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Day 8 of the NCAA Tournament
Miami with Epic Comeback!
This game was refreshing after the earlier contest. Nice pace, quality of play excellent. Two well coached teams.
Texas closed the half on a 9-4 run to take a 45-37 lead into the half. Texas hit seven 3s in the first, which is what they normally average for a game.
Miami's Isaiah Wong with only 2 at the break. He has to show up in the second for his team to have a chance.
Texas roared out of the locker room quickly building a double digit lead that extended to as many as 13. They looked like they were going to cruise to the win but then the shots finally started falling for Miami.
Miami went on a 13-2 run to storm back into the lead as we entered the stretch run. Back and forth with neither team building a lead.
Game tied at 79 with a minute to go.
Texas seemed out of gas; the 3s sure stopped falling in the second. Miami was clutch from the line - 28/32. Miami came back without hitting a single 3 in the second half.
Jordan Miller with 27 for Miami. Wong with 14, Pack 15.
Miami coach Jim Larrañaga has been on the big stage before, taking Cinderella George Mason to the Final Four in 2006.
Rodney Terry is Texas' interim coach. There's one word in that sentence that needs to be deleted, immediately.
Texas would have beaten either San Diego State or Creighton handily. But they were matched against a Miami team that would not be denied.
Awsome playground shot, that unfortunately is not legal.
The shooter was Nijel Pack, who was involved in a legit name-image-likeness (NIL) dust up. He signed a $400,000 deal to transfer from Kansas State to Miami (with Pack, KSU is in the Final Four). Problem was, that was way more than Isaiah Wong was getting and he threatened to leave the program if he didn't get the same. Miami evidently didn't match it but made Wong sufficiently happy that he stuck around. Bet he's glad he did.
THE CHRIS MACK SAGA
Coming into this season, Chris Mack was one of the hottest names in coaching. He took over the Texas Tech job in 2016. They quickly became one of the stingiest defenses in the country. In his third season Beard had the Raiders in the NCAA finals, which his team lost to Baylor. Two 18-win seasons did not dimish his reputation and when Texas fired Shaka Smart, Chris Mack was the first coach they called. Mack, previously a grad assistant at Texas, became the 25th coach of the Longhorns. His team won 21 games in 2022 and was 7-1 this year.
In the middle of the night on December 12, 2022 Beard's fiancée called the Austin police accusing Beard of assualt. His fiancée told the police that Beard "choked me, threw me off the bed, bit me, bruises all over my leg, going nuts." The choking was sufficiently severe that she feared for her life. Beard was arrested. Texas suspended Beard and then fired him in January. This was absolutely the right thing to do even though Beard's now former fiancée ultimately declined to press charges. Without her cooperation, the Austin prosecutors had little choice but to drop the ccase.
Last month, the University of Mississippi hired Beard as their head basketball coach, which is equal measures desperate and disgusting. When given an opportunity to address his arrest, Beard spoke a lot of words but said nothing. “She and I have agreed not to talk about the details of not only that night but kind of the nights that we went through this process,” Beard said. “But what I can tell you is, much of what was reported was not accurate, and that’s been proven with the case not only being dismissed but also the charges dropped.” Violence victims decline to press charges for myriad reasons; that doesn't absolve the abuser.
Beard will probably be successful, but Ole Miss has made a deal with the devil. And my guess is they will get burned. Chris Beard is ambitious to a fault. From 2012-2016 he held five different coaching jobs in five years. He acepted the head coaching job at UNLV in 2016 and then backed out a month later when the Texas Tech job opened. He didn't hesitate to leave Lubbock for the bigger stage in Austin. Chris Beard will win games in Oxford and then he will disappear.
I could say that Ole Miss doesn't have much of a reputation to sully. What I will say is that Texas took decisive action against a criminal and never looked back. Go Longhorns.
Not an Impressive Game
San Diego State Wins
Florida Atlantic Awaits in Final Four
How many air balls did both teams throw up in the first half? A bunch. Overall, not exactly elite level play on either side.
SDSU had no answer for Creighton big man Ryan Kalkbrenner. The 7'1" center from Missouri was really effective in the pick-and-roll (guarded by a guy 4 inches shorter). Kalkbrenner had 10 points at the break, with his team leading by five at halftime.
San Diego State started the second half with renewed purpose. Tought defense and effective dribble-drive offense gave the lead to the Aztecs at the first TV timeout. [I hope it's politically correct to love the Aztec mascot, because I do. Excellent logo as well.]
SDSU went cold allowing Creighton to retake the lead. Then Ceighton went cold too. Some awfully futile hoops for virtually the entire second half as we headed down the stretch with SDSU up a bucket.
Tense finish to a poorly played game. With about 30 seconds remaining and ahead by two, SDSU blew a lob pass entry on an out of bounds. You do not throw a pass like that toward the opposing team's basket. SDSU did, Creighton stole it and layed it in. Tie ballgame.
SDSU's Trammel got a last second shot from the free throw line. He was held on the shot. Officials do not want to call a foul in the situation but they did. It was the right call. Free throws to decide it. He missed the first. Hit the second. Aztecs to the Final Four!
Seiko played 23 minutes for SDSU. Didn't shoot, didn't score. 2 assists. Kaluma scored 12 and had 5 boards for Creighton. He's their go-to guy; they needed more from him to make a game of it.
How pathetic was the play on both sides, let me count the ways. 57-56 was the score. Pitiful. Creighton shot 40% from the field, SDSU 38%. Putrid. Creighton usually makes 9 3s a game; today they hit 2 and it took 17 shots to get them (that's 11.8%).
Creighton does not miss from the line. 91.2 from the chartity stripe as a team for this tourney, which is unreal. They were 10/11 today.
This cool logo replaced one that was problematic. Along the line of Cleveland's horribly racist Chief Wahoo. People who think criticizing offensive imagery like Wahoo is woke need to rethink their priorities. Rant over.
It was a foul. Good call.
Creighton's Arthur Kaluma and SDSU's Adam Seiko are half brothers. They met in the tourney last year as well, when Creighton rallied from a 9-point deficit in the final two minutes to win in overtime. Kaluma, who is five years younger but four inches taller, is known as a trash talker; Seiko, who is a sixth (!) year senior, says he lets his game do the talking. Before last year's tourney, the only time the brothers played an organized game of basketball was once in a YMCA league. Kaluma fouled Seiko hard when he was going for a layup resulting in a gash over his eye. Says Seiko: “I got furious. I was like, ‘Dude, how can you let that happen?’ My whole eye was bleeding. I had to go to urgent care, get it stitched up. Brothers, man.” Although they grew up in Southern California (Seiko) and Texas/Arizona (Kaluma), their family is originally from Uganda. They both played for the Uganda national team last summer.
Seiko on the left, Kaluma on the right.
Creighton has been coached by Greg McDermott since 2010, when he took over from long-time coach Dana Altman (after he moved to Oregon). Greg McDermott came with his son Doug, who would become a scoring machine leading him to be a three time first team All-American and consensus national Player of the Year. That surely was part of the reason the Big East came calling in 2013. Creighton also is a Jesuit school and the Big East is populated by catholic institutions. Finally, and signficnatly, Creighton has an impressively passionate fan base. Their arena seats almost 19,000 and they pack it (routinely in the top 10 for attendance - no kidding). Tourney success, however, has always eluded them. The last time they made the Eite 8, in 1941, only 16 teams were invited to the tourney, which was not televised becaused no one had a TV. Today, they play for a chance to represent Iowa in the Final Four.
Eddie Sutton coached at Creighton back in the early 70s. The school has produced 36 All-Americans, including Kyle Korver and (old-timers like me will remember) Paul Silas.
Creighton College was established in 1978 by Mary Creighton to honor her late husband Edward, a prominent Omaha businessman.
What does one do on a weekend in Omaha? The Henry Doorly zoo has the largest indoor desert housed in the world's largest geodesic dome. So there's that. The old railway station is now a museum of Omaha history. Learning about Fortune 500 insurance companies is reportedly quite popular with the kids. [Editor's Note: I have fond memories of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Remember Marlin Perkins? And how he sent Jim Fowler to deal with all manner of dangerous critters? Remember old Jim struggling with a cranky python in an Amazon river while Marlin chuckled while the tape played back in the studio? Good times. Back to the Notes.] One can stroll across the Bob Kerry pedestrian bridge. I'm sure you'll end up near a successful investment firm or insurance company.
I found a picture that makes Omaha look nice. It's still in Iowa, a state I once spent a day driving across. Mile after mile after mile of corn, fencepost to fencepost.
Greg and Doug McDermott. Doug is only one of three NCAA players to score more than 3,000 points and snare 1,000 rebounds in their career. A jorneyman in the NBA, Doug McDermott has avereaged a little over 9 PPG in the NBA for six different teams.
Wild Kingdom's Jim Fowler. It was the 70s. We would basically watch anything. How else does one explain Ed Sullivan and Lawrence Welk? (Seriously, I watched hours and hours of this stuff as a kid).
HBO Owns Sunday
Stop reading and click on the first link over there (the HBO intro).
When that familiar seven second clip ended I'll bet a theme song popped into your head. Sopranos? Game of Thrones? For me, it's Curb Your Enthusiasm.
When my kid was a preteen, they figured out how to mine cryptocurrency (not kidding). When I was a preteen, I spent a lot of time figuring out how to hack HBO. Back then (the early 80s) the network was all about movies - I don't think many folks signed up for Fraggle Rock.
Now, HBO is synonymous with prestige TV. If it's Sunday night, HBO is on in our household. Coming into 2023, HBO was hyping The Last of Us as their next big thing. I thought to myself, I don't think this one is for me. Not a big fan of zombie stuff. Haven't watched an episode of The Walking Dead and I couldn't get through a chapter of World War Z even though many people recommended it. And The Last of Us is based in a video game. Seriously! Pass.
It debuted while Mrs. Notes was in Chile. This is a problem media-wise, because we watch most shows together. I saw The Last of Us in the queue and thought what the heck. No way Mrs Notes is watching that.
Fast forward to last weekend, the first after The Last of Us season concluded. Mrs Notes and I both commented on the absence, even in the midst of the basketball distraction. Absolutely terrific program, which we both loved. Starring Chilean Pedro Pascal (who seems to be in everything) and Bella Ramsey from Game of Thrones. The third episode was one of the most moving hours of television in recent memory. And it's a zombie show!
HBO took one Sunday off and tonight we have the premiere of the last season of Succession. A drama that may be the funniest show on television! This post has nothing to do with basketball, obviously. Just a little media criticism on a Sunday morning while I avoid doing work I actually get paid for.
Did I watch Fraggle Rock? Of course I did!
Bella Ramsey is 19, here playing a 14 year old. Which means she was 15 when playing 10 year old Lyanna Mormont. Ramsey, who is British, is a terrific actor no matter the part.
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