West Virginia coach Bob Huggins made one of the more astute comments while moonlighting as a March Madness studio analyst last weekend, saying he never has seen so many balls bounce or roll off the rim on inside shots.
When you’re shooting from one foot, Huggins dryly suggested, you should make it.
Huggins offered no stats to back it up, but after watching the first week of the NCAA Tournament, I completely agree with his assessment — and furthermore would guess the number of air balls on 3-point attempts was an all-time high.
Other than widespread shooting woes, the opening week of March Madness was about as good as it gets, with a lovable Cinderella in Saint Peter’s, the rags-to-riches saga of Iowa State, the extended engagement of the Coach K farewell tour, a bit of redemption for Michigan coach Juwan Howard and one of the best tournament games ever in top-seeded Gonzaga’s second-round comeback win over Memphis.
Here are seven observations from a mad, mad, mad week in March:
1. Saint Peter’s is the newest darling of college basketball.
It’s hard not to like a team with a coach like Shaheen Holloway, who had to do an in-game interview Saturday and told the reporter his team was playing “like crap,” even though it was leading Murray State at the time. Afterward, Holloway had the line of the tournament: “I got guys from New Jersey and New York City. You think we’re scared of anything?”
The Peacocks play their home games in a new gym called Run Baby Run Arena, named after the 1968 team that averaged 94 points per game. That’s such a great idea, I hope the Houston Cougars take note and build a Phi Slama Jama Arena to honor their great teams of the 1980s.
2. Charles Barkley finally met his match.
After his team beat second-seeded Auburn on Sunday, Miami coach Jim Larrañaga started his news conference with a shout-out to Barkley, who was outwardly rooting for his alma mater to beat the Hurricanes.
“I was tuned in to the games before us,” Larrañaga said. “I listened to Charles Barkley tell the CBS crew that if Auburn won, he would take off his shirt, and I thought to myself, man, no one wants to see that, Chuck. So we did everything possible to make it possible that he wouldn’t have to do that.”
3. The most hyped conferences took a beating.
Before the tournament, the SEC was ranked as the second-toughest conference behind the Big 12. But second-seeded Kentucky and No. 6 seeds LSU and Alabama went down in the first round, and Auburn and third-seeded Tennessee were upset in the second round. Five of the six SEC teams are gone.
“The SEC is going to get crushed because of our tournament performance,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl correctly said. “Arkansas is the only team that’s alive. I think we just beat each other up all year. It was such a grind. That’s the only thing I can tell you because the league was really, really good. We didn’t show it in the tournament.”
That same lament is typical at this time of year for the Big Ten, which finished fourth in conference rankings just behind the Big East. Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio State and Michigan State all lost Sunday, leaving Michigan and Purdue as the sole Sweet 16 survivors of the conference’s nine entrants.
Iowa, which won the Big Ten Tournament, looked particularly fatigued in its first-round upset loss to Richmond, while Illinois had two tourney clunkers, including a last-minute win against No. 13 seed Chattanooga.
Did the Big Ten teams get tired beating each other up, or was the conference simply a victim of its own hype?
4. Some of the best moments happen after the final buzzer.
One of my favorite scenes of the weekend was Michigan’s Howard hugging Tennessee’s Kennedy Chandler as the Vols guard cried after the emotional loss.
For those who know Howard, it was good to see the former Chicago Vocational star portrayed in a positive light after nonstop replays of him striking a Wisconsin assistant coach during a skirmish in the handshake line, which led to a five-game suspension and fine for Howard.
Howard admittedly was wrong for that reaction, but the emotional moment with Chandler showed the man his friends and family have known for years.
5. Officiating is always under scrutiny in the NCAA Tournament.
It only seems like this year has seen some of the worst calls ever. But it surely has been awful, including the terrible technical foul on Illinois freshman RJ Melendez for hanging on the rim to avoid falling after a breakaway dunk.
Mistakes are always made in games. They simply stand out more this time of year, when we assume the best officials would be assigned to the biggest event. Silly us.
6. CBS showed some restraint in its Mike Krzyzewski coverage.
ESPN’s overkill during the ACC Tournament on the Duke coach’s farewell tour was annoying for fans — especially the ones who dislike the Blue Devils. CBS did a much better job Sunday during Duke’s win over Michigan State, giving the story its due but not at the expense of the game.
As hated as the Blue Devils often are during the tournament, March Madness is better with them in it. Everyone needs a villain to root against.
7. Is DePaul watching what Iowa State is doing?
Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger inadvertently put pressure on DePaul and every other struggling college program by going 2-22 last season and using the transfer portal to totally remake his team into a tourney Cinderella.
The 11th-seeded Cyclones will play No. 10 seed Miami on Friday in a Midwest Region semifinal at the United Center, proving there’s more than one way to turn things around quickly. Otzelberger knew he couldn’t get the top players to transfer to a program with only two wins, so he instead got ones who bought in to his team-first concept.
“We wanted to make sure they knew what we were going to be about, what they were signing up for, what our identity would be,” Otzelberger said Sunday after Iowa State beat No. 3 seed Wisconsin. “We believe that if you play hard defensively and you dictate that, you can control the game.
“I go back to these guys being very low-ego, high-producing guys. They’re great teammates. So that’s important that you bring in the right type of guys so they know what they’re signing up for and they take pride in it.”
Talent isn’t everything, especially when March arrives.
