Ahhhhh got it. Knew all that too and just couldn’t put it together. That’s a great photo.
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hilarious that the Pac-12, a nominal Power 6 conference, is so stank that it doesn’t have a single protected seed
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Lunardi still has Indiana in? Wow.
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Just watched the ‘lowlights’ and saw the final play. Langford definitely with the body on the drive by Washington, finish at the rim. The lead official on the play is the least experienced official on this crew, and is the same guy who made a good call on the Langford push on the rebound one possession earlier. Obvious missed call, gotta keep reffing until you get to the locker room. Certainly looked like Marble from MSU was mugging Liddell down low on just about every matchup during the game. Can expect the same level of contact when we go play in East Landfill.
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He knows they’re winning on Saturday
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Yeah, not exactly sure why. Those Iowa wins are doing a lot of heavy lifting (but Minnesota and MSU also have big wins and bad losses)
He’s not the only one, they’re the 2nd to last at-large on BracketMatrix, in on 84 brackets. Granted a lot of them are pre the loss last night. They’re still on on a lot of the ones that were updated this morning as well.
Game on Saturday is at noon. That’s a very quick turnaround. Might expect a few more bench minutes than normal
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#StartTWill
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I was at the NC game, Nova vs Michigan, back in 2018. BQ is at his heart of hearts a Nova kind of guy. He and Dana O’Neill have that connection. Doesn’t make him any less of a great sports writer. But if you had been in my seats - I accidentally got a great seat 10 rows from the court deep in Philly central - you would have felt the visceral difference between a Michigan environment and a Nova environment. I would imagine that Nova and MSU have much more in common in their cultures. Lots of intimidation in the theme music, a very NBA-level of physicality, kind of a negative/toxic over the top vibe geared towards the bully mentality. There are good people affiliated with both programs, the guy sitting next to me was apologizing profusely for all the Philly yo bro’s taunting me for my Maize jacket & Michigan hat. MSU culture is closer to a Philly culture - in my observation.
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Spartan Jawns?
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Sure was. Plenty of knee in the hammy and stuff like that.
That type of game can be difficult to officiate. Nobody’s interested in hearing a whistle every other time down the floor, and the same people who complain about passing on obvious calls will be the first to call you whistle happy if you do continue to call fouls. Tonight’s crew would possibly tell you “Hey, we called 42 fouls. What do you want us to do?”. The right answer is obvious. You should call what you see, and if the players want to keep fouling and play a 3 hour game where everyone fouls out, that’s on them. One thing is for sure, though. If you allow the game to devolve into what happened tonight, you look terrible and you’ve done the game a disservice.
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Two comments on this:
- Brendan is a St Joe’s guy. They are rivals with Villanova.
- I don’t really see the Nova/MSU connection even in the slightest bit.
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Rob Dauster said that it was Skip the Dishes calling because postgame meal arrived early (dead serious). Mentioned he talked to other coaches when they’re on the road and 80% of the time those meals arrive early. During a pandemic with the arena closed nobody is letting these guys in.
I can’t believe he held it together the way he did. He looked like he was going to go off a few times, particularly when they asked him about the shot clock violation on the Washington 3.
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Thanks for that information, I stand corrected. Before I ever knew who Phil Martelli was, I was a huge Cinderella St. Joe’s fan back in the early aughts. Unfortunately, before I knew who Calipari was, I was a huge Cinderella UMass fan too back in the mid-90’s. I love Brendan’s writing, have had a few Rye’s this evening. So I digress.
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Gabe Brown with another solid outing. 11 and 5, 4/6 from the field.
Still can’t understand why it took this long for Brown to get more minutes
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I can’t either. I really think it took losing Loyer and and Hauser just becoming so unplayable against some teams. Izzo was forced not to auto-sub after Brown made one mistake and realized that playing him tons of minutes might actually help the team.
They were playing a consistent 12 man rotation all year. Now without Loyer and with the minutes for Hauser and Hall being reduced you’re at least getting vaguely close to a logical rotation.
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Because Izzo is in love with players of the Thomas Kithier archetype who are unskilled but generally in the right spot on defense and are happy to set screens and muck it up down low. Gabe Brown is obviously skilled but also mistake-prone and I honestly think that little Tommy relished getting to yank Brown and force him to watch a lesser player get his minutes. Don’t question the Napoleon of Iron Mountain!