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Day 5 of the NCAA Tournament
Gonzaga-UCLA
The Zags Come Back and Hold On!
UCLA cruised into halftime, comfortably leading by 13 (46-33). Timme hitting everything he threw up, with 19 at the half. But he was all that Gonzaga had going. The Zags with 9 turnovers at the break.
Defense wasn't any better for the Bulldogs. Gonzaga couldn't stay in front of UCLA's Tyger Campbell. The UCLA point guard is named for Tiger Woods, although his parents obviously spelled it differently. Campbell grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa but attended high school at the La Lumiere school in La Porte, Indiana. 13 points and 5 assists in the first stanza. Two other Bruins, including Pac10 Player of the Year Jaime Jaquez, with double digit scoring in the first.
Then the second half started and suddenly UCLA couldn't score. Literally. They had no points at all for over 5 minutes with no field goals for over 11 minutes! That should have been the end of it, with the Zags leading by nine with 1:23 to go.
But uncharacteristic bone-headed plays by Gonzaga, missed free throws (two big misses by Timme, who's not great at the line) and Jacquez suddenly coming alive made for an exciting finish. Jacquez finally scored a layup and one with 1:17 to go to cut the lead to six.
The Campbell-Jaquez show re-energized and got UCLA within a bucket. A quick 3 by Amari Bailey put UCLA up 1 with 12 seconds to go! Gonzaga's Strawther then threw up an insane 3 from the logo that incredibly banked in. UCLA's Campbell drove the ball up court, lost control and fouled. The game wasn't even quite over at that point, but Gonzaga held on for the comeback victory.
Gonzaga went on a 22-4 run in the second half.
The Zags' pick and roll defensive was definitely better in the second, but UCLA missed a lot of layups and open 3s.
Jaime Jaquez hot and cold but finished with 29 points and 11 rebounds.
Drew Timme and his ridiculous moustache were dominant. 36 points and 13 boards. Respect.
These teams have played some memorable Madness games in recent years, to say the least. Advantage Gonzaga, but the margin is razor thin.
Named for Tiger Woods but Tyger Campbell seriously looks like Bob Marley.
FAU-Tennessee
Cinderella Lives!
Tennessee seemed in control in the second half, but FAU wouldn't go away. Then the Owls exploded, going on a 20-4 run over 6.5 minutes resulting in a double digit lead as they hit the stretch.
Tennessee missed their injured point guard, Zakai Ziegler. The Vols have one of the best defenses in the country, but they couldn't contain the speedy FAU guards who drove and kicked to the wing for open shots over and over.
FAU was poised, holding off a final Vols push to win by seven.
Two teams in this tournament have won 33 games. Houston is one. Florida Atlantic is the other.
FAU is located in Boca Raton. There's a lot of Spanish spoken in my house. Mainly not by me, but I believe boca raton means mouse's mouth. Evidently, boca also means inlet. And raton in this context somehow means jagged not mouse. Anyway, boca raton is an anachronistic Spanish terms for a jagged inlet.
Tourism dominates the current "Boca" economy, but at the turn of the 20th century this area was known for its pineapple farms.
FAU has over 30,000 students, which is nearly as many as Florida and Florida State. Famous alumni include Don Brewer, the drummer of Grand Funk Railroad.
"We're Coming to Your Town
We'll Help You Party Down
We're an American Band"
You don't learn rhyming patterns like that at UF.
The intercoastal waterway boosted development of Boca Raton.
President Johnson at the 1964 dedication of Florida Atlantic.
UConn-Arkansas
Adama Sanogo is a beast. Full stop. Absolutely killing Arkansas in the pick and roll. 16-2 UConn run the the first half. Total domination by the numbers. Rebounds: 22-9. Assists: 10-4. Field goal percentage: 60 (!) to 33.
Sanogo is observing Ramadan, which means he's had nothing to eat or drink all day. Johnson and Diarra from UConn doing the same.
UConn played great but Arkansas was totally out of control. Very sloppy and undisciplined play from the Hogs.
Evidently UConn destroyed Arkansas in the second stanza. I watched the other game like everyone else. UConn won by a lot. Sanogo was terrific (18 and 8).
The good news is that Arkansas coach Musselman kept his shirt on tonight.
That said, I would rather hang out with Musselman. UConn's Dan Hurley is wound a little too tight for my taste. But he's got a good team peaking at the right time. They are squarely in the top three of the remaining teams in this tourney. (They've got UCLA or Gonzaga in the next round, which will be a tough matchup either way.)
John Daly is from Arkansas and was at the game tonight. I'm not a golf fan, but when did he turn into father Chiristmas?
Kansas State-Michigan State
Instant Classic!
Great finish. Terrific game. Nowell was unreal. 20 points, 19 assists, 5 steals, 2 turnovers. He set the NCAA tournament record for assists. After turning an ankle early in the second half.
The videos are assist #18, which was insane. Nowell was arguing with his coach about the play call and then casually lobs a 40 foot pass to Johnson for a dunk (how was he that open??). Johnson pitched in 22 points and 6 boards.
Nowell had a performance for the ages, but jacking up those crazy deep 3s could have negated his spectacular effort.
Philly's own A.J. Hoggard had a great night for MSU with 25 points and 6 assists. Tonight, the Spartans nearly overcame a historic effort from Nowell and his Wildcats. Both teams left it all on the court.
Not a fan of that long Nowell 3 with 20 seconds to go in regulation, which he missed. Bad shot. Gave the ball back to MSU with the Spartans down two. Walker drove the lane for a contested layup. Tie game!
Five seconds to go. Contested layup by Nowell. Missed. Overtime!
Incredibly, the first overtime of the tournament!
They've mentioned it about a dozen times, but KSU-MSU is being played at MSG. Two K State players are from Harlem: Nowell and reserve Ismael Massoud (who hit some ridiculous 3s tonight, one from the logo). They were friends growing up, playing on opposing AAU teams.
Markquis Nowell playing for his Harlem team. His senior HS year, Nowell transferred to New Jersey basketball factory the Patrick School.
Nowell dropped 10 (!) dimes in the first half. Why do we call assists dimes? It actually dates way back to the Depression era when payphone calls cost a dime and everyone was broke. So, "dropping a dime" into the payphone was assisting someone.
Zoomers: Payphones were machines where the public could make calls after inserting money. A long distance call would result in an operator asking you to insert a pile of quarters into the payphone. They could be found on virtuallty every street corner in big cities, sometimes entire banks of them.
Zoomers part 2: Operators were employees of the phone company who would help with any of your communication needs. You could dial zero and ask the operator to call Joe Biden in Wilmington, Delaware and they would find the number and complete the call. No kidding.
That's a nasty assist right there.
I like Kansas Sate coach Jerome Tang. Seems like a good dude. I'm forgiving him the shots he took at my team after their big win last weekend. Emotions probably took over. Anyway, it's been quite a journey for Tang (a favorite space-age beverage from my youth). Jerome Tang and I are exactly the same age. That's 56 kids. I mention this because this is his first year leading a college program after 10 years as a high school coach and 19 years (!) as an assistant at Baylor (which included their championship two years ago). Seems like he's making up for lost time.
Kansas State has two star players, both of whom were named to All-American teams. Both have overcome adversity. Markuis Nowell is a supremely talented basketball player who was not blessed with height. He gets the most out of his 5 feet 8 inches (which is 5-7 on a good day). Kenyonte Johnson is lucky to be alive. I remember when he played for Florida. I also remember when he collapsed during a game at Florida State. Acute myocarditis. His heart stopped. Trainers kept him alive with mouth to mouth and then saved him with a defibrilllator (while Johnson lay on the floor in front of a capacity crowd).
That was in December 2020, when Johnson was a junior. His sophomore year, the 6'6" Johnson averaged 14 points and 7 boards. We was the pre-season SEC Player of the Year.
The Florida medical staff, not surprisingly, advised Johnson to retire from the sport. Johnson stayed with the team, graduating from Florida in 2022. They played Kentucky on senior night. By mutual agreement, Florida tipped the ball to Johnson and immediately called a timeout to take him out of the game. His first time on the court since 2020. It was an emotional moment.
Johnson was determined to play and found credible doctors to support him. Florida disagreed so he hit the transfer portal, ending up at Kansas State where he averaged 17.5 and 7 this season. He had 13 against UK last weekend including a dagger fade-away down the stretch.
As he was leaving work today, Tyler asked who I had K State or MSU. My head and my heart say the Wildcats from the plains.
I'm linking to the ABC story on the Johnson story from 2021. Warning: it includes him collapsing on the court.
Nowell and Johnson.
When he kissed the court, the camera was on Calipari. Great job CBS!
Madness News Never Stops
I think I've seen the Jacob Toppin ATT&T commercial approximately 5,000 already. Good thing I like it. The premise is good. Comparing someone who trades in their phone asap to a one-and-done (like UK's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander who is currently averaging over 30 points for the Thunder). Contrast this with the less tech obsessed and a four-year player like Jacob Toppin (who has a bonus covid year of eligibility left, although few expect him to use it). I'm biased, but Jacob, younger brother of the Knicks' Obie Toppin, is a pretty good actor. I'm not saying he's De Niro, but he's better than a lot of pros in national ads (looking at you Patrick Mahomes). Toppin says the experience was enjoyable (the trailer he used belongs to Paul McCartney, for some reason) but harder than you would think (4 hours on set to produce a 30 second commercial).
The Toppin ad is basically running on a loop even though my team is done, but there are versions for other schools. I guess this commercial features Gozaga although no one in it has anything to do with the Spokane college. Grizzlies center Steven Adams is from New Zealand and did not attend college. The woman playing Lilly is Uzbekistanian actress Milana Vayantrub (not kidding), who attended UC San Diego. The other two dudes are random extras. Makes total sense.
Jacob Toppin, UK mascot, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lilly. But who's that guy at the white board?
Is there a reason the dude in the Gonzaga jersey low fives Adams not once but three times?
Drew Timme may be a little too comfortable in these post-game interviews (which are now in the triple digits, I think).
I'm coming around to the idea that Fairleigh Dickinson over Purdue is the biggest upset in NCAA tournament history. My intial hesitation is due to my disdain for the antiquated style of basketball employed by Matt Painter. A few examples to demonstrate the lack of infrustructure supporting FDU athletics.
The total FDU athletic budget is $14 million. Purdue's is $82 million.
The FDU director of media relations is a student, Jordan Sarnoff. He's a junior. Jordan had to drive all night Sunday to get back to Jesey so he could attend class on Monday.
FDU does not have a band. Yes they do, you might exclaim, I saw them on TV! You saw A band, but that was not the FDU band. FDU's games were played in Columbus, home to one of the historically great college bands. But FDU reached out to Dayton University, which is about an hour away from Nationwide Arena, and asked them to help a brother out. The Dayton band showed up and learned the FDU fight song minutes before the Purdue game. There was just one problem. FDU doesn't have a band so none of their fans recognized the fight song. No one stood up, no one clapped, certainly no one sang words that no one knew. Gotta appreciate the enthusiasm of the Dayton band director, regardless.
Calipari lives rent free in Pitino's head. Don't believe me? At his first press conference as the St. Johns coach Pitino noted (jokingly) that "I want to take St. John's to another Final Four, so I can get rid of Calipari off my resume." He's refering to the fact that only two coaches have taken three different programs to the Final Four: Pitino (Providence, Kentucky, Louisville) and Calipari (UMass, Memphis and Kentucky). The takeway, as always, is that Kentucky is the bluest of the blue bloods, the ultimate coaching destination, college basketball at its most precious and pure.
Creighton is in the Big East? When did that happen? I guess they aren't a mid-major anymore. Quick, in which state is Creighton University?
The Coaching Carousel Starts Spinning
Rick Pitino's name came up in the Georgetown job search. But everyone expected he would take the St. John's job and stay in New York. That's exactly what happened and Iona went right out and hired Tobin Anderson, who coached upstatrt Farleigh Dickinson to an epic upset of #1 Purdue in the first round of the tourney. Anderson has only been at FDU a year, but he turned a four win team into 21-16 giant slayers. Fun fact, the last coach to lead FDU to a NCAA tourney victory was Jim Valvano in 1980. Georgetown wasted no time snapping up Providence's Ed Cooley to replace Patrick Ewing, who was just terrible at his alma mater (he lost 29 straight conference games; ouch!). Cooley is a Providence native, but DC is a high school hoops Mecca. Recruiting should be a whole lot easier for Cooley with the Hoyas.
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