Point Blank – March 20, Part II
The Tourney Journey #4 – The Gangs that Couldn’t Shoot Straight (too many of the thrills, came from spills)…The Values of the Venues…
Now that the Thursday round is complete it is time to take a small breath (there are few deep ones until early next week), fully appreciating the magic of how close many of those games were, but also acknowledging that the quality of play was also not very good. In going through some of the end-game turnarounds it really does come across as more of a case of teams with the leads playing poorly (Baylor-SMU-LSU), than the underdogs necessarily rising up. And while there will be the usual Bad Offense/Good Defense conundrums, there really were a lot of bricks being thrown up.
At the closing lines the markets were calling for 135.9 points per game, but there were only 128.4 in regulation. The Thursday field shot 42.2 percent overall, and 33.2 from 3-point range. Those results will be broken down by region at the end of the game recaps, so that you can get a better feel for the impact of each venue, in the “Courting Advantages” section, but on a whole the defenses were far ahead of the guys playing with the ball.
This is also going to be an interesting morning to see how the markets react. Many smaller bettors got roughed up, with enough shredded Teaser and Parlay tickets in Las Vegas to construct a papier-mache monument. Expect to see some anti-Big 12 sentiments in play (although the ACC also had a dismal ATS day, a 3-0 SU softens the light), but will there be some that may also flock to the underdogs perhaps a day late (and many a dollar short)? This is a day in which reading the action will nearly be as intriguing as following the games.
Now on to the Thursday night session, which brought a few more nail biters, but also had a couple of big favorites hold serve, with Villanova nearly winning at love…
At Jacksonville
NORTH CAROLINA 67 HARVARD 65 - The Tar Heels managed to concoct a microcosm of their season in a single game – if you did not watch them at all during the regular campaign, you were offered a Cliff’s Notes version that pretty much sums it up – extremely talented and capable, yet frustratingly inconsistent. They can rebound with just about anyone in the field, and there is an athletic front-court to create matchup problems for just about any team not nicknamed Wildcats. But what they do wrong will continue to haunt, and it nearly took them out of the tourney last night.
Close your eyes and imagine this - Carolina outshoots Harvard 55.1 percent to 38.2, and also win the boards 35-26. Blowout city, right? If you only had access to those numbers, how much -9.5 would you have laid? And also add that it was 52-36 with 15:00 to play. Yet even with those shooting and rebounding advantages the Tar Heels found themselves trailing 65-63 in the final minute.
The issue is one that will not be new to faithful readers, but let’s link back since there are a lot of new faces at tourney time. It started back in late January, with “Marcus Paige didn’t have a turnover last night (his teammates had 20)” and you can refer to Monday’s “What a Bettor Better Know” wrap-up (link at the bottom of the page) for more on that theme. The big problem has been that the Tar Heels may have a lot of athleticism, but outside of Paige the ball handling can be extremely problematic. That was the case again on Thursday. They turned the ball over on a mind-boggling 26.6 percent of their possessions, and while that would be the fault of the guy running the offense with most teams, not this bunch. Paige only had one turnover in 39 floor minutes, to go with six assists. All other Tar Heels? Twice as many turnovers (16), as assists (8).
It becomes a salient point as the matchup becomes Arkansas on Saturday – the Razorbacks are going to press all over the floor. The question is whether Mike Anderson has seen enough North Carolina film to know that trapping Paige to get the ball out of his hands can be a major tactical advantage. One of the conundrums in handicapping is seeing something that a team can do that would be effective, but not being sure that they coach involved will also be aware of it.
ARKANSAS 56 WOFFORD 53 - Of course Anderson and his Razorbacks almost did not make it to Saturday’s matchup. And the fact that they struggled in the particular manner in which they did also raises some flags about the ability of their presses to challenge Carolina – for all of the talk about the “40 minutes of hell” principles, this defense is just OK, nothing more than that.
Arkansas could never force Wofford out of a comfort zone. The Terriers only turned the ball over eight times, and there were just four Razorback steals. But what the underdog could not do was make shots – 18-57 from the field, including 7-24 beyond the arc. Key cog Karl Cochran suffered through a 4-19 evening, going 0-8 over the final 15:00. Yet they were still right there.
There just was not much to like from Arkansas, which had more turnovers, and grabbed fewer rebounds. The end-game defense was also not set well, with Wofford twice getting good looks at 3-point attempts in the final 10 seconds that would have sent the game to OT. So while there is some intrigue with the ability of the Razorbacks to turn the Tar Heels over on Saturday, there is also a rather ominous matchup when they do get into the half-court - North Carolina is #6 in the nation in offensive rebound percentage, while Arkansas is an awful #308 at clearing the defensive glass. That really matters; even Wofford was able to grab 14 offensive boards last night.
At Pittsburgh
VILLANOVA 93 LAFAYETTE 52 - There wasn’t anything Lafayette could to do impact this game; the only hope for the Leopards was that the Wildcats would play poorly. They didn’t. Villanova’s chemistry was sublime, with six players reaching double figures despite none of them playing 30 minutes, and Phil Booth (nine points in 20 minutes) nearly got there as well. It was an unselfish team taking care of business the way that a properly-focused #1 seed should.
NC STATE 66 LSU 65 – I had talked about this one on the Pregame First Preview radio show on Monday, offering up the Wolfpack against an LSU team that I pegged as talented, but lacking in the polish to win a close game under pressure. The idea was not quite good enough, with the Tigers indeed showing their nerves when it mattered most. The problem is that NC State simply did not play well enough to take better advantage.
What was expected to be a game in which the Wolfpack would win the key PG battle did not turn out that way – Anthony Barber had more turnovers than assists, and Tim Quarterman came up big for the Tigers, with 17 points, nine rebounds, seven assists and only two turnovers. But after he lead was built out to 62-48 at 9:00, Quarterman was one of many LSU players that faltered down the stretch. The last made Tiger FG came at 10:25, and they missed their last six FT attempts over 3:59, after Quarterman had made the first of two on that trip. Those were their last points of the game.
What the stats do not show, but the Eye Test does, was how LSU also broke down on defense, allowing a series of wide open triples to NC State at crunch time. But every one of them were missed – Ralston Turner at 3:05, 2:00 and 0:51; Trevor Lacey at 1:13; and Barber at 1:05. It was not what the trailing team did right, but rather what the pace horse did wrong, and that does not leave a feeling of much confidence in the Wolfpack, and also whether they came away with much confidence in themselves. They can athletically compete with Villanova, but it will take much more polish than their Thursday showing if they are going to compete.
At Louisville
CINCINNATI 66 PURDUE 65 – Here comes yet another of the Thursday games when it was as much about what the team with the lead did wrong, as what the challenger did right, at crunch time. Purdue led 56-49 at 0:48, and that is a mountain of an advantage vs. an offensively-challenged opponent. But a couple of missed FTs, a turnover, and inability to come up with stops sent the Boilermakers to overtime, and eventually home.
Although Mick Cronin is only able to watch from a distance, the Cincinnati style has not changed – the Bearcats scrap and claw on defense, and hope to grind away on offense to find enough points over the course of most games. They will outwork just about any team of equal of lesser ability, and a few that are a rung above them, but some of the Thursday takeaways are discomforting given that Kentucky is on deck. Cincinnati got out-rebounded 51-38, and had to rely on Purdue missing 22 of 26 attempts beyond the arc. There was some roulette in play on the shooting, but it is the rebounding that needs your attention as you look to Saturday.
While the Bearcat defense was it usual physical self this season, the boards have been another matter – they are only #239 at clearing the defensive glass, allowing offensive rebounds 32.3 percent of the time. The Boilermakers came down with their own misses 43.8 percent last night, grabbing 21, vs. 28 Cincy defensive caroms. That is ominous when Kentucky is up next – the Wildcats, as one may surmise, are among the better offensive rebounding teams out there, rating #5 at 40.2 percent. The Cincinnati defense will play hard and come up with stops on Saturday; it is in getting the ball after those stops that the pointspread outcome will likely be decided.
KENTUCKY 79 HAMPTON 56 - Kudos to Buck Joyner and his Pirates for coming out and playing hard the entire game, shaving a 35-point deficit down to the final of 23. Those sort of back-doors rarely happen, because most underdogs give up the fight once the margin grows too large. Nothing to see from the Wildcats, who merely got a nice little workout in a game in which the starters only played 120 of the 200 floor minutes.
At Portland
UTAH 57 STEPHEN F. AUSTIN 50 – This one went to the pocket but it did not come easy, in an ugly disjointed game in which the two defenses far out-played the opposing offenses. For Utah it was having the size and tenacity to challenge the Lumberjack shooters in a way that they are not accustomed to, limiting them to 17-51 from the field, with seven of those attempts blocked. But the Utes struggled mightily against the SFA defensive pressure, turning the ball over on an alarming 28.3 percent of all possessions.
The Utah offense imploded from the top down, and only an unlikely 18 points on 7-7 shooting from Jakob Poetl, in the paint against an under-sized opponent, enabled the margin (he also had five blocked shots and eight rebounds in a solid outing, a confidence boost with Joshua Smith coming up). Key cogs Delon Wright and Brandon Taylor combined for 10 turnovers, while shooting only 3-12. They struggled against an aggressive defense that forced them to begin running their sets far from the basket, and never did get comfortable. But the defense was solid – the only made basket by the Lumberjacks over the final 3:30 was a misfired triple by Ty Charles at 1:30 that banked in.
Late-game banked 3-pointers of pointspread consequence turned out to be part of the Portland evening…
GEORGETOWN 84 EASTERN WASHINGTON 74 - Many of you may have missed this end-game, perhaps calling it a day when Georgetown twice built the lead out to 23 midway through the second half. What you did not see was not just a frenzied rally, or in this case yet one more collapse by a team playing with a lead, but also an uproarious circus of an end-game that could be a commercial for Alka Seltzer, regardless of whether you had the favorite or the underdog.
To set up the end-game, the Eagles did not lose fight, forcing six turnovers over the final 8:37. They never got close enough to be in the hunt to win, but they were in a position to scramble it up, and there were 28 points scored over the final 1:52. Some were bizarre – a four-point play by Tyler Harvey at 1:38, when he was only trying to draw a foul on a 3-point attempt, and threw up a one-handed shot. That brought the game down to 83-74, and set up a back-and-forth right around the pointspread that played out the rest of the way.
The game looked like it was going to fall 79-69, when the Hoyas got possession with the shot clock off, but Eastern still would not quit, Harvey coming up with a steal and a layup to cut it to eight, instead of allowing the dribble-out. A pair of FTs put it back on 10, before it finally came under the spread at 81-74, on a triple by Harvey at 0:20 that might have missed the rim by a full two feet if the back-board had not been there for a little geometry. D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera made one of two at the line to make it 82-74, and when Drew Brandon missed a triple on the ensuing possession, it looked like the game would fall right where the closing spread was in most precincts. But instead of the classy move of dribbling out, Georgetown’s Jabril Trawick drove for a dunk just before the buzzer. Remarkably entertaining, unless you had the dog.
As for the game itself, there just was not much useful that can be taken away. The Hoyas were able to shoot 52.1 percent, making 11-23 triples, against one of the weakest defenses in this year’s tourney, but the game flow was inconsistent because Joshua Smith only played seven minutes due to foul trouble. He only took two shots, making one, and did not have a rebound.
Courting Advantages…
As Thursday turns to Saturday, here is your look at the venues themselves, so study the impact on shooting for teams that are not accustomed to playing there. Keep in mind that all of the teams will get some Friday practice time, so the acclimation will get better. Only regulation points are counted.
Total Points FG% 3P% FT%
Pittsburgh 137.3 128.5 44.7 31.3 68.9
Jacksonville 136.4 121.8 41.1 35.0 69.2
Louisville 132.1 122.8 37.7 29.7 68.3
Portland 137.9 140.5 45.6 36.4 74.3
Dining through the Dance, Thursday night session…
Chicken Mussamun Curry.
Courtesy of Chada (3400 South Jones), the official NCAA First-Round caterers of Point Blank. Look, if you want to stay fresh and sharp through long and frenzied days, eating properly matters.
This Week at Point Blank
Monday – What a “Bettor Better Know” – The Dance to come; The Weekend in Review
Monday – The 2015 NCAA Bracket
Tuesday – Time for some NIT-pickin’ (while watching BYU and Ole Miss struggle to guard each other)…If LeBron can’t chase down a rebound, why was he out there?...When “You can’t get there from here” matters…
Wednesday – The Tourney Journey, #1 (The Meek shall inherit Kentucky)…The Oddsmakers were “Totally” wrong in the NIT…Taking advantage of Silly Seeding Suppositions…
Thursday – The Tourney Journey #2 (cue Dorothy, “There’s no place like home”)…Aiming for the calm, during the storm…It was more bad North Florida Defense than great Robert Morris offense…The sad saga of a team snubbed…
Friday – The Tourney Journey #3 – Dog Day Afternoon…There are no cures for hangovers…The Big 12, wasn’t…