2022-23 Basketball Thread

[unclevlad]

Oh dear.  

 

So, Vanderbilt's had a rough go under coach Jerry Stackhouse...not something he's used to.  Tonight against VCU, he's losing again.  One of his players gets T'd up...and he's not particularly enamored of the call.  He expresses it...in a less than polite manner.  HE gets a T.  The coaching staff tries to restrain him, but he keeps going at em and going at them.

 

We see him yelling at the back of a ref who's walking the other way...and at one point, he may have spit at the ref.  It's not clear;  it might just be sharp, angry speech movements...but ya know, those often include spittle spraying.

 

So he gets a 2nd T and is ejected.

 

But if there's spitting at a ref????  By a head coach?  As I say, I'm NOT!!! sure it happened but the video suggests he did.  If so?  Oh dear.  Extended suspension at minimum, probably fired for cause.  Vandy isn't Auburn.

[unclevlad]

I can't recall hearing about any athletic-related hazing rising to this level in the past, or at least, not in a VERY long time.  Recruiting parties that got WAY out of hand, yes, but not this.

 

https://www.ktsm.com/news/false-imprisonment-sexual-contact-among-hazing-allegations-against-new-mexico-state-mens-basketball-players/

 

Obviously this is horrible at the individual level.  At the team and institutional level:

 

Quote

The victim also alleges in the report that the inappropriate physical and sexual touching by his teammates had been ongoing issues inside the locker room at both the Pan American Center and on road trips.

The victim stated to police that he “had no choice but to let this happen because it’s a 3-on-1 type of situation.” The victim also told police that the incidents would usually happen in front of the entire team and that no one ever intervened.

 

Bold mine.  If this aspect has any substance at all, then the coach's career is gone.  This is far, far too severe, IMO, for another school to accept.  The coach is IMO gone even if these events weren't that generally known, but if he was, could reasonably have been, or even at least *should* have known, and did nothing, there's potential criminal charges.  The team itself...3 players have left the program.  Names have been redacted, so we don't know if they were victims or not, but there may well barely be enough to field a squad when the dust settles out.  This is going to be a major recruiting black mark for a while, too.

[unclevlad]

The university chancellor fired the NMSU coach earlier this evening.  I saw no other possible outcome.  The rest of the coaching staff is still under review, presumably to determine their degree of culpability or negligence.  By and large, this is likely only to determine if they're fired for cause, ergo no severance.  I can't see any of them being retained.

 

The critical next step for the program will be to select a coach with absolutely impeccable standards and expectations.  Speculating, but this might mean trying to hire a retired coach, like when they brought back Lou Henson, for a few years, while the program resets and tries to move past this.  

 

EDIT:  another key point goes back to November, when an Aggie player became involved in an altercation and killed someone.  I believe I mentioned this, but SI brings up these points yesterday:

 

Quote

Beyond the sheer tragedy of the situation, the fact that Peake had a gun on a road trip and that as many as four of the Aggies skipped curfew and were out at 3 a.m. raised significant doubts about the leadership of the program. Those doubts were heightened when, police said, New Mexico State assistant coaches wound up in possession of Peake’s gun and tablet—Dominique Taylor had the gun in an Albuquerque hotel, and Lorenzo Jenkins produced the tablet when the team bus was met by state police on the way back to Las Cruces after the game was canceled.

 

 

Edited February 15, 2023 by unclevlad

[unclevlad]

The end of the college regular season is in sight at this point.  The earliest ones start the end of this month;  Selection Sunday is 3 weeks from tomorrow.  Taking a glance through the conference standings, just for grins...in part because they're...pretty radically different from the norm.

 

The ACC is 7th...behind the Mountain West and the Big East.  Big East, well, OK, that's somewhat understandable, but the Mountain West?  Wow.  Pac-12 is 6th, but that's not a big shock.  They've got UCLA and Arizona, then drop down to USC, whose NET ranking is 57.  That won't cut it.

 

What struck me is, the WAC is listed as 11th, out of 32.  They're a 1-bid league...their highest NET rating is 60.  Checking down through 18th...ok, Liberty leads that conference, their NET is 48 right now.  They MIGHT get in if they don't win their conference tournament, but a bad loss will knock that down.  (And any conference loss for them will be a bad loss.)

So from this......looks like there will be 21 or 22 one-bid leagues this year.  Pac-12 and Big West are two-bid.  ACC and Mountain West look like 4 teams.  

It's almost looking like a Big 10-Big 12 interconference tournament.

 

And the brackets will be another nightmare.  Absolute, utter nightmare.  Upsets have been rampant all year.  

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

I just saw the final score of the NBA All-Star game. I know it's been a low to no defense game for years, but that's embarrassing. Seems they have given up all pretense of being competitive at all. Why do they even bother having the game now? Ridiculous.

[unclevlad]

IMO the entire notion of any All-Star game is largely a vestige of the past.  When a zillion games are shown every week, the point of them is, at best, greatly diluted.  That most strongly impacts the NBA and MLB.  NHL probably less so, but that's a smaller fan base to begin with.  The NFL obviously doesn't have that many games, but the percentage is huge.  There are also, of course, several other huge issues with the Pro Bowl...which is why they made it a flag football game.

 

And this, BTW, was NOT the highest-scoring ASG.  3rd highest.  16 and 17 beat this one...in 17 it was 192-182.  That said...this one ran about 4 minutes shorter, so in terms of points per minute, this game had more.

 

That said....yeah.  7 fouls *total* by both teams.  Matador defense.  Nuggets coach had this to say (from cbssports.com):

 

Quote

G League call-up Mac McClung may have "saved" the NBA Slam Dunk Contest on Saturday, but it now appears the NBA All-Star Game itself is in need of saving. Team Giannis defeated Team LeBron, 184-175, on Sunday in Salt Lake City in a game that more closely resembled a layup line or shooting practice than a competitive basketball game between the world's best athletes. The Elam Ending provided a bit of drama in the fourth quarter as Team LeBron attempted to erase a 19-point deficit, but the rest of the game lacked any sort of competitiveness or edge on the defensive end of the court. 

 

Both teams shot about 60% from the field...and that with Team LeBron shooting under 30% on 60 3-pointers.  

 

I have actively avoided watching it for multiple years.  

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

I haven't watched it for years, so I didn't realize how bad it had gotten. Only 3rd highest. Damn. 

 

This pic says it all. 

 

[unclevlad]

Yes, but remember that they changed the rules.  The game's not played out all 4 quarters any more.  After 3 quarters, the score in '17 was 144-139.  Last night, it was 158-141.  Given the rule changes, that's more indicative, I'd say, than the final score.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

Yes, but remember that they changed the rules.  The game's not played out all 4 quarters any more.

 

I was not aware. I have been gone a long time. Damn. 

[unclevlad]

3 hours ago, Logan D. Hurricanes said:

 

I was not aware. I have been gone a long time. Damn. 

 

Don't apologize.  It's the ASG.  NO ONE CARES.  Nor should they.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

New record-low, by a wide margin, for NBA All-Star Game

 

[Cancer]

On 2/20/2023 at 3:29 PM, unclevlad said:

 

Don't apologize.  It's the ASG.  NO ONE CARES.  Nor should they.

 

[unclevlad]

The NBA ASG came up on First Take this morning.  Yeah, I realize...obnoxious.  I try to avoid it.  Here?  JJ Redick dissed it.  Russo dissed it.  SAS dissed it.  But the interesting point?  They also dissed ALL of the ASGs.  "Interleague play has ruined the MLB ASG."  Can't argue much with that;  part of the motivation for it was to see matchups you'd never see otherwise.  NHL and NFL don't resemble their real games.

 

Logan's link pointed out that the NBA ASG ratings were sharply down...but also that they've been bad for at least the last 2 years.  Which, of course, means this year's ratings should be even more alarming.  

 

We're not gonna see the games go away, tho, unless the pushback gets SO strong that it detracts from a league's overall image.  That seems unlikely.  Being in the ASG is a point in contracts and negotiations too much, I think, so the players want the credit...even if they don't want to participate.  (HUGE problem in the MLB ASG, so much so that it became, I believe, a condition in the standard player contract.)  And of course, the total farce this weekend.

 

Well...one of my favorite weeks in sports is almost here.  Conference championship week.  Not for the big conferences, for all those leagues that are 1-bid leagues.  For those schools, making the tournament's usually a HUGE deal, so those games have great meaning.

 

 

[Cygnia]

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

On 2/22/2023 at 10:51 AM, Cancer said:

 

Which means I really should stop wondering who decideda gujy with 15 career munytes or so in the NBA was a significant pro that people want to see in the contest, and will root for to win. I would be deeply offended if I was one of the other participants in the contest who's actually playing in The League.

[unclevlad]

Yeah, the dunk contest came in for a raft of abuse.  It wasn't that the kid's excellent performance 'saved' it...rather, it showed how farcical it is.  The comment as along the lines of "once every 10 years or so, it's worth watching" as well as pointing out that the best dunkers ARE NOT!!! in the NBA.  Nor should it be expected that they are.

 

Several years ago now...in a blatant self-promo/sop thrown to the people involved, TNT organized a dunk contest, using street ballers, And-1 mixtape guys, that sort of thing.  Kenny Smith hosted...and like anything I've ever seen him 'host' on TNT, he was horrible.  Think Shaq was a judge.  Yeah, you can guess.  But the *dunks* were pretty intense.  Almost worth the majority of the time being spent satisfying Kenny and Shaq's overweening need for attention.  Because those guys actually dunking, emphasized showmanship.

 

 

[unclevlad]

LeBron is out for an indeterminate time but "several weeks" is the common phrasing being used.

 

There's only 6 weeks left in the season, and the Lakers have 21 games to play between now and then.  So even 3 weeks out probably means 10 games or so;  they have 11 games between now and March 19th.  They're not very far out of the playoffs, but they're only 5-9 without him.

 

To fuel concern, it was non-contact, and he said he heard a "pop."  Uhhhhh, yeah.  Them's SCARY words.  

 

And the thing for me is...while he's played at an incredible level, the issue of overwork has been looming all year.  Not only has he played a ton of minutes, he's been the focal point so much as well.  If not an injury like this, then just general wear and tear.  It wasn't that many years ago, after a season of similar high use, where he pretty clearly ran out of gas in 4th quarters in the playoffs.

 

EDIT Tuesday:  NBA.com is saying his foot will be re-evaluated in 2 weeks.  Lakers have 7 games between now and March 12th (Sunday)...and back to backs on the following Tues/Wed.  That'd potentially be 9 games.  The cornerstone might be this Friday and Sunday...home games against the Warriors and Timberwolves, both of whom are ahead of the Lakers...but not by much.  Lose both, tho, and that's giving up ground they can't afford.

 

Plus, "reassessed in 2 weeks" rarely means "should be ready to play in 2 weeks."  

[unclevlad]

The first round of the Horizon League tournament was today.  An 11-team league, so the bottom 6 played to get into the quarters.

 

No big news normally, but...there was...a bit of unusual pressure on Detroit Mercy, the 9 seed.  Their star, Antoine Davis, came into the game 64 points behind Pete Maravich...go look him up if you need to...to become the NCAA's all time scoring leader.  Detroit Mercy was 9th in the conference, which is a 1-bid league, so their next loss will end their season.

 

SO they HAD to win tonight, to give him 1 more game.

 

Davis goes for 38, and they win.

 

They play the #1 seed Youngstown State Thursday...who's already won twice.  

 

ESPN also noted:  Davis is 7 away from Steph Curry's record of 162 3-pointers in a season.  One might readily argue that passing Pistol Pete is gonna come with an asterisk;  Pete could only play *3* years, as freshmen weren't eligible.  That was 66-67, and freshman eligibility was in the early 70s.  Second:  no 3 point line.  (Davis has over 570 3's.)  Third:  no shot clock.  THAT wasn't introduced until the mid 80s.  Dean Smith and the 4 corner stall...gah.  Sometimes the situation was really, really bad.  Still:  no one had done it before this, so I'm fine with celebrating Davis' accomplishment...and using it to show how *insane* Maravich's were.  BUT, if he can pass Steph's 3's in a season record, that's remarkable as well, and won't have an asterisk.

[unclevlad]

Got the Detroit Mercy-Youngstown State box score page up.  Will be fun to check in from time to time.  Davis is 1-5 early on, and it was a 2.

 

LeBron's injury now (finally) said to be a tendon in his foot, and reevaluation has been put off another week...so 3 weeks now.  I don't expect I'm going out on a limb much, when I suggest, he's done for the year.  Ligaments and tendons just don't heal quickly, based on what I've seen.  

 

EDIT:

Youngstown State grinds out a tough 5 point win.  Davis gets 22...so 3 short.  In the studio, Kevin Conners points out Detroit Mercy can only have another game if they get an invite to the College Basketball Invitational, which is a 16 team event.  It's the 3rd level...can't make the NCAA, can't make the NIT, then the consolation prize might be the CBI.  But Detroit Mercy as a team, doesn't have the resume...8th in their 1-bid league 24th out of 32 conferences in RPI), NET ranking before the conference tournament was 211.  

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

I hate what's happening with Ja Morant. He was one of the few I liked following. 

[unclevlad]

He did seem to be one to like.  Now?  It's more like another case of Young, Rich, and Stupid.  

 

He's going to have to make major changes in what he does, and who's around him.  He may well need professional help;  I hope he's open to it.  And if he does?  Then I also have sympathy for him.  The pressures that the levels of fame and recognition bring are things probably none of us understand.  

 

And at this point, I question whether he'll play another game this *calendar* year.  He does face potential criminal charges, but they're misdemeanor charges apparently, and the max penalty would be 120 days.  Methinks that won't happen in any case.  That said, waving a firearm in a public venue would seem to be a de facto personal conduct policy violation.  Plus, this is in the CBA:

 

Quote

6.9 Firearms and Other Weapons.
Whenever a player is physically present at a facility or venue owned, operated, or being used by a Team, the NBA, or any League-related entity, and whenever a player is traveling on any NBA-related business, whether on behalf of the player’s Team, the NBA, or any League-related entity, such player shall not possess a firearm of any kind or any other deadly weapon. For purposes of the foregoing, “a facility or venue” includes, but is not limited to: an arena; a practice facility; a Team or League office or facility; an All-Star or NBA Playoff venue; and the site of a promotional or charitable appearance.

 

Bold mine.  The incident occurred in Denver, immediately after a road game.  

[unclevlad]

Second game of the 2nd round in the ACC tournament.  Wake vs. Syracuse.  Tied.  SYR takes a tough, contested 20 footer with about 6 seconds left.  Misses.  Wake gets the board, drives down, uses a screen to draw the defense, passing to the open shooter to nail a 3 with 1/2 second left.  SYR can't get a real shot up.  Game over.

Career over, too.  Less than 2 hours later, Syracuse announces Boeheim is out, AND name Adrian Autry as the new coach.  The first part?  Not terribly surprising.  The second says, yeah, this was a done deal a long time ago.  This was the 8-9 game, so the winner would be playing the conference top seed.  NOT gonna be favorites, to say the least.  And Syracuse isn't getting any post-season bids;  their NET is 126.  So you have to suspect they were waiting for this, the team's last game.  And Boeheim leaked things enough that, while it could be read as disrespectful to do it so fast, their hand was forced to a degree, IMO.

[unclevlad]

The marketability, or possibly hubris, of the Pac-12 is showing big time right now.  

ACC:  all 4 games on ESPN

Big 12:  I believe 3 of 4 on ESPN

Big East:  FS1

A-10:  USA 

Mountain West:  CBS SN

 

Pac-12:  the only game on ESPN has a scheduled tip of 11:30 Eastern.  Scheduled.  We know tournament games run long, so tip time is likely to be closer to midnight.  All the other games are on...the Pac-12 Network.

Which is carried by VERY few networks.  

The Big 10 and SEC are also keeping their tournament early-round games on their own networks...but those networks have much better availability.

Elsewhere, in pro ball...
Kevin Durant's foot slips on a wet spot on the floor *during warmups* last night.  Sits out.
Report today leans to grade 2 ankle sprain...out 4-6 WEEKS.  That's the rest of the regular season, likely...in a Western Conference that is *ridiculously* tight.  At #4, Suns are up 3 in the loss column over GS in 5...but the loss column spread between 5 and 13 is all of 3 games!!!  They have some wiggle room, but not much.  

It was also pointed out...KD has already missed the most games of all the big players in the last several years...more than Kyrie.  Games played per season: 

19-20:  0

20-21:  35 (of 72)

21-22:  55 (of 82)

22-23:  42 (of 66, but now out)

 

Lots of games missed there.  Klay may have missed more, but while he's really good, he's not at KD's level.  Plus, KD now has an extended pattern of notable injuries.  

Interesting...

[unclevlad]

Bill Self to miss the Big 12 tournament.  First report was he was missing the game today (which they won) for an undisclosed illness.  Word now is, the entire tournament, and I believe they said it was for a routine procedure.  The update didn't really surprise me, as needing to go to the hospital so quickly...no expectation of it last night...rather suggests something beyond "take 2 aspirin and call me in the morning."

[unclevlad]

CBS SN bottom line comment...

 

"Bad defense, poor execution in clutch plague post-Kyrie Mavs"

 

And this is different from Kyrie's last 2 stops, how?

 

Also sounds like he's losing it already in Dallas.  Long diatribe that apparently is all about how misunderstood he is by the fans, on Twitch last night.