View Poll Results: Who will win the Midwest region?

Voters
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  • Kentucky

    33 73.33%
  • Not Kentucky

    12 26.67%
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  1. #541
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Nashville, TN
    Quote Originally Posted by jipops View Post
    I think this was pretty much analogous to the Duke-UK '92 game. This was the chance the upset would take place but UK prevailed, kind of like what we did in '92. I just don't see them losing this thing, maybe even more so now.
    Except Indiana came pretty damn close to beating Duke in the Final Four and Michigan led Duke at halftime in the title game.
       

  2. #542
    Quote Originally Posted by gumbomoop View Post
    Although Brey has done a superb job with his team this season, including a near-perfect game plan tonight, I, too, posted about the missed 2-for-1 opportunity as UK took the ball out after the ND shot clock violation. The situation that MCFinARL refers to here is this: after Towns tied it at 66, ND inbounded the ball at the 1:14 mark.

    Now they could surely have run their offense and gotten a shot up in 20-25 seconds. Assume they miss and UK rebounds it with ~50 seconds left. Further assume UK runs down the clock and makes a shot -- Towns probably -- at the ~15-18 second mark. ND then has time to get a good shot.

    I don't get it, but perhaps there is a logic to Brey's thinking that I'm missing. Help.
    The 2-for-1 strategy seems to be a mental block for almost all college coaches. Sure, college teams won't always be as efficient at getting a quick shot as NBA teams, but tonight was yet another example where there was time to run offense and get a 2-for-1. Instead, they dribbled around and had to hurry a shot anyway.

  3. #543
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    Durham
    Quote Originally Posted by Duke79UNLV77 View Post
    The 2-for-1 strategy seems to be a mental block for almost all college coaches. Sure, college teams won't always be as efficient at getting a quick shot as NBA teams, but tonight was yet another example where there was time to run offense and get a 2-for-1. Instead, they dribbled around and had to hurry a shot anyway.
    in many situations, two for one does not end up giving an advantage at the college level due to as you point out, the drop in efficiency:

    http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/web...for_ones_worth
    1200. DDMF.

  4. #544
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    Fayetteville, NC
    Tough loss for the Irish.

    I think if Jackson stands firm and doesn't slide to his right he gets the call.

    On that final shot I wish someone would have laid out Townes, like that Butler kid did Singler in the 2010 game, instead everyone floated to the other side of the court.

  5. #545
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by ncexnyc View Post
    Tough loss for the Irish.

    I think if Jackson stands firm and doesn't slide to his right he gets the call.

    On that final shot I wish someone would have laid out Townes, like that Butler kid did Singler in the 2010 game, instead everyone floated to the other side of the court.
    Wasn't that Cauley-Stein on Grant?

    And no one on ND was big enough to lay Towns or Cauley-Stein out...
       

  6. #546
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    Fayetteville, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by FerryFor50 View Post
    Wasn't that Cauley-Stein on Grant?

    And no one on ND was big enough to lay Towns or Cauley-Stein out...
    I thought it was Towns, but it really doesn't matter who it was. Someone needed to attempt a screen in that situation to help free Grant. Of course it would have to be a very brave man to put his body in the way of that runaway train that was chasing Grant.

  7. #547
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by NashvilleDevil View Post
    Except Indiana came pretty damn close to beating Duke in the Final Four and Michigan led Duke at halftime in the title game.
    Except we won. And we were a dominant team. And we still faced tough games and pulled them out, much like this uk team has.

    Michigan was pretty much a blow out in the 2nd half btw.

    My main point is, this game did not expose a chink in the armor of uk.
       

  8. #548
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    Las Vegas, Nevada
    Regardless of how he played tonight, I'll tip my hat to Jerian Grant. Very nice 4 year career and now a well-deserved paycheck from the NBA. He may not be lottery, but he'll be close. I hope that's what he's thinking about on the long trip home.

  9. #549
    Seriously, how many mistakes did ND make in the endgame?

    1&2. Standing around on their last two full possessions
    3. Not going 2-for-1
    4. Burning the last timeout for no apparent gain
    5. Not drawing up a (better) play during the stoppage when possession/shot clock were reviewed. Brey knew he would have only a second or two.
    6. Not having a quick inbounds/last second play in your back pocket -- doesn't everyone have one, with an option A, B and C? You can do a lot in 6½ seconds.

    You can argue about individual points, but all six? And there was other stuff, such as Brey calling the second-to-last timeout when ND still had 3+ seconds to get it across and apparent control of the ball.

    That was DePaul-against-St. Josephs-in-1981 bad.

  10. #550
    Quote Originally Posted by hurleyfor3 View Post
    Seriously, how many mistakes did ND make in the endgame?

    1&2. Standing around on their last two full possessions
    3. Not going 2-for-1
    4. Burning the last timeout for no apparent gain
    5. Not drawing up a play during the stoppage when possession/shot clock were reviewed
    6. Not having a quick inbounds/last second play in your back pocket -- doesn't everyone have one, with an option A, B and C? You can do a lot in 6½ seconds.

    You can argue about individual points, but all six? And there was other stuff, such as Brey calling the second-to-last timeout when ND still had 3+ seconds to get it across and apparent control of the ball.

    That was DePaul-against-St. Josephs-in-1981 bad.
    I don't know if I would call any of these "mistakes" by Notre Dame. Things are hard to execute when you're up against one of the best defensive teams of the past few decades.

  11. #551
    Quote Originally Posted by Wander View Post
    I don't know if I would call any of these "mistakes" by Notre Dame. Things are hard to execute when you're up against one of the best defensive teams of the past few decades.
    I'm not blaming Grant for missing shots or Jackson for that last foul. Most, if not all, of what I cited were the result of choices by ND. Stuff I was yelling at the teevee at the time.

  12. #552
    Quote Originally Posted by hurleyfor3 View Post
    Seriously, how many mistakes did ND make in the endgame?

    1&2. Standing around on their last two full possessions
    3. Not going 2-for-1
    4. Burning the last timeout for no apparent gain
    5. Not drawing up a (better) play during the stoppage when possession/shot clock were reviewed. Brey knew he would have only a second or two.
    6. Not having a quick inbounds/last second play in your back pocket -- doesn't everyone have one, with an option A, B and C? You can do a lot in 6½ seconds.

    You can argue about individual points, but all six? And there was other stuff, such as Brey calling the second-to-last timeout when ND still had 3+ seconds to get it across and apparent control of the ball.

    That was DePaul-against-St. Josephs-in-1981 bad.
    I think this is a little harsh, but it's true that after nearly 37 minutes of perfection, the combination of all these issues was jarring. (The number of people proclaiming themselves experts on executing 2 for 1 on social media tonight has reached absurd proportions, though). I thought the isolations on the last few possessions and the wasting of timeouts were the most unfortunate sins myself.

    However, as Brey himself said, Kentucky's length and defensive tenacity wore them down physically and mentally at the end, which is why they got stagnant. He said they emptied all their bullets at the end, and that was all they could ask for.

    Personally, one thing I haven't seen discussed enough is how predictable ND was on defense for the last 12 minutes. They were able to force turnovers, true, but Kentucky didn't miss a field goal in the final 12 minutes, which is crazy. Really thought the Irish could have mixed in a double team or different look as a twist instead of letting Towns make the tying basket so easily. But ND was never a lock down defensive team or a team with a lot of defensive wrinkles all season, and they decided to go down their way.

  13. #553
    Quote Originally Posted by hurleyfor3 View Post
    I'm not blaming Grant for missing shots or Jackson for that last foul. Most, if not all, of what I cited were the result of choices by ND. Stuff I was yelling at the teevee at the time.
    And most, if not all, of the choices made sense at the time. Notre Dame almost certainly had plays drawn up for the out of bounds play and the last 6 seconds, but Kentucky defended them perfectly. In particular, I thought it was pretty clear that they screwed up what Notre Dame wanted to do on the last play by guarding the inbounds pass so well.

    Yes, it would have been nice if Notre Dame had a timeout to use at the end. But the pattern of timeout useage by Brey had his team tied with 10 seconds to go against a team that is two wins away from being labeled as one of the best college basketball teams of all time. I don't see how there's too much room to complain about ND's coaching or gameplan here.

  14. #554
    Quote Originally Posted by Wander View Post
    And most, if not all, of the choices made sense at the time.
    Not the way I saw it. We'll have to leave it at that. And I'll acknowledge jumping on the 2-for-1 bandwagon, but Ky was scoring every time down. What really annoyed me was the standing around. But they'll have plenty of time to rest now.

  15. #555
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    Las Vegas, Nevada
    Jumping ahead a bit, Kentucky opened as a 5.5 pt. favorite against Wisconsin.

  16. #556
    Quote Originally Posted by hurleyfor3 View Post
    Seriously, how many mistakes did ND make in the endgame?
    You didn't mention my favorite: ND should have fouled UK to send them to the line on the last UK possession.

    Tie game, 34 seconds left. It's already established that ND couldn't stop Towns from scoring unless they sent him to the line anyway (He didn't end up taking the winning shot, but no one knew that at the time). Don't try to go to OT with your defense. Your offense is what got you here. Trust it to get you the tie or the win.

    So, foul UK and stop the clock. UK gets 1 or 2 points on freethrows. Then, ND gets basically a full shot clock instead of 6 seconds. Run your favorite play.

  17. #557
    ND definitely did not play well those last 3 possessions but they played fabulous on offense up to that point. I think other teams are more capable of dealing w/ Kentucky defensively... but if you can't score it doesn't matter. ND did so many things right offensively.

    A lot of teams seem to do that sort of thing late in a game. Kentucky is very tough defensively when you wait until 10 seconds left on the shot clock to try to score. When Duke does it w/ a huge lead I guess you can make an argument for it but when you're tied or up 2... it doesn't make much sense.

    I wish they found a way to keep Towns off of those easy shots. It's just tough to watch a team lose when they are so close to winning and giving up basically an uncontested layup every time down the court.

    Really though... hats off to ND. They played a great game and represented ACC basketball extremely well.

  18. #558
    Quote Originally Posted by bedeviled View Post
    You didn't mention my favorite: ND should have fouled UK to send them to the line on the last UK possession.

    Tie game, 34 seconds left. It's already established that ND couldn't stop Towns from scoring unless they sent him to the line anyway (He didn't end up taking the winning shot, but no one knew that at the time). Don't try to go to OT with your defense. Your offense is what got you here. Trust it to get you the tie or the win.

    So, foul UK and stop the clock. UK gets 1 or 2 points on freethrows. Then, ND gets basically a full shot clock instead of 6 seconds. Run your favorite play.
    I don't necessarily disagree, but you know no one's going to do this. It's still an open debate in the coaching community if you should foul up 3 when your opponent has the ball. I've never seen a college coach foul up 2 in the past decade, let alone up 1, let alone tied, even if we can make an argument that it's statistically favorable.

  19. #559
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    California
    Quote Originally Posted by Dukehky View Post
    Seriously people, I am the biggest pessimist in the world when it comes to supporting my teams (it's a defense mechanism, my shrink and I are working on it), but we are better than UK. We have a better offense (more explosive at more positions) and our defense is so much better than their's, mostly because Okafor is an above average on ball post defender. I swear to God, if you watched him all year play man to man post D, he is good. Towns will not score that many points, and Justise will be served.


    If we get to Kentucky, Duke gets #5
    Sorry, but you are delusional.

  20. #560
    Quote Originally Posted by Wander View Post
    I don't necessarily disagree, but you know no one's going to do this. It's still an open debate in the coaching community if you should foul up 3 when your opponent has the ball. I've never seen a college coach foul up 2 in the past decade, let alone up 1, let alone tied, even if we can make an argument that it's statistically favorable.
    One could certainly beat himself up trying to figure out what the "right" thing to do is. However, I think there's an argument to be made that being tied while the other team holds the ball for the last shot is a more precarious position than if you were leading. That is, there's no margin for error or foul, and the likely best outcome is OT (Kentucky took it to the hole 5 seconds too early).

    I, too, can't think of a college game in which I've seen it happen. But, I know a particular Hall of Fame college coach who has seen it done.
    2006 World Championships semifinal game - Tied at 74, Argentina intentionally fouls Spain with 19 seconds left so that they can have the ball in their hands to decide their own fate. Unfortunately, they missed the shot
    But, Coach K certainly saw that play as he scouted Argentina to play them in the consolation game (Greece beat US in the other semifinal)

    EDIT: Haha, Here's an ESPN article discussing this strategy and that Spain wouldn't risk their fate by letting Kobe, LeBron, or Carmelo have the ball last. The author actually states the following [emphasis mine]:
    In FIBA, if you have a chance to go for the win, you foul to get that chance -- even if you have to sacrifice a tied score to give yourself that chance. Coach K won't do it, but the guy on the other bench will.
    Last edited by bedeviled; 03-29-2015 at 02:45 AM.

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