If the first weekend of every NCAA tournament creates dozens of stories — some of them super-sized, some of them bite-sized — the second weekend creates the bigger headlines.
In the second weekend of each NCAA tournament, the heavyweights and brand-name schools either take their place at the Final Four table or endure a very hard fall in the glare of the spotlight. The first weekend of the Dance is a cluttered mess of activity, which can sometimes reduce the extent to which a shocking result reverberates across the country. In the regionals, however, newsmaking events become more conspicuous due to the comparative lack of competing games. The ability to compare the first weekend to the second weekend makes this particular Monday another important time to take stock of what we’ve seen in March: the winners, yes, but also the losers and the non-team-specific stories that have shaped this year’s tournament.
10 – ALL FOUR TOP SEEDS FOUGHT WELL, BUT ONLY ONE SHOT WELL IN ITS LAST OR MOST RECENT GAME: WICHITA STATE
One of the toughest, cruelest truths in sports is that your best effort might not be good enough to win. Sometimes, a great performance combined with great effort isn’t even enough.
With the benefit of hindsight after another week of tournament basketball, the facts are in: Wichita State — though wounded by the agony of defeat — can take solace in knowing that of the three top seeds to lose in the NCAA tournament (Florida is still alive), it produced the best shooting performance… by far.
Arizona hit just under 40 percent of its shots against Wisconsin on Saturday, with Aaron Gordon and Nick Johnson failing to become consistent shooters throughout the course of an uneven weekend in Anaheim, Calif.
Virginia fought bravely on defense, creating that rare basketball species known as a “defensive classic” against Michigan State in the East Regional semifinals. Yet, the Cavaliers hit only 35 percent of their field goals and left too many four-footers unfinished.
Florida is in the Final Four, but in the Gators’ most recent game — the South Regional final against Dayton — the top overall seed in the Dance made only 37.5 percent of its shot attempts from the floor.
Wichita State is looking at all these numbers with a mixture of pride and agony. The Shockers can’t believe their misfortune in terms of the draw they were given, but they can only grow in appreciation for the way they played against Kentucky.
In defeat, Wichita State hit 55 percent of its field goals and just under 50 percent of its threes (10-of-21). Virginia and Arizona lost nobly — it ought to mean something when a team loses at a high level instead of face-planting the way Baylor did against Wisconsin in the Sweet 16 — but after two weekends of Dancing, it seems hard to contest the notion that no team has lost more nobly in this tournament than Wichita State. Keep that in mind when you assess the Shockers a month or a year from now in a fuller historical context.
9 – THE BIG TEN PLACED ONLY ONE TEAM IN THE FINAL FOUR, BUT IT UPHELD ITS REPUTATION AS THE BEST CONFERENCE IN MODERN COLLEGE BASKETBALL
This isn’t a one-year verdict or a 20-year verdict, more like a verdict on the past five to six seasons of college basketball.
The Atlantic Coast Conference hasn’t placed two or more teams in the Elite Eight since 2004. The Pac-12 has two Elite Eights (Arizona in 2011 and this year) and zero Final Fours over the past six seasons. The Big 12 hasn’t placed a non-Kansas team in the Final Four since 2004 (Oklahoma State), and it didn’t get a single team to the Elite Eight this year.
The SEC, strongly represented at the Final Four, is so weak at the other 11 spots (with Tennessee occupying a middle-ground position this season) that it is better thought of as Kentucky, Florida, and Everybody Else. The Big East is not what it was even one year ago, when Syracuse made the Final Four and Louisville won the national title. Not a single Big East team made the Sweet 16 this season. With San Diego State losing in the Sweet 16, no Mountain West team has ever made the Elite Eight.
The best conference in college basketball — not necessarily this season, but in this larger period of time blending the present day with the recent past — remains the Big Ten. Even though its top teams were unquestionably down relative to 2013 (when Indiana was a 1 seed and Ohio State was a 2 seed), the Big Ten steered three teams into the Elite Eight and owned a chance to dominate the composition of the Final Four. Michigan State and Michigan came very close to crashing North Texas.
Not bad for a down year, to say the least… even though the Final Four haul will still come across as a disappointment.
8 – SIZE MATTERS
One way to express this enduring basketball truth is as follows: When Kentucky took down Wichita State in the round of 32, it hit 8-of-18 three-point shots.
When Dayton lost to Florida this past Saturday in the South Regional final, it hit… 8-of-18 three-point shots.
The Flyers were one of the feel-good stories of this tournament — not just because they were a plucky 11 seed that did well, and not just because their proud basketball heritage makes their return to the spotlight a big deal. The way in which their community embraced them is why the Flyers left a large imprint on the mind this March.
Had Dayton possessed Kentucky’s size and power, the Flyers would have been able to take the fight to Florida at an even higher level. These two 8-for-18 shooting performances illustrate why Big Blue is moving on and Dayton isn’t. They also show why Kentucky, if it can continue to hit three-point shots in meaningful moments (a big “if,” yes, but an important one), is probably the favorite to win the national title.
7 – THE MILLERS — DEFEATED BUT CLOTHED IN GLORY (AND HEADED FOR SUCCESS)
Dayton played well in the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. It played even better for most of the second weekend, before a lack of strength and power near the rim left it underequipped against Florida in the South Regional final. Dayton masterfully carved up Stanford in the Sweet 16 and fought the taller, longer Cardinal to a standoff on the glass. Through the first 15 minutes of game time against Florida, the Flyers gave every appearance of being able to keep pace with the No. 1 overall seed in this tournament. A 10-0 Florida run and a just-before-halftime statement bucket by Scottie Wilbekin changed the tenor of the proceedings.
At any rate, Dayton’s ball movement and diversity on offense enabled the Flyers to look like a 4 seed much more than an 11 seed. If the basic components of this NCAA tournament run can be carried into the 2014-2015 season, Archie Miller should have a consistent achiever on his hands, one that could very well supplant Saint Louis as the best team in the Atlantic 10.
Then, of course, there’s Sean Miller, who guided Arizona within one bucket of the Final Four despite poor shooting performances from his star players and an injury to a valuable frontcourt asset, Brandon Ashley. Arizona’s 2011 Elite Eight appearance in Anaheim was followed by a pair of rocky seasons in 2012 and 2013. Now, though, the Wildcats seem to have reached a point where they’re going to be reloading on an annual basis. The Brothers Miller have the world to gain in the coming decades. What they did this past weekend only enhanced their status in the college basketball community.
Shabazz Napier will field more than a few Kemba Walker questions this week in North Texas.
6 – UCONN, SHABAZZ, AND ALL THAT BASKETBALL JAZZ
The best player at the Final Four resides on the roster of the Connecticut Huskies, the team that will be seen as the longshot in Arlington, Tex.
Shabazz Napier might not have won a Big East Tournament the way Connecticut did three years ago in March, but he did win multiple games at Madison Square Garden to help the Huskies on the road to the Final Four. In this and other obvious ways, Napier has followed a path first traveled by his point-guard predecessor in Storrs, Kemba Walker.
This Final Four stacks up as a supremely competitive event for a few fundamental reasons, including this one: If the supposedly “worst” team of the four has the best player, the ultimate underdog in suburban Dallas is not that much of an underdog at all.
In the 2011 Final Four, Connecticut was — if not the clear favorite — a co-favorite with Kentucky. This time, the Huskies will be expected to lose their national semifinal against Florida. Kemba Walker carried UConn to the championship three years ago in the state of Texas. The table is set for Napier to do the same thing.
5 – TELEVISION, PART ONE: TIP TIMES
The way in which the NCAA tournament is televised has become more of a story this year, in large part because of what we’re going to see this weekend: namely, the Final Four being shown on a cable network for the first time.
That’s in the future, though. The televising of the NCAA tournament made news this past weekend, as the two best games on the entire Sweet 16 slate — the Midwest Regional semifinal between Kentucky and Louisville, paired in the same time window with the East Regional semifinal between Michigan State and Virginia — ended at roughly the same time.
It’s true that on Sweet 16 Thursday and Friday, CBS and Turner might want two games to be minimally staggered, so that if one game is a blowout, the other game becomes an immediate viewing option. CBS and Turner would reduce the chances of a 30- or 40-minute lull appearing midway through their five-hour broadcast window (7 p.m. to midnight Eastern time).
However, the Sweet 16 is precisely a round in which one should expect competitive games. It would seem to be more of a public service to viewers (such an antiquated notion, of course) to severely stagger the Sweet 16 games.
Would it really hurt anyone if the first regional semifinal (ideally in the East or South, i.e., more likely to be in the Eastern time zone) began at 6:45 p.m. Eastern, and the second regional semifinal (from the Midwest or West site, in the Central/Mountain/Pacific time zone) began at 7:35?
Viewers should not have to go through what they endured late Friday night, when two high-stakes games, both played with Final Four-level urgency, ended at the same time. It reminded viewers of a certain age of the times when the Orange Bowl (on NBC) and the Sugar Bowl (ABC) both went down to the wire at roughly the same time on New Year’s night.
Television should be past that. Television should be better than that.
Speaking of which…
4 – TELEVISION, PART TWO: SHOW THE OFFENSIVE FOULS AND OFF-BALL PLAYS, WILL YA?
One of the basic realities of watching sports is that a viewer — a fan or a journalist — can only watch certain parts of the action at all times. Naturally, in basketball, it is essential to follow the ball. The officials must follow off-ball developments, but the contained nature of action in basketball (as opposed to football) makes it essential for the viewer to follow the ball most of the time.
A production truck ought to be attuned to the need to show off-ball components of competition, with moving screens and other types of offensive fouls being important parts of the sport. Yet, in TBS’s broadcast of the Wisconsin-Arizona West Regional final, Turner’s truck couldn’t be bothered to show several off-ball offensive fouls that occurred in the second half.
Replays focused primarily on made baskets that viewers watched in real time. Showing these replays rarely if ever added to the viewer’s experience. Fans and writers wanted to see more visual details pertaining to a questionable series of calls that went against both teams at both ends of the floor. Let’s hope that at the Final Four on Saturday, Turner/TBS will be ready to show off-ball moving screens (or perhaps legal screens that were called poorly, or vice-versa).
Television, if it is going to remain a story at the Final Four, needs to become a story for the right reasons, not the wrong ones.
3 – PITINO AND IZZO RUN INTO LIMITATIONS
The underlying reality of this year’s Louisville and Michigan State teams was that they were just too inconsistent to reach the next level. No, there was nothing automatic or certain about their exits; anything but. Yet, there were patterns to be found, patterns that remained intact from the Cards’ and Spartans’ regular seasons.
Louisville’s offense died in the final five minutes against Kentucky, something that had happened several times before during the 2013-2014 season. Such a scenario was not new for this crew of Cardinals.
Similarly, Michigan State — like much of the Big Ten this season — played with great focus on one night and then with much less precision in its next game. The Spartans processed their East Regional semifinal win over Virginia with great clarity for most of the 40-minute battle. Against Connecticut, their decision making was conspicuously poor over the course of the afternoon in New York.
Rick Pitino finally lost a Sweet 16 game (11-1), while Tom Izzo lost an Elite Eight game for only the second time in his career (6-2). If you last long enough in the profession of coaching, you’re going to take some hits. Just realize that high-level success and longevity — both great things — can and do (and will continue to) put legendary coaches and athletes in position to suffer more scarring, torturous losses. That’s one of the great (and awful) paradoxes of sports.
2 – THE FIRST-TIMERS AND THE LEGENDS
Kevin Ollie and Bo Ryan will be coaching in their first Final Fours this weekend. One (Ollie) is a great coach in the making, while the other has fully and finally stamped his career as a great one (Ryan) with a validating Final Four ticket.
Ollie and Ryan, though, are the ones playing with house money in JerryWorld. The two coaches that are expected to win on Saturday (at least from this vantage point; your mileage may vary) are legends in the sport, now two wins from dramatically improving upon already-rich legacies of achievement.
Billy Donovan is seeking a third national title in this, his fourth Final Four. Donovan — who has rented out a spot in the Elite Eight for four straight seasons — now has a team back on the big stage, a Florida bunch that will be favored to reach Monday night’s title fight. If Florida does beat Connecticut, the Gators will have a chance to tie UConn (and two other programs) for sixth on the all-time list with three national championships. Much as Connecticut’s three titles were all won by one man (Jim Calhoun), Donovan would stand to be the architect of the Gators’ “triple crown” achievement if Florida cuts down the nets a week from now.
Then comes John Calipari, racing into the Final Four with a full head of steam after being behind schedule for the previous four months.
Calipari had just about run out of time with this Kentucky team. What was once touted as a 40-0 juggernaut-in-the-making became a No. 8 seed with an 0-3 record against Florida and an ugly March 1 (yes, March has been that much of a transformation for Big Blue…) loss to South Carolina.
Yet, that same team has merely proceeded to wipe away three-fourths of last year’s Final Four, and all in high-quality games when the opposition was not playing poorly. It’s one thing to win when an opponent crumbles, but Kentucky took solid punches from Wichita State, Louisville, and Michigan, winning anyway. Moreover, Kentucky won even though key big man Willie Cauley-Stein barely played in this past weekend’s Midwest Regional.
You can technically say that Calipari has two vacated Final Fours on his resume, so let’s be more precise about the matter: Calipari has physically stood on a sideline and watched his team celebrate a Final Four appearance (in the present moment) on five occasions. If he stays at Kentucky and does not resist the siren song of the NBA, Calipari is poised to make more Final Fours than Tom Izzo, Roy Williams, and Rick Pitino.
He’s more than just a recruiter.
Funny how narratives can change so much in just two weeks.
Kevin Ollie and Bo Ryan are terrific coaches… and they’ll need to win on Saturday in order to avoid being dwarfed when this Final Four is ultimately remembered.
Florida’s team stands united and purposeful, ready to establish a very lofty place in the long and storied history of college basketball.
1 – FLORIDA’S CONFRONTATION WITH HISTORY
There will not be an unbeaten team at this year’s Final Four; Kentucky made sure of that when it defeated Wichita State in the round of 32. However, the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers are the last team to carry a winning streak of at least 30 games all the way through to a national title (32 consecutive wins).
Since the ’76 Hoosiers, no team has even managed to carry a 20-game winning streak through the national championship game. The 1995 UCLA Bruins came the closest, winning 19 games in a row, the last one being a national title game win over Arkansas.
Florida brings a 30-game winning streak into North Texas. On Saturday, the Gators will try to avoid the national semifinal trap that caught the 1991 UNLV team against Duke. If Florida wins that game, the Gators will try to do what Indiana State couldn’t in 1979 when the Sycamores reached the national title game with a 33-0 mark.
Kentucky is the big story with the large fan base and the national brand name at this Final Four, not to mention the most talkative and controversial coach. Yet, Florida is the team that is playing for the history books more than anyone else. Given that Kentucky and Connecticut are playing for a lot of history in their own right, it’s quite a commentary on Florida’s status as a program that the Gators have so much to gain (and lose) in Arlington.