NCAA Tournament: Weekend Redux
I wanted to post more about this weekend’s games, but never really got around to it. So I decided in one post to just ramble on, stream-of-consciousness style about WVU’s men and women and the tournament in general.
Let’s start off with the Mountaineer women’s team, losers by a 64-46 margin in to Vanderbilt in the round of 32, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. WVU got behind early, dug in and got the lead back before half, but folded like a tent in the second half. It is very uncharacteristic of a Mike Carey team to quit playing hard. And WVU is known as a strong defensive team and a great shooting team but looked like neither for long stretches in the game. In some ways, bowing out in the round of 32 seems pretty disappointing to me. WVU was ranked in the top 15 most of the season and had seven battle-tested seniors. After a third-place finish in the Big East, the season is now over for WVU. This was one of the best women’s squads in school history. Maybe we’re becoming spoiled because of the success of other programs on campus, but I surely thought this women’s team could see greater heights. But in the end, they got a bad tournament draw at New Mexico, where they chiseled out a first-round victory by the skin of their teeth, then faced Vanderbilt who were on fresh legs after a first-round blowout of Montana. So WVU was somewhat doomed from the start. Now Mike Carey has to rebuild around players like Ashley Powell, Sparkle Davis, and Liz Repella. Carey has signed a stellar recruiting class and always has success getting JUCO replacements when needed, but this is probably going to be the best WVU team for a while.
As I predicted, after the men’s 73-67 victory over Duke that propelled WVU to it’s third sweet sixteen in four years, most of the focus was on Duke, how poorly they played and how their dynasty has fallen. Most people want to pin the win on Joe Alexander and mention Joe Mazzulla in passing, but again Alex Ruoff stepping his game to the level where it needs to be was a key factor.
Coach Huggins seems to have a knack for knowing when he can put his role players in a position to succeed. All year, Mazzulla has played lights out at times, but other games he may be nearly invisible and play less than 10 minutes. Ted Talkington played extensively in the UConn Big East tournament game and was helpful. Cam Thoroughman on a few occassions this season and again against Duke came in and provided much-needed physicality and was even able to grab 4 points and 4 rebounds. One decision I didn’t like was the decision to start Wellington Smith over Jamie Smalligan. As soon as I saw Smith in the lineup, I told those with whom I was watching that Smith would get into quick foul trouble. And so it passed. You have to love Smith’s athleticism and aggressiveness, but he has a knack for getting in foul trouble, and mostly stupid fouls of the offensive variety, or personal fouls in the backcourt. Smith has provided a spark off the bench all year and he needs to continue in that capacity.
Finally, just to recap the tournament in general so far. I did pretty poorly in my picks overall. I said Georgetown would stop Stephen Curry. Obviously wrong. But it begs the question, will anyone be able to stop Curry? Or contain the rest of the Davidson team enough that even if Curry scores 50 it’s not a factor? Georgetown looked like one of the premier defensive teams in the country for much of the year, they looked like whipped pups against Davidson.
On a Georgetown tangent, I pity the NBA team that wastes it’s draft pick on Roy Hibbert. at times he has shown flashes of brilliance, certainly he dominated WVU in the Big East tournament, but he is far too inconsistent and downright apathetic at times. Which is true of a lot of NBA players as well, but I just don’t think Hibbert is skilled enough in any one area to amount to a hill of beans in the NBA. If I’m an NBA scout I am taking a lot longer look at Patrick Ewing, Jr. than Hibbert. Ewing doesn’t have the measurables of Hibbert, but he certainly has the pedigree and fantastic basketball instincts.
The top seeds are still alive, but despite UCLA’s near-miss against Texas A&M, I still think Memphis is the most vulnerable one-seed. North Carolina, Texas, Louisville and Kansas look like precision instruments. Tennessee is scratching and clawing through games just like you would expect a Bruce Pearl team to. The brilliant coaching of Jay Wright is shining through in Villanova. Western Kentucky and Davidson are still fighting over the Cinderella slipper. I’ll have my sweet sixteen picks later in the week, but for now I think this is one of the more interesting tournaments in a while, just from an outsider’s perspective, not because of WVU’s participation. I am genuinely interested in almost every sweet sixteen matchup and that doesn’t usually happen.
Tags: Duke, Georgetown, March Madness, NCAA tournament, Vanderbilt
