Point Blank – March 27
The Tourney Journey #9 – Wichita State, North Carolina and Xavier bow-out with dignity, West Virginia takes a bow before the first media timeout…Atlanta’s “D” gears up; Erik Spoelstra’s pace gears down…
Four teams saw their seasons come to an end last night, with North Carolina and Xavier playing well, and Wichita State playing much better than the scoreboard can show. West Virginia never had a chance. That sets up a superb round for Saturday, an Arizona/Wisconsin rematch from a rather brilliant game at the same stage of LY’s bracket, and a matchup of the Notre Dame offense vs. the Kentucky defense that is one of the better sub-sets this year’s tourney can bring.
At Cleveland
NOTRE DAME 81 WICHITA STATE 70 – Games like this are why the Eye Test can be so important. If you only looked at the box score afterwards, it would have you begin with that basketball riddle of whether it was good Notre Dame offense or bad Wichita State defense that led to those 81 points at 1.23 PPP. When a team shoots 55.6 percent from the field, makes 9-19 triples, and dishes 18 assists, it would seem that they found something that they could exploit.
But you know what? The Wichita State defense was not all that bad. In fact, the overall Shockers floor game was its usual solid self – they had four fewer turnovers and four more rebounds, leading to what ordinarily would have been substantial advantages of 11 more FG attempts, and four more FT tries. It was going to require an extremely high level of offensive execution to overcome that - a team that is -2 at tipoff, with those advantages, would be expected to win the game in low double figures. But Notre Dame brought that level of execution under the bright Sweet 16 lights. An offense that rated #3 in the nation for the full season played to a level even above that.
The key was movement, of both the players and the ball. The Fighting Irish made themselves difficult to guard, and even though the Shockers were fundamentally sound on defense for much of the night, this is a challenging team to overplay out of man-to-man - being just a half step late in some of the defensive rotations was enough to get burned. Four of the five Notre Dame starters scored at least 15 points, and the only one that didn’t, Jerian Grant, was actually the best offensive player of all, dishing 11 assists.
So now look at what the spirits of basketball are handing us – that superb offense and its ability to spread a defense out and make them guard from sideline-to-sideline, and a few steps beyond the three-point line, against a defense that may be as good as any college team ever. The “Game Inside the Game” goes from West Virginia’s hopeless attempts to compete when setting up in the half-court, to Grant and Demetrius Jackson being able to get past the Harrison’s twins off the dribble, and force that defense to move in a way it is not accustomed to.
Wichita State moved well tactically on Thursday night. The Shockers just did not have the size and athleticism to make their close-outs effective. But as for that other bunch that played later in Cleveland…
KENTUCKY 78 WEST VIRGINIA 39 – There was about as little mystery here as we are ever going to see in the round of the Sweet 16, and fortunately there was not any mystery at all for a WVU Team Total Under that was placed “In the Sights” yesterday (archive link at the bottom of this page). But while that handicap focused on the offense/defense mismatch, it was not the Kentucky “D” in the early stages that lent confidence for the root – it was the fact that the Wildcats had a plan against those Mountaineer presses.
John Calipari had some good tools to work with – both Harrison’s had significant size advantages over the West Virginia back-court, and Willie Cauley-Stein was able to be an outlet for in-bounds plays, even putting the ball on the floor when needed. Coach Cal utilized those tools well. The Mountaineer ball pressure was disarmed from the opening salvos, and a defense that led the nation in steals did not come up with one until Juwan Staten took the ball from Aaron Harrison with 1:29 left in the First Half. It was already 42-15 by then.
Without being able to beat the Kentucky defense down the court in transition, the Mountaineers had nowhere to go with the ball. They generated an anemic .62 PPP, with the same number of turnovers (13) as made baskets. They were having to shoot over a taller defender in virtually every matchup, and after a while refused to even try to challenge the rim. The Wildcats had seven blocked shots, while also coming up with that same number of steals.
The Kentucky offense was a mixed bag, though not much was required. It is not easy to get into a working rhythm against WVU because of all of the fouls, and Karl-Anthony Towns never got into the flow, managing only one point over his own 13 foul-plagued minutes. But seeing Devin Booker knock down shots was a big confidence boost, and the Wildcats converted 26-32 FTs, raising the season level to 72.5 percent.
Now on to the tactical challenge of guarding Notre Dame, made more difficult because there is only one day to prepare. But before you get too excited about the prospects of the Fighting Irish using their ball skills to pull an upset, the gap in rebounding, and the utter lack of ND front-court depth, are major flags blowing wildly in the breeze. The challenge for the oddsmakers, and subsequently the marketplace, is finding the right range for a rather tricky Total.
At Los Angeles
WISCONSIN 79 NORTH CAROLINA 72 - The Tar Heels were able to get some unexpected minutes out of the injured Kennedy Meeks. Brice Johnson and Justin Jackson played with confidence up front. As a team they knocked down 8-13 triples, and had 12 assists vs. only four turnovers. Yet not only did they lose, but they failed to cover the +6.5 that was readily available before some late pullback to +6. Wisconsin simply does not make it easy.
First the ATS result, a genuine Bad Beat for those that had Carolina. The only time the Badgers ever led the spread was the final score, a late-game sequence that got set up by an inadvertent foul. Wisconsin took possession up 71-70 with 0:54 remaining, and it was going to be difficult for a dog player to lose at that juncture – the setting called for the Badgers to run the clock down, for the Tar Heels to not foul, and nothing was going to happen for about 30 seconds. But Isaiah Hicks fouled Bronson Koenig near mid-court, when he was a little too aggressive hedging off of a screen, and the floodgates opened. With Hicks also missing a pair of FTs on the ensuing possession, enough water came through to drown UNC tickets.
It did not have to come to that for Carolina – the Tar Heels led by seven twice, the last at 10:30, but Wiscy was able to rally keyed by a rather unexpected source. Bronson Koenig got into foul trouble, and Traevon Jackson was indeed rusty after missing 19 games. So at a crucial juncture it fell on the shoulders of Zak Showalter to run the offense. And under his watch it went from NC 53-46 to Wiscy 65-60, until Roy Williams had to call a time-out at 5:11. In that stretch Showalter went 3-3 from the field, and in his 8:00 of court time he had six points, a rebound, assist and steal, without turning the ball over. The Badgers needed something from him, and he delivered.
Which takes us to Jackson. Although Bo Ryan got him in the game early, and he dramatically knocked down a triple in his first game shot since January 11, he would not make another in 9:00 of uneven play. Can Ryan go to him with confidence if needed on Saturday? In what will be a physical grinder of an affair (more on that in a moment), his toughness could matter, but toughness without execution is not necessarily a plus.
The one player that brought his “A” level of confidence last night was Sam Dekker, scoring a career-high 23 points on 10-15 from the field, while also grabbing 10 rebounds. He helped key a 35-28 advantage on the boards that was not necessarily expected, and it was 22 Wisconsin defensive rebounds vs. only eight Carolina grabs on the offensive boards, despite the Tar Heels rating #5 in the nation this season in offensive rebound percentage. That matters, because it is going to be a war on the boards come Saturday…
ARIZONA 68 XAVIER 60 - Wisconsin did what Wisconsin does to beat North Carolina. Arizona did what Arizona does to beat Xavier. Which is why Roy Williams and Chris Mack are not drawing up game plans for Saturday this morning, despite the fact that their teams played so well.
Mack’s Musketeer’s brought about as much as they could. Matt Stainbrook (17 points and 10 rebounds) and Jalen Reynolds more than held their own inside against the athletic Wildcat front-court, and Dee Davis used that previous Sweet 16 experience to help keep the nerves of the others under control. From 1:51 before halftime, until 5:27 remained, they never trailed. At the 7:00 mark it was 53-49, and the play so even that it was going to be difficult to call it an upset, should Xavier maintain. But Arizona is so damn tough to score against, especially when a game is on the line and the Wildcats dig even deeper on the defensive end.
The Musketeers only made one FG over the final nine minutes, going 1-9 from the field with a pair of turnovers. But it again requires the Eye Test for proper definition – it was not so much bad offense as it was a tenacious defense that did not allow anything to come easily.
The Arizona problem comes on the offensive end, and it is a case in which the numbers can lie a bit. The Wildcats rate #7 in the nation on the best offensive efficiency charts, and they are not that at all. So much of their production comes from run-outs off of that defense, which is #3 overall, and generates easy opportunities. When they have to run stuff they often bog down, and that was the case most of the evening, until T. J. McConnell overcame a sloppy first half to take control, finishing with 17 points. But Sean Miller genuinely does not want his PG to be the leading scorer, and the rest of the starting lineup was only 11-29, including 2-7 beyond the arc.
Now here we go again, a rematch not all that far up the freeway from the 64-63 Wisconsin win in overtime in Anaheim nearly a year ago to the day (54-all at the end of regulation). That game was ridiculously close - over the final 17:11 of play it was never more than a one-possession margin. Arizona won the shooting 39.7 percent to 39.3, the rebounds 39-38, and had one fewer turnover, committing seven while Wiscy had eight. How is that for tight? It was the individual play of Frank Kaminsky, who had 28 points and 11 rebounds, that ultimately made the difference. On paper, Saturday’s rematch looks every bit as close. This could be special.
In the Sights…
The Atlanta defense has been a topic twice this week (full archive link at the bottom of the page), a Tuesday take detailing how an awkward schedule had thrown them out of sync, but also noting that Monday offered them a chance to sit through film study for the first time in weeks, and then a follow-up yesterday morning, after that defense was the catalyst in grinding out a win at Orlando. Time to call for more of the same tonight, and a ticket on #862 Under.
The key for the Hawks is two-fold – naturally being able to make some adjustments after finally getting some down time at home, but also in terms of the psychological aspect of making defense where they are going to hang their hats come playoff time (from Paul Millsap after Wednesday’s win – “It was simple. We got back to being us – getting stops.”). That means the offensive pace also recognizes that, and this becomes a classic game management night for Mike Budenholzer, with a trip to Charlotte immediately on deck.
The Heat will also contribute to the proceedings – as the rotation has consistently shuffled, Erik Spoelstra has tried to keep things manageable and under control, to the point that they now rate #29 in Pace, only Utah getting up and down the court less frequently. He saw this coming all along, best explained by a 19-8 run to the Under as road underdogs this season, slower being the better way to hang around. In their fourth road game in six nights that does not change, and with the first three on this trip playing Under by a collective 68.5 points, with neither Miami nor the opposition topping 93 in any game, and this setting does not bring the elements to break from that mold.
-----
As the Round of 32 becomes the Sweet 16, here are the reviews from the weekend action, with plenty of food for though as the Friday tipoff’s approach –
The Tourney Journey #7 – Sweet 16 sugar to the winners, while a Top Seed shoots its own foot…Has Calipari shortened his rotation…Survive and Advance, the Sequel?...Tokoto, took control…Irish eyes were smiling (though some had to hold back tears)…
The Tourney Journey #8 – Eight more spoons full of Sugar (none helping San Diego State’s shots go down)…The legacy guys bring out their membership cards…Archie Miller was right, it just worked out wrong…”Rock, Shock, Jayhawk” becomes the new Sunflower State chant…
The complete Point Blank Archive