Big props to Coach Cal for that shout out to Matthews. To be honest, after watching his 30 for 30 I tried to find a way to sign to him.
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I think they’re terrifying. Their ball movement and diverse weaponry is scary. They would have carved up Duke’s laughably lousy zone viciously. I hadn’t really paid attention to any Duke games post-the change to the zone. They struggle terribly to get to shooters on the perimeter, particularly on any penetration into that gaping hole in the middle of the zone. Speaking of, has anyone ever seen a zone that lets the man in the middle catch the ball that close to the basket? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that. It’s one thing to make Ben Carter catch the ball near the foul line. It’s another thing to let Vick catch the ball where he can drop in a 5-6 footer.
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It’s interesting that Self has the rep of being a lousy tournament coach. He has the same number of championships as Izzo and has made it to at least the E8 more times. He’s had higher seeds, I guess, and there’s something special (if arbitrary) about reaching the F4 – this is “only” his 3rd. I don’t think he’s a March wizard or anything - and a couple of his teams have looked pretty weak in the tournament - but especially combined with his conference dominance (which includes 8 B12 tourney titles), he probably doesn’t get his due.
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I still can’t figure out how Duke’s defense was so statistically good after the switch to zone. It never passed the eye test to me once. They left the middle wide open every single possession of every single game. In a weird way I actually wanted to see JB get a chance to attack it because I think Moe could have shredded it from the middle
The impact of Duke’s switch to zone was largely a media creation. If you look at the trend of their ADJDE, it’s pretty similar before and after the switch, and when you take into account how many freshman were playing, any improvement could largely have resulted from getting used to the college game. There were outliers right before (St. Johns) and right after (Louisville, Cuse), maybe because of the element of surprise or maybe just randomness. Basically, Duke had a bunch of tall, athletic guys that can make it hard to score on them when they’re trying.
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Oakland being so overrated is no surprise. Their season was a disaster.
They were definitely trying against Kansas and they were lost.
I’ve never seen a zone allow that much easily accessible space in the middle and allow the guy in the middle to catch the ball with such an easy scoring opportunity. That was a worse “we stink at defense so let’s just gamble on this” than some of our worst 1-3-1’s were.
Yup – and it was still Kansas’s worst points per possession of the tournament and second worst in their last 13 games.
Welp, there goes the “He’ll never leave his alma mater” thing.
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Louisville is a higher-profile program, but he was able to earn a #1 seed at Xavier all the same, and he was coaching his alma mater where he was adored. I don’t know about that move for him. It kind of reminds me of RichRod leaving WVU for us.
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These moves always seem to involve a Brinks truck. Let’s see what that contract says.
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I hear what your saying, but (1) Xavier got a 1-seed yet they weren’t that good, ending up 15th on kenpom (they were 17 in kp luck factor); (2) apparently his wife is from Louisville and her family still lives there, and (3) $4 million dollars a year is a lot.
Does anyone feel like Louisville should have been a smoking crater for a while?
It just seems outrageous. Prostitutes and cash and cheating as recently as Bowen? It really bugs me that their punishment is that they get to go out and get a shiny brand new top of the line coach.
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And to think that we hired Brian Ellerbe after we fired Fish…
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Yes, I know the thing is that we kind of decided to commit seppuku with our program, but it’s mind boggling to me that there aren’t serious consequences for the school itself when teams get punished these days. Louisville just made a complete mockery of everything. That should leave a mark.
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It’s infuriating.
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We should totally have a conversation, though, about how college players should be paid to change the subject.
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