Comments (0) Coach Jimmy and his boys pulled out Allen Park’s first district playoffs win in seven years with a double overtime thriller over the mighty Crestwood Chargers. This means that our own Coach Jimmy now has a better post-season record than Bo Ryan.
Just a quick note of acknowledgement to MSU and the back-to-back Big Ten Championship that was secured last night. It has been an interesting season in East Lansing. Some high-points and some low-points that all seemed to come in bunches. MSU finished the regular season on a high-point and sent Raymar Morgan, Isaiah Dahlman and Jon Crandall out winners and BT Champs. Raymar played the way you hope a senior does in his last game – it was special, and part of what makes MSU Hoops special – Coach Izzo got a little teary eyed as the Seniors kissed the S and the trophy celebration ensued.
The Big Ten Tourney is next and MSU is jockeying for seeding in the top four lines. A good showing could mean a solid 3 seed and depending on what happens elsewhere a BTT Title could lead to another 2 seed (MSU is 10-1 as a 2 seed in the Tourney). I cannot wait for Thursday to get here – in the meantime I guess I’ll just have to get my fill of all the other Conference Tournaments and Championship games.
Now – a quick word why this was just a short note: In a few moments I will be heading to Historic Fordson High School in Dearborn to watch our own Coach Jimmy engage his battle tested Allen Park Jaguars in his first High School Playoff game as HC of the hometown Jags. Sam is meeting me there and we will rep the “Tourney Trip APHS Boys Hoops Booster Club” in Coach Jimmy’s first District game. It’s March – even for Jimmy – Go Jags!
Here we sit, a week from selection Sunday. A week from knowing who we draw in Buffalo, NY. While it is mostly about the games, there are a few perks for doing this trip. One of them is seeing a few of the great cities of this country. Buffalo has a ton to offer five randoms who love watching hoops, drinking the special, and making fun of chud’s. Here’s what we have in store:
5. Niagara Falls – While not located in Buffalo, NY, Buffalo is the closest major city to Niagara Falls. I’m not sure if we will get the chance to see this. I believe a few guys of the trip have already seen Niagara Falls, but I have not. Even if we do a drive by on the way into town, it’d be pretty neat.
4. Rick James – Yes, everybody’s favorite David Chapelle parody, Rick James, was born in Buffalo, NY. Some other no talent ass clowns were as well, including the Goo Goo Dolls (wtf?), and 4790324,84032 Maniacs. This is actually a pretty crappy #4 out of a top five. I wanted to put that Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as president after William McKinley was shot, but that’s kind of messed up too. We’ll skip number 4 with the advisory that Buffalo is a working class city, and is not very showy, which means all of the TMZ celebrity bullshit that would make up a random Top Five list doesn’t really make it’s way into town. That’s a good thing for five beer drinking will be weary travelers like ourselves.
3. SPORTZ – Buffalo, NY is home to the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, the NHL’s Buffalo Sabers, and to Division 1 Canisius. I once tried to play Canisius in a Playstation 2 basketball dynasty when we lived in the stink house. It was too hard to figure out how to shoot, and the dynasty was quickly scrapped. The Griffin on the home floor is really large, and equally as sweet.
2. Food – Food, and specifically, buffalo wings. Wings were created in this city. As far as we can tell, they were originated at The Anchor Bar, in Buffalo. Their website talks a lot about it, and I guess that it’s pretty important. All I care is they have like 10 Tv’s and a dozen of their special creation so we can watch basketball. Trip traveling organization has us arriving in town on Thursday, hopefully sometime in the early afternoon. We may be tracking this place down sooner or later. Note should be made that Buffalo has a lot riding on its shoulders as a city after the letdown of Philly, and its gross bunmeat sandwich. The website has a bunch of dumb motor cycles and signs on it, so I’m not going to get my hopes up too far.
1. THE TOURNAMENT – Fucking Duh. 1st and 2nd rounds, Friday and Sunday. I’m flying across the country. We’re going through another country. Buffalo, NY will house us for 5 days. Decent odds on seeing a few teams we follow. BYU is off the list due to the Friday / Sunday configuration. It’s the first weekend of the tournament, and we’ll be on the town with a handfull of duckets, and stars in our eyes. The Tourney Coat is being cleaned, the Colonel’s suit will be pressed and bagged.
Tomorrow, when you’re starting your work week, trying to get into the flow of things, you’re bound to be distracted by something. It will creep into every office meeting, cubicle farm, inprompt0 tailgate meeting on your job-sites. It is destined to enthrall every casual male sports fan for the next month, ending in Indianapolis with the crowning of a champion, or the awarding of $500 to some random who always picks North Carolina. Google searches for “bracket” will go up thousands of percents. Everybody is going to discuss how they ducked out of work for an hour to watch a first round game. Somebody will be “cool” because he picked 5 upsets in the first round.
March Madness is a term for the masses. It’s goal is to create a froth of Johnny Come-lately for three weeks in March. Everybody will fill out three brackets, half of them will be trashed after the first weekend, and some soccer mom will win a random pool of loot for something she knows nothing about.
I question the term “Madness” because, to me, it is a symphony. There is nothing mad about it.
64 teams lace them up in perfect harmony. 64 goes to 32 goes to 16 goes to 8 goes to 4 goes to 2 goes to 1. Each team receives a seed, based on their seasons work. Then, each team plays the game. If you want to advance, you win. If you want to win, you have to play better than the other team. Doesn’t mean you ARE better than another team. Just means you have to show up on that day in order to advance. Survival of the willingest.
Simply slating a random team on a bracket line demeans the effort that has been put forth by 300+ teams over the last 4+ months. It means more than what people will make of it. Bus rides and late nights, and hotels and buffets and practices, those damn practices. Sprained ankles and concussions and hamstring tweaks and bone bruses. Some guy is going to pick Richmond to hit up the sweet sixteen this year in his bracket and feel pretty good about it, not knowing what the Spiders have put into this season to make him look real smart, or real stupid. How about the fact that it’s real? A real town, and a team that affected a real conference of basketball teams. They loaded up the bus and hit the road. They defended their home gym. Taped up ankles and suicides. All so you can pick them to beat Oklahoma State. Every team is real, every player, every coach, every university or college. Every small college town, or city block, or small state. The miles traveled are real. The sweat spent is real too.
I learned this the hard way. I’ve entered my fair share of brackets. I won a good portion of them. You live and you learn. I no longer feel the need to express my love for this game in the form of a bracket. I actually kept the last bracket I ever filled out, folded it up, and put it into the program of the second tournament I ever went to, in Milwaukee. This is an evolution, for you, and for me.
So when a random wrong comes up to you this year with a stack of blank brackets, and asks you for twenty bucks to enter, politely pass. Maybe even offer to buy him lunch with said twenty bucks. He’s lost, and he probably needs it.
Enjoy it for what it is. It’s better than a computer print out and a highlighter. It’s not mad. It’s not crazy. It’s not insane. It’s a symphony of 347 basketball teams. Nobody ever notices the guy who plays the triangle, but that doesn’t mean he’s not important.
This week I had one game, Wednesday, TCU at UNLV. UNLV dispatched these clowns in easy fasion, just as they have the couple of scrubs they’ve played recently (besides Utah). Final Score was 78-62, but it wasn’t even that close. It was a 30+ point game in the second half with 11 minutes left. Take it for what it’s worth. Game 22 of 50 for me. 50 looking quite difficult. Still going to give it the ol college try though.
Good news on the ticket front this week as well. Some randoms from Buffalo, NY sent over a few tickets for us to attend some hoops games, the same ones we’ve been talking about. So that’s good news:
I also managed to track down my set of Final Four tickets:
So now we can get into these places we’ve spoken about so much. The Final Four tickets were pretty hard to track down. The wonderful people at the NCAA ticket office did not change my mailing address, even though I sent the proper information to them, and even received conformation back that it was. It’s all good though, as it worked out in the end.
Wyoming @ UNLV for the last Rebel game of the year is next Saturday. I will also be at the WCC tournament at the Rhett’s Basketball viewing arena, AKA, the Orleans Arena. That starts on Friday.
Currently watching Richmond @ Xavier (dynasty). Looking forward to some USA hockey, and MSU @ Purdue. Things are rounding into shape nicely. They should be, tomorrow is March, and it is MY month.
50 Games, Daily, Game Log's
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Buffalo NY, Final Four, TCU, UNLV
Comments Off Well just about every prediction I made for Sunday’s game was just horribly off:
- Evan Turner didn’t play well and OSU still won
- MSU’s depth was a non-issue (even with OSU’s lone bench player fouling out) as the team seemingly did their own thing in the first half going against the game plan of run-run-run and if it’s not there pound the ball in the post (post-ups and drives) and what resulted was a 13 point deficit and OSU controlling tempo.
- Raymar played with good effort, and was the only player praised by Coach Izzo in the post-game, but was not too crisp. He made some plays and left it all on the court but was again limited by a few silly fouls. For the rest of the season – and his career – I just expect a good effort out of Ray and if he does that good things will happen. Ray can’t compensate for the lack of a true presence in the middle (cough – we really miss G – cough) or when the wings decide they know more than Izzo – So, from now on I’m Ray’s biggest supporter and as long as the effort is there I got his back (and thank him for a fine career in the Green and White).
Joe Rexrode at the Lansing State Journal has a very interesting blog post about the state of the team:
These “LCD” issues explain a lot about the last three weeks (and have been mentioned before, but no one pays attention to these things when the team is winning) so too does Kalin’s injury and of course the expectations factor discounting the loss of Walton, Suton, Gray and Ibok.
So, where does this team go from here? The discussion will focus on the Purdue game and the how far this team can go in the Tourney. And a lot of judgments about the latter will be based on the performance in the former. However, I still would not read too much into what happens next Sunday – and I still think a rested and prepared Spartan Team can win in West Laffy (as a matter of fact the Flintstones began to build their legacy one cold Indiana winter night back in 1998 at Mackey Arena – maybe Kalin, Raymar and DayDay can re-build their own legacy there too… but I digress) – as certainly the Big Ten regular season hangs in the balance but MSU has built its program based on the NCAA Tournament not the Big Ten regular season (don’t get me wrong I like BT Championships as much as the next guy but banners hung in the center rafters with Final Four logos are more important than banners hung on the side rafters that say BT Champ). And I still think this team has a Tourney run in them. They’ll have to work out the “LCD” issues and it’s a good thing Tom Izzo is there to guide that process. If they can do that in time for the 3rd weekend in March this team can play for more than two games in the Dance. Of course, based on my last post I wouldn’t go wagering the house on my predictions.
Comments Off Headed into the last week of February, if you are thinking of making the tournament, and advancing in the tournament, you had better be rounding into top form.
UNLV coming off a 3 game losing streak against New Mexico, San Diego State, and Utah, found their hoop game against Colorado State yesterday afternoon, and used it to gain a 70-39 win at home against the Rams. Colorado State is a decent squad, with some good pieces and will look to be a player in the league next year. UNLV started the game out on a 10-2 run, had balanced scoring, including 12 points from Anthony Marshall and Chace Stanback, and 11 points from Kendall Wallace and Tre’Von Willis. The Thomas and Mack was a bit empty, but that did not prevent the Rebels from having some great defensive pressure for almost the entire 1st half. The Rams only managed 16 points by halftime. The second half was mostly coasting, with a small Colorado State run squashed by UNLV.
This is called taking care of business. This is a game UNLV should have won, and had to have when you consider the three previous losses. They have TCU and Wyoming at home and Air Force on the road to finish out the season, and should win all 3 games rather easily. They’ll need to to ensure a favorable match up in the 1st round of the conference tournament. Losing the first game in the conference tournament on your home floor is not a good idea.
Michigan State is sitting in another boat. After losing three games, they won two easy road games against Penn State and Indiana. This left them headed into two game, at home vs Ohio State, and on the road at Purdue. Ohio State handled Sparty this afternoon, which is disapointing. Now, the road game at Purdue seems rather important, as the Spartans haven’t proven they can beat good squads lately, and may need the confidence boost a Purdue win would bring, in order to get their minds right for March.
I’m hoping the Rebels will win out in convincing fashion to eliminate any doubt that they should be in the field of 65. I’m also hoping Michigan State starts to hit their stride, knocks off Purdont, and starts off March on the right foot.
Comments Off Okay, so this is a little late but better late than never.
I’ll also keep it brief and focused. I think there are three key questions/factors in this game:
- How will Raymar play? Here’s hoping the Ohio Native has a re-awakening in his last game against the home state school. If Ray posts double digit points and grabs a nice number of boards it bodes well for MSU’s fortunes.
- Can MSU keep OSU’s other four in check? Evan Turner is going to get his, no matter who is guarding him Turner will get his. The question is can MSU check Lighty, Buford, Diebler and Lauderdale? The defensive key for MSU is keeping OSU from getting that second guy to score.
- How will MSU’s depth effect OSU? I wrongly predicted that depth would not be an issue in the PU @ OSU game and I think if MSU can get a lead early they can ride that depth to the win in the second half.
Overall, it should be a good game. I think the Breslin will be rocking and the home court will be a big benefit for the Spartans. Of course, I will be rooting for the Spartans and I think MSU will get the home win.
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