See Red

Murray took over down the stretch.

If he can make it out of the first round, he’ll be more successful than Cal in the last half decade. 

On 4/9/2024 at 6:09 PM, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

I was shocked to learn they won the title last year.

 

I never thought we'd see women's college basketball go from novelty to the more important tournament.

I think it’s more that Caitlin Clark is a huge draw and some combination of UConn and Purdue aren't draws, it seemed a near certainty UConn was winning that game handily, and it started way too late. 

UConn’s weird in that they’ve been dominant in college basketball as far as championships but don’t feel dominant because they’re not as consistent as a Duke or whatever.  They had the down years in the AAC, they’ve won as a 7-seed. They don’t get a ton of coverage because they’re not hated or have a huge fan base.  I was hoping maybe this year would make them more hated, since that’s a big part of the fun of winning a lot, but I don’t know that it’s happened since this team was actually fun to watch with how they play.

And then Purdue basketball with Edey is just not fun to watch. All-time great player  but it makes for boring basketball. 

11 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

Well, guess who didn’t listen to his moderator warning and came back to waste his last strike!

Nothing riles him up like UConn  apparently. Pretty sure neither of these championships count to him because they aren’t winning close games. 

6 hours ago, Unocal said:

 

Oh please

 

Never having to play from behind or overcome any adversity = "coaching masterclass"

The way they completely neutered Purdue’s offense and abused Edey on the other end was a coaching masterclass. Edey got off to a great start but from about 6 minutes left in the first until Clingan up his 4th foul and Johnson fouled out, he was pretty ineffective and frustrated.  And by that point the game was well out of reach and UConn only cared about preventing threes.

Also, the premise of your post is dumb. Seems to me it would be better never having to play from behind. There’s more to coaching than rah rah halftime speeches and even then, the number of times UConn would go into the half in a close-ish game and then put on the afterburners was impressive all the same.

And the adversity was losing the best three players off of their dominant championship team and proceeding to turn the backups into an even more dominant team. 

Can’t believe this team, man. An unreal run these last two years!  A coaching masterclass by Hurley!

UConn should be really good next year with Bueckers coming back and a pretty stacked class coming in.  Plus not being decimated by injuries, hopefully. 
 

Unrelated but I’ve seen some rumors Cal is leaving Kentucky for Arkansas. 

I’m not usually in the sports are rigged camp but that ticky tack call against UConn to pretty much seal the deal and get  the golden goose into the championship game is sketchy as :censored:. 

7 hours ago, Germanshepherd said:

Iowa will face UConn in the Final Four. Geno’s got that machine running well as ever now that everyone’s healthy. I could see Bueckers matching Clark’s energy in a scoring duel. 

 

Don’t know if I’d call them healthy.  They have six players out for the season with injuries. They’ve looked spent at the end of their last two games because they only play seven, iirc. They’ve had some :censored:ty injury the luck the last handful of years, but at least Bueckers is healthy this season. 

Either way, the year ends in a 4 which means UConn’s winning the Men’s and Women’s tournaments, as they did in ‘04 and ‘14. 

Edey playing 38 and 39 minutes in the last two games is pretty incredible.  For someone his size, his conditioning is pretty nuts.

That said, him having three total fouls in that 77 minutes is absurd.  The officials have absolutely zero clue how to officiate someone of his size.

Turned off the late game early to watch basketball but enjoyed what I saw today. Hopefully ESPN’s broadcasts aren’t “spread” this, “over-under” that, “live odds” blah blah blah like it was with the XFL last year that made it nearly unwatchable. 

Not sure I’ve seen a 30-0 run before like UConn just had.  This team’s insane when they get rolling. Illinois strategy of attacking Clingan, which they only veered from when the game had grown out of reach, was pretty ill-advised.

Are the rosters mostly the same as last season or did they redistribute the players?  Curious how much these XFL vs USFL games say about the leagues last year.

Yeah, UConn looks better than last year and last year’s team was a buzzsaw. 
 

Alabama knocks out UNC!

2 hours ago, Cujo said:

The new kickoff rule is fine. I get they're trying to cut down on injuries. But I can't recall the last time I saw or heard of a serious head/neck injury on a kickoff. Has to have been before the last modification to the rule.

I think the league has said the rate of concussions on kickoffs is 2x any other play.  I imagine non-head injuries are more common as well.

 I’m good with this change, as long as onside kicks never become 4th and whatever where you run an actual play. 

52 minutes ago, Cujo said:

 

Four whole years... 

 

But you're right. They should totally fire Cal and hire another Billy Gillespie!

Yeah, four whole years with two first round losses to 14+ seeds and a missed tourney at a school with resources 95% of coaches would kill for. It’s clear that stacking up high school talent that doesn’t stick around to develop isn’t a viable strategy in the portal/NIL era and he’s still expressing a reluctance to change that.  He doesn’t have the actual coaching chops to be successful now that the talent/skill gap has closed. 

On 3/24/2024 at 2:16 AM, Cujo said:

 

Calipari is crazy safe. He's probably the best recruiter in the nation. Who would UK even replace him with? Nobody. Right.

All that recruiting and he still hasn’t made it out of the first weekend in four years.

This guy took under bets and then left the game early with injuries or illness. He’s :censored:ed. 

That’s not good.

47 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

Caitlin Clark's run in the Women's Tournament isn't going to end well, but she's on her way out anyways and headed to the Indiana Fever of the WNBA.  

 

On the Men's Side, I have been watching Purdue closely and Zach Edey is super interesting to me because I want to see how he turns out in the NBA.  

Not sure he will turn out in the NBA. He’s slow, not particularly athletic (relative to the NBA), and his entire game is within, like, five feet of the basket. He’ll get abused in the pick and roll. There’s not much place for someone like him in the modern NBA. 

Just now, TrueYankee26 said:

Zags are laying the smackdown on Kansas now lol

Easy to forget Kansas was the preseason #1 with the way they’re playing. This is about as thorough of a dismantling as you’ll see. 

2 hours ago, Germanshepherd said:

Jack Gohlke is such a perfect March Madness character. 

Can’t even wrap my head around that stat line. 

Refs just bailed Kansas out. 
 

15 minutes ago, See Red said:

Kentucky’s on upset watch!  Down 6 to Oakland with 3:17 left. 

Down goes Kentucky!  I wonder if Coach Cal gets fired. 

Kentucky’s on upset watch!  Down 6 to Oakland with 3:17 left. 

2 hours ago, McCall said:

Everybody involved, even the bookie, have said Shohei had no involvement. Saying he's the victim of massive theft.

Well, Shohei’s own team initially said he wired the money.  I wonder if his team rushed to put that out to disconnect him from any actual gambling and then the lawyers got involved because they recognize how bad this guy writing $4m to an illegal bookie looks whether he gambled or not. 
 

Oh, and the reason they say the story changed is because they were still using this guy to do the translating. I don’t know, this just seems like a super :censored:ty cover-up even if the guy didn’t do anything that wrong (well, wiring the money might be a felony, no?).