Senior Days

It was a regular hoopsapalooza yesterday in Chateau Steelypips, with Syracuse playing Villanova at 2:00, and Maryland playing NC State at 3:30, both games on tv. And, of course, there were a host of other games on, including UCLA getting waxed at Washington, THE Ohio State University narrowly avoiding a loss at Michigan (and putting Tommy Amaker's ability to miss the NCAA's to the test...), and Stanford almost overcoming a 20-point deficit against Arizona, to name just the major-conference games I watched bits of.

Most of the major-conference games were the final home games for one team or the other, which meant a whole lot of "Senior Day" celebrations, where graduating players are honored before the game, to help whip the home crowd into a frenzy. A lot of the surprising results from Saturday's games involved lower-ranked home teams upsetting or nearly upsetting favored opponents, and the Senior Day effect probably has a lot to do with that. Five of the fourteen Top 25 games that were somebody's final home game (Butler and Southern Illinois won conference tournament games) featured lower-ranked teams making a better-than-expected showing on their home court. Higher-ranked teams playing at home were 7-1, with the only home stand to go horribly wrong being Vanderbilt's loss to Arkansas.

Both of my teams were in Senior Day games, with Syracuse losing at Villanova (The Orange had their own Senior Day moment earlier in the week, when they beat the hated Hoyas), and Maryland eventually blowing out NC State at home. They more or less fit the pattern-- NC State isn't particularly good this year, while Villanova was just barely behind Syracuse in the conference standings.

Commentary onm the specific games:

The Syracuse loss was not unexpected-- Villanova badly needed the win, and the two teams were pretty evenly matched. The game went back and forth, with the two teams spending roughly equal amounts of time with the lead. Villanova just happened to be ahead when the clock ran out.

If you want a simple explanation of the loss, there's one statistic that tells the story: Syracuse was 9 for 35 from three point range, with Demetris Nichols going 2-10 and Andy Rautins going 2-11. There's your ball game-- if you're going to take 35 threes, and shoot them that badly, you're just not going to win.

The tournament implications of this game are somewhat unclear. Syracuse is almost certainly in the NCAA field, and a lot of commentators seemed to think that this win puts Villanova in. If I were a Wildcat fan, I'd really be a lot happier seeing them win at least one game in the Big East tournament, though. For that matter, I'd be very slightly nervous if Syracuse were to honk their first-round Big East game.

As for Maryland, they took care of NC State in a fairly workmanlike victory. The badly undermanned Wolfpack put up a really good fight, trailing by only six with under ten minutes to play, but they just ran out of gas late, and Maryland ran out to a twenty-point lead, getting a precious minute of court time for senior walk-on Gini Chukura. Having been that guy, I salute him and his two rebounds-- way to get your name in the paper, Gini.

Other than that, there's not a whole lot to say about the game. Maryland had a talent edge at basically every position, and NC State kept themselves in the game more or less on sheer attitude. They've done this all year, and given their depleted roster, it's actually kind of impressive that they managed five wins-- good work, Sidney Lowe.

This was the final home game for six Maryland seniors: D.J. Strawberry, Mike Jones, Ekene Ibekwe, Will Bowers, Parrish Brown, and the previously mentioned Gini Chukura. The past few years, they've had post-season home games, winding up in the NIT, but this has got to be a better way to go out. Congratulations to them.

Seven games ago, Strawberry said "Who's to say we can't win our last seven games?" They've done just that, which I guess goes to show that D.J. knows his team better than I do, because I sure wouldn't've called that. I'm still not entirely sure how they're doing it, but right now, they're the hottest team in the ACC, and one of the hottest in the country. This almost certainly means that they'll flame out spectacularly in the post-season, but it's been a fun ride getting to this point from 3-6 in the conference and looking dead in the water...