Jim French Stepstool

Hadn't thought about McCasland in awhile. I'm a fan of his, too. St Mary's--Bama is somewhat intriguing, provided the Gaels 'stay within themselves' which is not much more than coach-speak for "don't crap the bed in the first 5 minutes" (I don't think they will). I could see UNM hang around with MSU, but if push comes to shove I think Izzo can handle the brilliance of Little Ricky. The more I see of Medved the more I like him. But MD is just on too much of a roll right now.

Trying to remember-----weren't his splits close to even at AAA last season?

Pretty sure they used a TO earlier in the half. They weren't going to use a 2nd one for a final possession of the half.

I don't know if this happens....and it wouldn't necessarily be a huge negative if it didn't....but if they can retain Blackwell I'd love for them to find a way to get him off the ball rather than play PG. They can still dial up iso for him when they want while also allowing him to work off the ball & maybe even do a little posting up. Might keep him a bit fresher.

BYUs' shooting was the bigger factor overall. But in the vacuum of the final secs of the half, the way the Cougars were rolling to me it's imperative you don't give them a chance to go back down the floor, save for a dunk or uncontested layup. JMO. The bench tech.......yeah. Looking forward to seeing if there's any talk about that in the days to come. I THINK it was Sharif Chambliss? Not certain though.

Twenty minutes from Winter. I'm guessing GG felt better about Gilmore playing due to defensive matchups, in a game where we never could string together stops. Good point about the bench. I thought Gilmore gave them the sort of play he usually does, more or less. McGee came up with a couple steals but to me neither he, Amos or Janicki ever looked comfortable. One thing I'd like to point out: I'm almost positive they had three TOs within the first 6-7 minutes of the game. They finished with five. Just another piece of evidence that the main problems were on the other end of the court.

80s or 90s. Or both. Good call.😎. Pretty rare for a Gard-coached team to struggle in a particular area in the 1st half & not get noticeably better in the 2nd. BYU was comfortable in their HC offense all night long.

Just accept that there's no explanation. Horrible decision by one of your seniors.

I know it seemed like they were a bunch of bricklayers tonight. But on the year they shot just a touch over 35% from three. Vs BYU they shot just over 34%. BYU making almost half of theirs was the bigger problem. You COULD argue we shot a few too many.

My thoughts (probably some covered already): Obviously if you're BYU, you're giddy about how well you shot the ball from three. And if you're UW, you're upset about the defense & the open looks. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. Their ball movement & the comfort zone they got into offensively was never really offset by anything we did defensively. But especially in the 2nd half, it got to be the type of game where if you man up on the shooter, he puts it on the deck & almost certainly a foul will be called. So they go 12-26, one miss shy of 50%. We never showed consistent enough defensive energy, but you can shoot in an open gym on a given day & not shoot that well. The Cougars stepped up (also 15-16 on FT). If they're going to shoot that well & never get taken out of their comfort zone, you can't give up Orebs & we gave up a double-digit total. Their bigs weren't great, but around the cup they were better than ours. I thought we blew a chance late in the half to get to within 3-4 or even better. There was a stretch there where the refs seemed to go into "Oops, they're a three seed. We might be missing something" mode. But never took full advantage of some favorable calls. I'll forever be grateful to Steven Crowl & Max Klesmit for all the effort they put forth during their careers. But unfortunately they chose today to turn in arguably the most moronic decisions of their careers; Klesmit fouling a mediocre-at-best 3pt shooter, on a late-clock desperation heave no less. Throw in that the kid is 6'8" or whatever & you AREN'T blocking his shot. Then Crowl putting up a shot with several seconds left & a dark shot clock at the end of the half, giving them the last shot instead. That's six points. I think I'll trust Gard from now on regarding his portal decisions. Max finally started to get hot from outside, but overall I thought he had a fairly poor game. I was treated to some uncanny wisdom after the game, thanks to my not grabbing the remote quickly enough. Charles Barkley was talking about UWs comeback & railing on BYU 'playing scared' late in the game. What a genius. No Chuck, BYU had a bad turnover vs pressure, and allowed (IIRC) three and-ones, instead of just letting the UW player lay the ball in. UW made it a game because they played to the horn, and whatever BYU contributed to that, they weren't playing scared. A little dumb maybe.

I don't know if Arky zones at all. But if it's in their arsenal you'd think they'd mix it in w/the foul trouble on their bigs. OTOH they're clamping down on St Johns as is, so Cal might want to just stay with the effective strategy & hope the clock runs out before he runs out of post players.

There's no other games going on this afternoon opposite St Johns-Arkansas. So rather than watch commercials, during the time outs I flipped around & found 'On the Waterfront', a classic flick from the 50s featuring the slimy longshoremans' union, corruption, money-skimming, scandal, & a healthy dose of "I din't see nuthin". Then I flip back to Calipari & Pitino. Hard to tell the difference.

Those three words. The fulcrum that a lot of college programs hinge on---or used to hinge on before "cheating became legal" so to speak. Nothing concrete, at least as of now, but to me Underwood smells a lot more like Lou Henson & Bill Self than Weber. And your three best players coming from across the border have a lot to do with that.

Maybe not all of them will enter immediately, but I count three---Ivisic, Jakucionis & Riley (Canada). I can't say he's a close friend or anything, but I went to HS with Bruce Weber & know him well enough that he's the only coach at Illinois in the past half-century that I would feel confident was relatively clean w/the possible exception of Groce. Yet years ago Illinois fans screamed bloody murder about Bruce Pearl when he was an ass't at Iowa & afterward. The height of hypocrisy.

It would be shocking to me if that wasn't so. And AFA to how to go about doing it, I have no idea but there are a lot of programs that have paid players for years, before it was allowed. They're experts.

Has a conference ever started out 8-0 in the tourney?

Maybe not in the final results, but some good storylines within some of these games. Like you kinda felt Robert Morris was gonna run out of gas, but that was a terrific game to watch. Troy looked like they coulda stuck around until crunch time vs Kentucky except they just couldn't shoot. Like you said, 12-5 isn't headline news. But I came away really impressed with Nico Medved & Colorado State. It's fun to watch a low seed that truly comes out aggressive & fearless. So far, that's been Bryant.

The ball pops around the perimeter pretty well in BYUs' halfcourt offense. Gard mentioned how they got their 'bite' back defensively after Penn State. They'll need it. Scouting, anticipating where people like to shoot from & beating them to the spot, minimizing the 'stand still' looks will be big. And keep the unusually huge PG from getting into the lane (In that regard, Blackwell getting early fouls scares me. I'd put Janicki on him when he's in the game). Offensively, if we get good ball/man movement we should find some open looks. I thought BYUs' defense looked mostly OK on Thursday, but certainly we should be able to apply more pressure than VCU did. And while their bigs weren't bad, Winter & especially Crowl have a size edge that needs to be established. And hopefully they can draw some fouls. The Cougars have some depth but I think most of the real quality depth is in the backcourt. I've said it before, but I'd love to see the return of the 10-12 PPG Max Klesmit.

I think when they're at their best, the top 4 or so are pretty elite teams capable of beating anyone. But when you got down to a Texas, a Vandy, even an Oklahoma there's room for debate. I think fourteen from one league is really dicey.

Am I being petty? Maybe. But I'm glad that on Saturday Storr & Hepburn will be playing the same # of minutes as I will.

Agree re BYUs' defense. The Rams admittedly aren't an offensive juggernaut but I thought BYU was pretty sound fundamentally on D & on the boards. From what I saw it's a game UW 'could' lose if they don't come out strong.. Want to see energy on the defensive end, and don't play fast just for the sake of playing fast. Move off the ball, make the extra pass. I'm not nuts about Blackwell matching up vs their 6'9" PG. Methinks Janicki lines up against him when he's in the game Crowl scoring inside & out like he did vs the Grizz would be real nice..

IMO Louisville was living right in their conference tourney in getting past Stanford & Clemson. Caught up to them a little.

I didn't buy the McNeese over Clemson hype. Perhaps I should've. Clemson & LU both going down would be a real kick in the nether region for the ACC.

Without knowing much of anything about their program, I thought Montana ran some good stuff offensively. Many times they made the 'extra pass' & wound up with a good look. Obviously the depth was a factor. They made (IIRC) seven of their first twelve from deep which kept it interesting for longer than I would've liked. Now for a 3OT game between VCU & BYU😎.

Do like I do----don't make them out anymore, let your wife make one out, then point out her mistakes.😛