Loveridge and Brandon Taylor starting knocking down threes left and right. And a team that many picked to lose to Stephen F Austin in the first round is headed to the Sweet Sixteen.


#8 NC State defeated #1 Villanova


A lot of people felt that NC State would beat Villanova because they had defeated North Carolina and Duke this year. But I didn’t think that was a particularly accurate analogy. NC State had quality veteran guards and enough Top 100 big men to throw at North Carolina’s frontline and Duke’s Jahlil Okafor. They had the right combination of experience and athleticism to spring those ACC upsets.


But you don’t need athletic forwards to throw at Villanova’s frontline. You need players who make the right plays. And so ironically, it was the lowest ranked athlete on NC State’s roster, 3-star sophomore Lennard Freeman who was called upon. Freeman didn’t play a big role in the earlier two upsets. But he is just a fundamentally solid player. His biggest skill is simply defensive rebounding. And if you want to beat a team like Villanova that shoots incredibly well, you have to grab the defensive boards. On the day Freeman had 11 points and 12 rebounds, easily his best performance of the whole season. NC State’s other talented forwards like first round darling BeeJay Anya weren’t really the ideal players to use against a versatile quick Villanova lineup. Abdul-Malik Abu had some highlight real offensive rebounds and dunks. But fellow top 100 forwards like Anya, Kyle Washington, and Caleb Martin mostly spent the day on the bench.


But it took more than just defensive rebounding to beat Villanova, NC State also had to force some misses. And their 85th ranked defense was only average in that area. Teams took and made a significant number of threes against NC State this year.


Villanova had six guys who were good three point shooters. Obviously a team that takes too many threes is always at risk of an upset if the shots aren’t falling. But when a team has six quality three point shooters, that tends to reduce the risk. Not everyone needs to be hitting in every game. Still, on the day, Villanova was just 9 of 28 from deep, and that was critical.


But these details overlook the fundamental factor in the win. NC State’s veteran guards outplayed a veteran group of Villanova guards. The same group that couldn’t guard or score on Boston College a couple of weeks ago, took on one of the most consistent back-courts in the country and shut them down.


#6 Xavier defeated #14 Georgia St.


We really cannot get enough of Georgia St. head coach Ron Hunter. I loved the CBS profile piece on his team early in the day. Hunter:


“I would wear a body cast from head to toe if we could get to Indianapolis and the Final Four.”


“I thought I got up fast enough that no one would notice that I fell off the chair. I guess I was wrong.”


Georgia St.’s win in this tournament will be the moment we all remember at the end of the tournament. But Xavier simply had too much size for Georgia St. and they were able to shoot 68% from the field against the smaller Georgia St. lineup.


I think Xavier provides a much tougher match-up for Arizona in the Sweet Sixteen than some might expect because they have quality forwards and because they are a good defensive rebounding team. If Arizona gets cold from the outside and Xavier grabs those defensive rebounds, the outcome might be closer than some expect. This is especially true given that Chris Mack was an assistant under Sean Miller and knows a lot of the stuff Miller likes to run.


Xavier’s quality forwards include:


-Trevon Bluiett, the dominant freshman scorer who is a mismatch for many teams (but probably won’t be for Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.)


-Matt Stainbrook, the guy with the cool goggles, who had 20 against Georgetown’s Joshua Smith in the Big East Tournament, and 20 in the first round blowout win over Ole Miss.


-Jalen Reynolds, a player with a phenomenal 26% defensive rebounding rate who is shooting 62% from the field.


Reynolds has only played half of Xavier’s minutes, but on Saturday Reynolds finally got his moment in the sun. Reynolds scored a career high 21 points against Georgia St. and he should be fired up for the next round.


#2 Arizona defeated #10 Ohio St.


Ohio St. has become the best recruiting team in the Big Ten. Since Thad Matta has become head coach, the Buckeyes have had more Top 100 recruits than anyone else in the conference. But the 2011 recruiting class has to go down as one of the more disappointing ones for the school. After making four straight regional finals (including one Final Four), the last two years have not sustained that level of success. LaQuinton Ross, super-scorer on last year’s team, left early. And the other three prized recruits in the 2011 class never became stars. Sam Thompson had a couple of big threes in the loss to Arizona, and certainly had the best day of any of the Buckeyes. But he never broke out from being a role player. Amir Williams was a good, but not dominant center. He had a couple of big dunks in the first half against Arizona, but to end his career with just 2 rebounds against VCU and 4 rebounds against Arizona in the NCAA tournament, was not good enough. And Shannon Scott, who opened the game with a nice three pointer, was never quite dominant enough. For all of Scott’s great passing, he has always been a little too turnover prone in his career. And Scott had four costly turnovers against Arizona.


And it is too bad those Arizona seniors never reached the highest level. Because it meant we didn’t get to see enough of super-freshman D’Angelo Russell. Russell, even in one of the worst offensive games of his young career, still made some spectacular passes. But Arizona’s Rondae Hollis-Jefferson might be the best defensive player in the nation (if not Kentucky’s Willie Cauley-Stein.) And Arizona is a great defensive team. They were able to take away Russell’s easy looks, and there was no veteran presence to share the load.


In the first half, it sometimes seemed like Arizona was more lucky than good. Brandon Ashley got credit for a bucket on a ridiculous tipped ball out at the free throw line that took a high arc and went in the basket anyway. Stanley Johnson got a defensive rebound while sitting on the ground. But in the second half, Arizona played like a team that can win a national championship.


I’ve now watched enough of Arizona this season to reach my definitive opinion. I believe that Arizona is a better team without Stanley Johnson on the floor. Johnson is fine coming off the bench and playing a spot role. But Johnson has had so many big games this year where his terrible shooting has kept an opponent in the game. And in Arizona’s biggest moments of the season, I think they have to have Gabe York on the floor. A four forward lineup has never made sense. And Johnson isn’t a good enough outside shooter to make it work.


#1 Kentucky defeated #8 Cincinnati


After Cincinnati’s Octavius Ellis got kicked out of the Purdue game, Coreontae DeBerry played a season high for minutes. And he had a critical 13 points on just 9 shots in the OT win. That seemed to give DeBerry confidence against Kentucky. In the first half, DeBerry fought tooth and nail for every rebound in the paint and chipped in an early six points. But this is Kentucky. Even against a scrappy defensive team, they find ways to score.


I thought Charles Barkley summed up why the first half was so demoralizing. If you are Cincinnati, you are thinking, we played pretty well, and they didn’t play well, and we are still down 7.


The second half started out with more physical, chippy play. But ultimately Kentucky kept banging away and extending the lead.


There are going to be some fans who use this game as a reason to argue that Kentucky is over-rated. They will say that the Wildcats looked sloppy, that the game wasn’t a basketball exhibition. But that is how Cincinnati plays. Cincinnati games are all these ugly, hard-fought games. For Kentucky to pull away the way they did, shows their versatility. They can win a track meet style game like they did against Arkansas in the SEC tournament. And they can win a game where you have to scrap and battle.


#11 UCLA defeated #14 UAB


Sometimes college basketball games don’t follow the expected script. In the middle of the season, UAB head coach Jerod Haase told his team to stop taking so many threes. They were only shooting 32% from deep and he told his players they might do a little bit better if they started being more selective. So of course in the Round of 32 game his team made 12 of 26 threes (46%) and outscored UCLA 36-15 from beyond the arc.


On the flip side, I’ve been down on UCLA’s Tony Parker this year. The former McDonald’s All-American and Top 25 recruit finally had a chance to earn ample playing time as a junior. But far too often this season he has been quiet. It has rarely been a question this year whether Parker will dominate his opponent in the paint. Bruins games usually come down to whether or not the UCLA guards can make jumpers.


Against SMU in the round of 64, Parker was just 1 of 6 from the floor and he was clearly out-played by Markus Kennedy and Yanick Moreira. So of course Parker had 28 points and 12 rebounds, and dominated in the paint against UAB. And as a team UCLA out-scored UAB by 30 points in the paint. The Bruins win might have been the expected outcome, but the way it transpired certainly qualified as a surprise.


Even though UAB lost, this was a big weekend for their program. CUSA rules say every team in the league must have a football team. And UAB chose to drop its football team for financial reasons this year. It would seem silly for CUSA to drop a team with the basketball tradition of UAB. But a conference change remains a very realistic possibility for this team.


We tend to look only at the negative side of conference realignment. We think of the Missouri vs Kansas rivalry games that aren’t being played (despite the fact that both teams could still schedule each other). But the upside of conference realignment is that it has helped some teams find more challenging competition. Davidson has never earned an NCAA bid as an at-large team. But because realignment allowed them to join the A10 and play a tougher schedule, Davidson was able to earn an at large bid for the first time this year. Similarly, teams like VCU and Butler have been able to upgrade their schedule strength via conference moves.


There are some cases of geographical nonsense (West Virginia in the Big 12). And there are a few teams that for various reasons seems stuck in the wrong conference. The MVC has never wanted to invite St. Louis because it overlaps with existing markets. And perhaps St. Louis would turn down an offer to join the MVC. But St. Louis is the only team in the A10 that doesn’t fit in the league’s northeast footprint. But for the most part, while leagues have grown geographically more dispersed, they still retain some geographic continuity.


And that is why UAB is in such a tough spot. On the one hand, it would be perfect if they could find a league with quality basketball schools that would want a team with great basketball tradition. But the A10 stretches no further south than North Carolina. The MVC and Horizon league each have tight geographic footprints in the Midwest. The CAA might be a logical landing spot, but given the teams that have left that league in recent years, it isn’t nearly as strong a conference as it once was.


Realistically, it hasn’t been a great decade to be a UAB basketball fan. In 2005, the Blazers played in a league with Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis, and Marquette, and earned an 11 seed in the NCAA tournament as an at large. Now, whether the team stays in CUSA or not, the schedule likely won’t be strong enough for many at-large bids going forward.


That is perhaps why the win over Iowa St. was more important to UAB than it could have been for almost any other team. If UAB is going to change leagues in the future, they need to have brand recognition. With a Thursday upset and Saturday prime viewing CBS game, this group of hard working players did everything they could to ensure a positive future for their program.

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