Tag: NCAA tournament (Page 5 of 9)

      Ty Lawson toe injury update (3/24)

      March 24, 2009 /

      From UNC Basketball, a quote from UNC assistant coach, Joe Holladay, commenting on North Carolina’s practice on Monday.

      “I saw him today. We didn’t do a whole lot today, but we put up a lot of shots. He participated in everything we did [in practice today]. He’s sore, but he always moves around like an old man … He’s moving around a little cautiously and is able to shoot the basketball, which is a good sign because there for a week he couldn’t even come up on his toe to shoot. So I think he is doing as well as can be expected.”

      It’s a good sign (for Tar Heel fans) that he was able to shoot after hearing a “popping” sound in his toe against LSU on Saturday.

      College Basketball, March Madness, News

      World Baseball Classic needs format changes to become a global event

      March 23, 2009 /


      Entrepreneurs have said that timing is a key ingredient for making a good idea into a successful business venture. Major League Baseball has failed to read its own marketplace in regards to the World Baseball Classic. It is just bad timing to play this tournament at the beginning of spring training.

      Commissioner Bud Selig has said that March is the only realistic time of the year to play the WBC. I disagree with him. This tournament needs to be moved to the middle of the summer if the WBC is going to become baseball’s premier global event. If not, then do not expect crisp, memorable games from athletes not yet in game shape.

      The United States’ three-run come-from-behind victory over Puerto Rico last Tuesday night should have been the top story the next morning. Instead, the outcome was scrolled underneath a highlight package of a NIT opening round game or copy filler in your local newspaper.

      Why?

      Well, sport fans are not watching or paying attention to the WBC. No, they’re preoccupied with the NCAA tournament that has firmly established itself as a the major sporting event for this time of the year.

      Fans cannot get excited about the WBC if the best players in baseball are not playing in the event. And the ones that are playing, many of them are not ready to compete at a world-class level. Where’s Tim Lincecum or Roy Halladay? They should be anchoring the United States pitching staff in this competition. Team USA should not be relying on the arms of Jeremy Guthrie or Ted Lilly in an elimination game.

      Do you think the Netherlands would have defeated the Dominican Republic twice in a competition if they were playing at mid-season? And wouldn’t it be great to see Johan Santana of Venezuela trading strikes with Japan’s Dice-K for all the world to watch. This could happen if the WBC is played every two years in place of the All-Star Game in July. How about a single elimination format, with the finals to be played on Sunday evening in front of a prime time audience? No other sporting event would be competing with baseball for the almighty TV ratings.

      Baseball owners might not have any interest in giving up a week’s worth of revenue during the high point of their year, and the idea of scrapping the All-Star game every two years might be enough to give the baseball purist a heart attack, but some playoff contenders might welcome a week off to catch their breath for the second half of the baseball season.

      Changes need to take place to make the WBC a world event. Right now, this tournament is nothing more than glorified spring training contest.

      March Madness, MLB, Television

      Bracket update and Sweet Sixteen preview

      March 23, 2009 /

      Those of you that followed my picks, or at least leveraged my analysis to some extent, should find that you’re still alive in your pool. Unless, of course, your pool is so big that even if all of your picks come in, there is someone who’s already ahead of you that has predicted the same outcome.

      I’m in three moderately sized pools – 26, 31 and 105 brackets – and I’m still very much alive in each one. Essentially, I need to get three of my Final Four picks – Pitt, UConn, Louisville and Gonzaga – to come in, and Pitt needs to win it all. Granted, with the way the Panthers are playing (and the Bulldogs, to a certain extent), I don’t feel great about my chances, but I’m still alive and that’s all you can ask for. If I had it to do all over again, I think I’d take UConn to win it all. They have been by far the most impressive of the top seeds. Still, if I’m right and it’s a Pitt/UConn final, you have to like the Panthers’ chances after already beating the Huskies twice this year.

      If you’ve been following our coverage, you’ll probably know that the 2+ point Sagarin favorites got off to a rough start in the first round (21-8, or 72%). Normally, this system hits at about an 85% rate, so it makes sense that it bounced back in a big way (12-0) in the second round, making it 33-8 (80%) through two rounds. (Keep in mind, even though the Sagarin ratings change throughout the tourney, I’m sticking with the pre-tourney ratings when calculating overall records because that’s all we have to go by when we’re filling out our brackets.)

      The Kansas/West Virginia game was a tough call, but I sure didn’t think that the Mountaineers would lose to Dayton. Since I entered three pools, I picked Kansas in one pool to go to the Elite Eight instead of West Virginia, and needless to say, my margin for error is a bit wider in that bracket.

      But enough about my brackets – let’s move on to the preview of the Sweet Sixteen. I’ll give my thoughts on each of the eight games, provide some statistics and maybe recommend a wager or two for the gamblers out there. Any Sagarin stats I refer to from here on out are the updated numbers, because I’m going to try to predict the future instead of measuring the past.

      THURSDAY’S GAMES

      #5-seed Purdue vs. #1-seed UConn (in Glendale, AZ)
      Tip-Off: 7:07 PM ET
      Sagarin Ratings: UConn (93.81), Purdue (87.70)
      Line: UConn -6.5
      The Boilermakers got off to a great start against Washington and held off a late run with some solid defense. Meanwhile, UConn has coasted, outscoring their two opponents 195-113. The Huskies will be challenged in this game because Purdue isn’t going to give up. They’re going to keep coming at you, so if you don’t stay focused for 40 minutes, you may be in trouble. But the bottom line is that UConn has more talent, and they should be a six- or seven-point favorite. Purdue’s best bet is to run an effective pick-and-roll, which is a good way to pull Hasheem Thabeet away from the basket and potentially get him into foul trouble. Thabeet will probably be covering JaJuan Johnson, so if he screens for E’Twaun Moore 20 or 30 times over the course of the game, the Bollermakers might be in business. The Sagarin difference and the line are about the same, so I wouldn’t recommend putting any hard-earned dollars on this game. UConn should be able to pull this one out, but unless the Huskies run them off the court, Purdue should have enough grit to keep it close.

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      College Basketball, March Madness, MLB

      Fake controversy mars end of Western Kentucky-Gonzaga game

      March 21, 2009 /

      There was some controversy at the end of the Western Kentucky/Gonzaga game. WKU head coach Ken McDonald tried to call a timeout, but the refs didn’t see him. There was one Hilltopper — A.J. Slaughter — trying to call a timeout, but even he didn’t look like he was sure about what he was doing. He was facing the middle of the court sort of half-heartedly calling a timeout instead of looking around and trying to get the attention of the ref. Moreover, Jeremy Evans grabbed the ball out of the basket and inbounded the ball almost immediately, so the refs did their job by trying to get down court. If McDonald wants his team to call a timeout there, he needs to cover that in practice. The clock stops on a make at the end of the second half, so there’s no rush to get the ball in. The players on the court have time to take a breath and look to the bench. Since Evans inbounded the ball so quickly, there wasn’t time for that to happen.

      In the post game, Greg Anthony and Seth Davis argued about whether or not the refs were to blame. Anthony said, “Absolutely the officials missed it on this occasion. There’s no doubt about it. You’ve gotta have some assumption there as an official and still if that play continues, Seth, you’ve at least gotta give them the benefit of the doubt.”

      Davis disagreed by pointing out that there was only one player signaling for a timeout and he didn’t do it emphatically. Meanwhile, he said, they inbounded the ball right away and the refs are running down court.

      Davis is absolutely right in this case. The officials are trying to officiate the game. They aren’t looking at every player to see if they are halfheartedly calling a timeout. They’re not even supposed to be looking at the coaches to see if they want a timeout, especially when the team inbounds the ball immediately. Their focus is supposed to be on the action.

      The bottom line here is that the Hilltoppers were ill prepared for this scenario and that McDonald’s fault. Period.

      College Basketball, March Madness

      TSR’s running diary of March Madness, Part III

      March 21, 2009 /

      One thing that I failed to mention in yesterday’s recap was #13-seed Cleveland State’s upset of #4 Wake Forest. Now the headline at Fox News reads “Cleveland State Shocks Wake Forest” but the win isn’t really shocking at all. The Demon Deacons’ uneven play has led to several so-called “upsets” this season; they lost to Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Miami and North Carolina State in ACC action. They were a combined 7-1 against the top five teams in the conference — Duke, North Carolina, Clemson, Florida State and Boston College — so clearly Wake is a team that has a tendency to play to the level of its opponent.

      But give Cleveland State credit, they came out like gangbusters, hitting three three-pointers in the first two minutes to give the Vikings a 9-0 lead. This is a team that only averages 4.9 made threes per game, and the Vikings had five in the first 10 minutes of action. (Oddly enough, they only made one more over the last 30 minutes.) The two teams played evenly for most of the game, and Wake Forest managed to cut the lead to six with 11:09 to play, but Cleveland State went on an 11-1 run over the next four minutes to push the lead back to 16.

      This win is considered the first big upset of the season, but I was more surprised by how Dayton upended West Virginia, a team that numbers-wise — and I’m talking Sagarin and Pomeroy numbers — looked like it had the tools to make a run. Bracket-wise, I’m not doing all that well. Florida State, Ohio State, Utah State and Butler lost by a total of nine points and each had a few chances to move on but failed to capitalize. My picks aren’t dead yet by any means, 14 of my Sweet Sixteen and seven of my Elite Eight are still alive, so like anyone, I just need to hit two or three of my final four and have my overall winner (Pitt) come in. (And given how Pitt played against East Tennessee State, I’m not feeling all that hot about that pick!) Another key is that potential Gonzaga/North Carolina matchup next week. It would really help if Ty Lawson stayed hobbled, allowing the Bulldogs to pull the upset. It will be interesting to see if he plays today against LSU.

      On the whole, my picks are suffering because teams with a 2+ point Sagarin advantage are just 21-8 (72%) so far this year. Usually, this system is right about 85% of the time. I was also just 1-3 when I picked games another way. I trumped a 2+ point Sagarin advantage in the Marquette/Utah State game, thinking that the Aggies would pull the upset (which they almost did) because the Golden Eagles were without Dominic James. I picked FSU because of the 3+ seed advantage (which is right 75% of the time) and picked Butler because of the team’s stellar road/neutral record (and a lack of confidence in LSU and the entire SEC). My picks lost those three games by a total of eight points. The game I nailed was the Oklahoma State win over Tennessee, and I picked the Cowboys because of better guard play. Byron Eaton came through big time.

      I’ll be back later on (on this post) to blog some of the day’s action…

      5:41 PM: I haven’t posted today because there wasn’t anything really to post about. Villanova spanked UCLA. UConn destroyed Texas A&M. The Wildcats were basically playing a home game, and ‘Nova jumped all over the Bruins. UCLA just couldn’t match Villanova’s athleticism and energy, and if Duke is fortunate enough to get past Texas, ‘Nova will give them all (or more) that they can handle. UConn just looked great. If 7’3″ Hasheem Thabeet can stay on the court, he’s a serious game-changer in the middle.

      But the game of the day so far was the Washington/Purdue matchup in Portland. It’s frustrating when you’re rooting for a team and they trail the entire game but get it close at the end. It’s almost like they get off to a crappy start and have to expend so much energy just to cut into the lead that they don’t have the energy (or the poise, in this case) to tie the game up or take the lead. The Huskies squandered so many chances to regain the lead, and they essentially wasted their virtual home court. We have to give a ton of credit to Purdue for having the mental focus to come out so strong and be able to play the tough defense necessary to close the deal. There were no easy shots for Washington, and that’s a big part of what made the second half so frustrating for Husky fans.

      Ty Lawson ended up starting (and North Carolina pulled away in the second half), but the story will be how that big toe responds over the next few days. He was not himself out there — he didn’t have the same burst and he was clearly bothered by the injury. It was funny to see the Duke fans going nuts when LSU was keeping the game close. I’m sure the North Carolina fans would do the exact same thing if the roles were reversed. It’s what makes that Duke/UNC rivalry one of the best in all of sport.

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      College Basketball, March Madness

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