Basketball
drorzel | March 4, 2007It's that time of year, when "mid-major" and small conferences have their basketball tournaments, with the winners earning one shot at sports-geek immortality with a chance to score an upset in the first round of the NCAA's. Four teams earned automatic bids yesterday, and they deserve a post of their own:
Winthrop: At 28-4, the Slow Moving Basset Hounds Eagles probably ought to be favored in their first-round game. The system being what it is, though, they needed to sweat it out a little bit, winning a tight game over VMI, who had a chance to tie at the buzzer.
Belmont: The Bruins blew out…
drorzel | March 4, 2007It 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…
drorzel | March 3, 2007I'm not quite sure why it's behind the paywall, but the New York Times today features a column by William Rhoden marking the 20th anniversary of the introduction of the three-point shot to college basketball. It's not anything terribly ground-breaking-- complaints from the usual suspects, like perpetual optimist Jim Boeheim ("'It hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be -- in fact it helped us this year,' Boeheim said. 'I never liked it, but it's here to stay, so there's no use in talking about it.'"), and the usual calls for reform of the rule:
Two weeks ago, coaches, administrators and…
drorzel | March 1, 2007One-sentence review of this game: I don't think I've ever seen so many two-foot shots missed in a Division I game.
Maryland played Duke last night in the overhyped confines of Cameron Indoor Stadium, and for the way Dick Vitale talked about it, you would've thought that they were playing for first place in the conference, rather than to break a tie for fifth. Of course, the players went at it like it was a title game, so I suppose we can cut the bald idiot a little slack. This was a very intense game, though the intensity led to a lot of sloppy play at points-- ill-advised extra passes,…
drorzel | February 28, 2007One of the under-reported effects of cheap and widely available personal computers is the increasing dorkification of sports.
I'm talking here about the rise in obsessive stat-geekery across the board, with the accompanying increase in "fantasy" sports. Those phenomena have hardly been ignored, but not many commentators put the blame where it belongs: on the computer industry.
Back in the day, stat-wanking was mostly confined to baseball, which is so ridiculously boring that calculus seems like a fun way to spice things up. As computers have become more common, though, it's become easier for…
drorzel | February 28, 2007Tennessee beat Florida by ten last night, handing the Gators their third loss in the last four games. Much as I dislike Florida, and enjoy seeing them lose, I wouldn't ordinarily comment on this. Hell, I wouldn't've watched this, ordinarily-- it was an SEC game, and Vitale was calling it. I subjected myself to the first eight minutes or so, though, because of Pat Summitt and Bruce Pearl.
If you're not a sports fan, the story here is that about a month ago, Tennessee men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl went to a women's game with his shirt off and his chest painted, like a student fan. Last…
drorzel | February 27, 2007Another unexpected win for one of my teams. I think Jay Bilas put it pretty well when he said "I bet Jim Boeheim didn't expect to be playing his senior walk-ons in the final minute of a victory." A loss, maybe, but Syracuse winning 72-58 is a real surprise.
This was a good old-fashioned Big East game, as befits the one meeting this year between the teams who won eight of the first ten Big East titles. The early history of the conference was all about Syracuse vs. Georgetown (with occasional contributions from Villanova and St. John's), and Jim Boeheim vs. John Thompson. It's a new Thompson on…
drorzel | February 26, 2007Well, I didn't expect this... Between that and the Oscars, I'll never cut it as a telephone psychic.
I came back from the intramural game (we lost to a team of football players who had a slight strength and conditioning edge over us) with about 11 minutes left, and it looked pretty much like what I had expected. Maryland had made a decent run, but the Tar Heels seemed to be firmly in control of the game.
And then, they just... collapsed. Mike Jones had one of his patented idiot turnovers, leading to a fast break for UNC, and then Bobby Frasor chunked as open a lay-up as I've ever seen missed…
drorzel | February 22, 2007Maryland beat Florida State last night, and moved over 0.500 in the ACC for the first time. This is also their 21st win on the season, and Jeremy Gold has gone round the bend:
MD could rise as high as #2 seen in the NCAAs should they finish 10-6 in the ACC and win the ACC Tournament. Granted that is extremely unlikely. What is more likely, is a 9-7 conference record and a run to the semis of the ACC Tournament (if the draw works in our favor). If that is the case, we are 25-9 and I think that warrants #5 seed in the NCAAs. From that position, I think we make the Sweet 16 and depending on the…
drorzel | February 12, 2007Light blogging today, because yesterday was a Hoops Day here in Chateau Steelypips. A goog hoops day, too, with victories in all three games that mattered: Syracuse edged St. John's, Maryland beat the hated Dukies, and the intramural team I'm playing on won a tough game last night to more or less lock up first place in our division.
Of course, in addition to preventing me from scheduling weighty blog posts, these games conflicted with each other-- the Syracuse game was shown on tape delay (the live game was only on pay-per-view) in a slot that overlapped with the Maryland game, and I had to…
drorzel | February 10, 2007
The term "fast break" refers to those situations in the game of basketball in which the offense is attempting to push the ball up the court and score quickly, rather than running a play from their normal offensive set. This usually involves a temporary numerical advantage for the offensive team, as the defenders hurry to get back into position.
Any given fast break will last no more than a few seconds, but these are some of the most important seconds in a basketball game. Understanding the basics of the fast break is absolutely essential to playing basketball, or even watching it played.
For…
drorzel | January 31, 2007There's been much less hoops-blogging than usual around here this year for a couple of reasons. For one thing, I'm busy with work, and more substantive blogging, so I don't have time to watch a lot of games. I'm also playing a fair amount of basketball these days, both pick-up games at lunch, and IM games Sunday evenings, and a lot of my hoop-related energies are going into that.
Really, though, the main reason for the scanty hoops-blogging is that my favorite teams both stink. Syracuse got bombed by Notre Dame last night, and Maryland rolled over after the half against Florida State. And, of…
drorzel | January 8, 2007A busy sporting weekend for Chateau Steelypips:
First, there were two NFL wild card games on Saturday, as a sort of appetizer for the real action on Sunday. The Colts borrowed a defense from somewhere, and despite Peyton Manning deciding to play like his little brother for the first half or so, Indianapolis moved on in convincing fashion. I liked Manning's offer to do Ty Law's Hall of Fame induction, after lobbing another two easy picks in his direction.
Then there was the ignominious Cowboys loss, about which all I can say is: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!! And, really, that's all I can say, because…
drorzel | December 28, 2006The Times today has a good article on Bob Knight and his place in coaching history:
In coaching circles, Knight's legacy appears to be intact.
His former players make up a who's who list in coaching, including Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, Iowa's Steve Alford and the Knicks' Isiah Thomas. Even longtime rivals concede Knight's name is synonymous with the "part-whole" method of teaching, man-to-man defense and the motion offense. All ascribe a virtue to Knight that is perhaps at odds with his public image: patience.
Still, some worry that Knight's coaching accomplishments have been eclipsed by his…
drorzel | December 21, 2006The big NBA story of the week is, of course, the brawl that broke out between the Knicks and Nuggets a week ago, and the big suspensions that followed. In particular, Denver star (and former Syracuse player) Carmelo Anthony was suspended for fifteen games for slugging the goon from the Knicks whose flagrant foul touched the whole thing off.
The event itself was extremely well documented, so you might think there wouldn't be any room left for conspiracy theorizing-- it's not like we're working from the Zapruder film, here-- but there's still one big mystery: Why did Anthony slug that guy when…
drorzel | December 11, 2006There were several sporting events worth commenting on this weekend, none of which I saw in their entirety. Hence, the combo recap post.
Maryland-BC The Terps got beat by Boston College in a game that I didn't realize was on TV until Kate told me about it about midway through the second half. I'm still used to thinking of Sundays as football days.
Maryland was down ten when I started watching, and made a game of it for a little while, before dropping behind by double digits again in the final two minutes. The game was pretty much consistent with what I've seen previously this season-- the…
drorzel | December 6, 2006Syracuse, ranked #21 according to ESPN, lost by three to #24 Oklahoma State on Tuesday night. This comes on the heels of a loss to #17 Wichita State (who climbed to #10 in this week's rankings).
That's what happens when you play ranked teams in December. I'm not sure how they managed to get Jim Boeheim to agree to these games-- maybe they had him sign a vague and deceptive agreement to appear, so he thought he was getting to play Sacha Baron Cohen...
This was a pretty ugly game all the way around, from the play on the court, to the call on tv. The game was part of the "Jimmy V Classic,"…
drorzel | November 29, 2006The ACC-Big Ten Challenge is one of those things that seems like a really good idea on paper. They're consistently two of the top basketball conferences in the country, and both have strongly partisan fans who will argue for the superiority of their conference over all others. Matching them up in the early season seems like a great way to provide some good early-season games, and settle some fan arguments.
Of course, the execution has left something to be desired-- the ACC has won the Challenge every year, and the overall record isn't terribly close-- I think the graphic they put up last…
drorzel | November 27, 2006I'm worried about Jay Bilas's job.
For those who aren't college basketball junkies, Jay Bilas is a former Duke player who is currently the best college basketball analyst in the business. He's smart, well-spoken, funny (listen to him banter with Bill Raftery and Sean McDonough when the three of them work games together), and extremely knowledgable about the game. Whenever he does a game, he clearly does his homework, and learns more than the token one or two facts about each team that most announcers do. When he does studio analysis, he always has his facts in line, and while he sometimes…
drorzel | November 18, 2006Thursday night's shellacking of St. John's seemed to be mostly about the ineptitude of the Red Storm, rather than an indicator of greatness for the Terps. I fully expected them to come out and lose to Michigan State, who beat a ranked Texas team in their half of the semifinal bracket.
Much to my surprise, when we got back from dinner and flipped on ESPN, St. John's and Texas were locked in a tight game, that Texas eventually won by two, which either meant that St. John's was better than I thought, or that Texas was wiped out from their last-second loss to Michigan State the night before.…