College Basketball 23-24

[Pariah]

He had some nice things to say about his former conference rivals:

 

What Gonzaga coach Mark Few said about BYU’s play the in Big 12

 

Meanwhile, Gonzaga punched their ticket to the Sweet 16 for the 9th consecutive year, while BYU continues their dubious tradition of one-and-done in the Big Dance.

 

Some things never change, even in a new conference.

 

 

Edited March 24 by Pariah

[unclevlad]

BYU should've had a #5, but they don't play on Sunday...and 3 of the 5 seeds play the Friday-Sunday schedule.  So they got dropped to the 6 seed.  That's the common belief.

[unclevlad]

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

First MAJOR!!! buzzer beater, I think, of the year!!  

A&M's down 3 with 10 seconds left...flurry of shots all miss.  Ball gets tied up with 1 second left...arrow to A&M.  Pass, from underneath the basket...which is a tricky spot.  Obviously has to be a 3, so the inbound pass goes out several feet past the 3 point line...it's low...caught...gather...rise...shoot....BINGO!!!!  Tie ball game.  Completed a 13-3 run in less than 2 minutes.  

 

Ah me....but chalk holds...again.  Houston pulls it out in OT, after a strong challenge in the OT.  

 

So it's almost pure chalk.  Only 2 real outliers...4 games are 1 vs. 4 or 1 vs. 5, 2 games are 2 vs. 3.  Then it's 2 vs. 6, and 2 vs. 11...NC State.  The only outlier there, the only real Cinderella.  I suspect that this is the lowest seed number total in quite a while.

 

 

[unclevlad]

Well, to a degree it was inevitable...if there's no massive upsets to smash the brackets, then today's the day.

 

But tonight was a freshly made necklace of missiles caught in a fireball.

 

#1 UNC falls.

#2s Iowa State and Arizona are out.

 

UConn continued to steamroll, continuing to validate their #1 overall seed.

[unclevlad]

Ouch...Jamal Shead is Houston's Wooden Award (player of the year) finalist.  Comes down bad in the middle of the first...severely sprained ankle.  Can't make it back.  Houston falls to Duke, 54-51.  This, after NC State clobbers the brackets earlier by beating Marquette, so the South is an ACC rematch.

 

Kind of odd, at least to me.  2 regionals are largely chalk;  East is #1 vs. #3;  Midwest is #1 vs. #2.  But the South is 4 vs. 11, and the West is 4 vs. 6.

[unclevlad]

I love it when studio hosts get egg all over their faces.

 

UConn leads Illinois by 5 at half.  They're ALL going...wow, they might be in trouble.

 

In the first 6+ minutes of the 2nd half, UConn *shreds* them.  Like a rabid Wolverine.  25-0.  

 

 

[unclevlad]

Article this morning in The Athletic.  The headline:  Gambling has made ends of games miserable for college basketball benchwarmers.  The example was when a kid made a 3 at the end of the game, so his team won by 28, rather than 25.

 

The line was -26.5.

 

Post-game?  Spoilered for masked profanity...

 

Spoiler

Back in the locker room, Barrett picked up his phone and scrolled through the congratulatory texts from friends and started to search through his DMs on social media.

He stumbled on this:

You sure are a son of a b—.
Hope you enjoy selling cars for the rest of your life.

Followed by:

I hope you f-ing die.

And then the kicker:

Kill yourself for taking that 3 you f-ing worthless loser. Slit your f-ing throat you f-ing f– that was completely uncalled for. I hope you f-ing kill yourself.

 

And apparently, this is the norm...particularly in cases like this, where the play changed the outcome insofar as the line bet...one of THE most common...was concerned.  

 

It's a pretty scary, ugly story.  It may be paywalled...and unlike NYT, I don't see how to link it....but just in case....

https://theathletic.com/5384328/2024/04/02/gambling-college-basketball-players-substitutes-spread/?source=pulsenewsletter&campaign=9442176&userId=11136959

[Starlord]

[unclevlad]

But everyone knows the best corn is in Kentucky.

 

 

 

What.....who cares about EATING it?????

[unclevlad]

Speaking of Kentucky...the fan base must've let its unhappiness known.  They're finalizing terms of a buyout of Calipari's last 5 years...so Calipari can become the coach at Arkansas, after THEIR coach left for USC.  Clearly a mutual choice for Cal to move on.

 

It was interesting that Cal admitted he'd not changed fast enough.  The one-and-done approach doesn't work in the era of so many 5th, even 6th and the rare 7th year players.  

 

The other USC, South Carolina, completed a dream and ended a dream, by beating Iowa.  Hot start for Iowa...up 11 at 18-7...but that faded, and South Carolina won by 12.  Caitlin Clark had 30 of the team's 75, but took 28 shots to get there.  

 

One more game to go.  LIke is UConn -6, which is pretty high for a national #1 vs. #2 (at this point) matchup.

 

Somewhat late start...9:20 Eastern.  Guess they figure the east coasters are likely to stay up anyway...and this way they give the west coast viewers time to get home.

[Pariah]

Purdue is a good team, but having seen UConn in the tournament so far, I think I'd take the over.

[unclevlad]

6 minutes ago, Pariah said:

Purdue is a good team, but having seen UConn in the tournament so far, I think I'd take the over.

 

That was actually the opinion over at DraftKings...they expected the line to slide UConn's way before the tip.

 

Yeah, this UConn team is good.

[Pariah]

UConn is up six at the half.

[unclevlad]

Unfortunately for Purdue fans, if UConn didn't steamroll the opponent in the first half...they did in the 2nd.  Like the...what...23-0 run to start the second half against Illinois.  Also smoked Alabama in the second.

 

EDIT:  UConn hits a 3 after one switching mistake...then forces a turnover.  Boom...16 point lead now.  Purdue calls a TO.  

The cutaway as TNT goes to commercial shows Gampel Pavilion...UConn's home court.  OF COURSE they have the game playing on their big screens.  And OF COURSE!!!!! the place is PACKED!!!  Which makes me a little jealous...it would be *awesome* to be in Gampel with a big group of buddies...or even in a dorm TV room.  MIGHT be better than being in Phoenix...darn sight *cheaper*.  

[unclevlad]

Danny Hurley empties his bench with a 15 point lead and less than 40 seconds.

 

UConn is just too diverse and too good.  By point differential?  Most dominant team in tournament history, by QUITE a bit...think the graphic showed it was 11 points better than the next best.  

 

Edey did all he could but he just didn't have the supporting cast.  Clingam played him very well overall, too.

[Pariah]

And the new head basketball coach at Kentucky is ... BYU's Mark Pope.

 

Pope played with the Wildcats, won a championship there as I recall. Big move for him.

 

It'll be interesting to see who BYU hires in his stead. Maybe someone who will emphasize a physical inside game, I can only hope. 

[unclevlad]

Well, you know what they say.  Go big or go home.

 

Pope chose to go home....

[Pariah]

I would argue that taking the head coaching position at the University of Kentucky also qualifies as going big.

[unclevlad]

They want it to be big...but right now it's not.  Kentucky basketball backers are like UCLA basketball, or USC or Notre Dame football backers...living in the past.

 

The proximate cause for Calipari leaving relates to.....what else.  Football.  The drive to increase presence in that sphere...which Kentucky did.  But a story Wednesday in The Athletic pointed out that this meant the AD didn't want to deal with improving practice facilities or NIL.  The latter in particular...that's huge now.  And it's clearly warning that Kentucky is *not* a top tier program at this time.  They'll have to make numerous changes to get back...much like Duke, for example.  It isn't just the departure of Coach K...or Roy Williams at UNC...it's adapting to the new college sports realities.

 

It may well be that fighting back to the top is easier for Kentucky than for, say, USC, but right now, IMO, they're massively overrated.

[Grailknight]

It's much easier to fight to the top in basketball than in football especially with NIL in play. It's pure numbers and even the smaller schools can play in this arena. It's just easier to raise the money for 15 basketball players as compared to 85 football players. Especially when it only takes 3-4 stars out of those 15.

 

I'd be shocked if Kentucky wasn't competitive in NIL deals for basketball. And Kentucky is down somewhat right now, but 90% of the schools out there would gladly take their "down'.

 

NIL and the transfer portal are just beginning to change college sports and even Saban got out because he could sense that staying elite was just going to be much, much harder and the power dynamic was going to shift. You effectively have to recruit an incoming class and re-recruit your current roster every year and then ride herd on a large group of 18–23-year olds with 50k-1mil plus incomes, no experience with said money and no parental supervision for maybe the first time in their lives. I applaud getting money to the players but that doesn't mean I can see how much harder coaching has become also.

 

 

Edited April 12 by Grailknight

[unclevlad]

It's a matter of self-image and fan expectation.  Kentucky does not view themselves as top 10%...or even top 10.

 

From what I've read...Kentucky's support for NIL in basketball is poor.  One of the Marriott Bonvoy ads shown in March Madness had UNC's Elliot Cadeau on camera, ultimately leading the mascots and cheerleaders out, as the ad ended.  On camera for a good bit of time.  He's a freshman, and a good contributor, but averaged the lowest points per game of all the starters.  There's a REAL good chance that UNC helped get him that gig.  I think that's the kind of thing Kentucky may not be doing.

 

The transfer portal has already changed basketball dramatically.  It's not "just beginning to"....it's a done deal.  Veteran teams are largely beating the young and inexperienced teams.  That strongly showed this season;  Kentucky and Duke were the poster children for young, inexperienced...and wildly inconsistent.  

 

Not many players bring in mid 6 digits plus...On3 has a list of NIL valuations, and #21 is down to $1M.  That's all sports, and many of the biggest are football.  They're also "celebrities" by other assessments...Deion's kid, LeBron's kid.  I suspect $20K to $50K might be fairly common, and even that is more than enough to cause problems if you don't know how to handle it.  Altho in some cases, it's NOT counted as NIL money per se...Caitlin Clark isn't in the top 100.  She's getting paid through a direct contract with Allstate.  NIL money is massively top-heavy, and connected to marketability.  

 

One of the other issues in college basketball is, only the top 60 or so have any real chance of making it.  Heck, I think if you're a 2nd round draft pick, you're a tossup to make an NBA team, versus at best a split G League/NBA contract.  Those contracts don't pay *that* great...so there's more incentive for that substantial 2nd tier to continue in college, and probably net out pretty well, while hopefully rising in the draft.  That translates to making it even more risk-prone to rely purely on the one-and-dones.

[Grailknight]

I say just beginning because we don't have a true set of rules just yet. The transfer portal has changed each of the last 2 off seasons and NIL is still in the early Wild West days.

 

Right now, those valuations are just estimates by marketing research and don't have access to all the income from all sources because there is no uniform reporting structure. Until the rules are firmed up, there's no way to know how much many of these side deals are worth. But just getting a free car puts most of these deals above $50K and there's hundreds of those type of deals if not thousands.

[unclevlad]

That's true, right now there are no rules on NIL, but hey, this is the NCAA.  There may never be because they're inept.  That's a big reason for the Super League push, I think...and that the Big 10 and SEC want more control.

 

What I'm saying is, very few players are getting free cars.  Free *lease*...maybe.  That'd be easier to see.  But not outright free car.  And to be honest, I wouldn't want a new car...because that's *income* and now it has to be reported.  Ergo?  It's taxable.  Would you rather win $40K on Jeopardy...or a $40K prize package on The Price is Right?  (Side note, I caught the showdown of one TPIR evening show...the packages were like 50-60K each.)  No brainer there, right?  ESPECIALLY given how many TPIR prize packages include a lotta stuff I'd be, at best, ambivalent about.

 

I also expect the number's not that large...and I think you'll agree, almost all in football and men's basketball, for serious deals.  Many of em are for appearances.  There's an ad for a local HVAC firm that has 2 UTEP players...that one gets shown a lot.  I believe one of the Cruces car companies uses a couple Aggies.  There's probably more;  I almost never watch the local stations, other than during a game...and those are mostly national ads.  

 

This is a comment about NMSU's NIL collective:

The first NIL deals it facilitated were for men's basketball players Sir'Jabari Rice and Johnny McCants with Doña Ana Pain & Injury. 

 

Not big bucks there.

 

EDIT:  I think the problem is, the NIL deals we hear about are for the best players on the best, most well-known teams.  That tends to skew our perceptions.  How many backup offensive linemen have big NIL deals, tho?