Bravo Aggies! On to Arizona.
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Michigan’s best player is Yaxel Landeborg. Fifth year senior who started at Arizona Western. Is now first team all-American. He’s had great coaching.
And this:
You watch Utah State and Michigan and St Louis and see that basketball can be the most beautiful game. You watch the BYU-Texas pickup game and want to stick a fork in your eyes.
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Beautiful game today, but his story goes much deeper.
Pretty inspirational story. Easy to root for a kid like that. And his mom, in her challenge.
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Halfway through the 1H, Frogs basically playing #1 Duke even.
We beat TCU.
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Even a blind squirrel finds a nut. haha
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Houston…. wow.
aTm is a talented team from the SEC, but Houston is a python on defense, really difficult to deal with. On offense they have a ton of tap outs on missed shots, multiple second chance points. Even when they’re not shooting well they’re tough.
I’ll be surprised if they don’t get to the Final Four.
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Kelvin Sampson can coach. His man-to-man defense reminds me of Majerus’ Utes, only Houston has better athletes
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How times have changed. Utah kicks Nebraska’s ■■■ in a bowl game and Nebraska is going to the Sweet 16
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Mark Pope is out of the tourney. That’s a shame.
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Kentucky led Iowa State 18-6. After that, Iowa State outscored Kentucky 76-45. Iowa State’s leading scorer is from Ames, Iowa. Its leading rebounder is from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. It has no future NBA stars. The key statistic is that Iowa State’s defense forced 20 turnovers and Iowa State gave it back 7 times. As a result, Iowa State shot 16 more shots. The shooting percentages were almost the same 47% KY, 46%. Iowa State also had 17 assists compared to Kentucky’s 11.
It’s all coaching. Utah used to be Iowa State. If it’s ever going to get out of the ditch it’s in it needs to stop shopping for a new team every year and focus on defense and building a lasting, Iowa-State model program.
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Utah St is 10 times better coached than BYU.
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USU certainly played better vs Arizona that Utah did.
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Hats off to Utah State. Down 18, they made a fierce comeback, cutting the lead down to four and the Zona fans looked very worried there for a bit before they held off the rally. Meanwhile one of the happiest moments of the tourney was ‘them’ getting rolled by Iowa State.
Sadly the last couple years we’ve seen very little in the way of great upsets. All top 4 seeds won in the first round and zero mid-majors made it to the second weekend and this is the second straight year that has happened. Historically Cinderella teams tend to have a lot of upperclassmen with several years playing together and some good players have evolved into a great team. But now if a small school has several sophomores who have the potential to make a tourney run in the next year or two, they lose a few of them to the portal.
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Not only that, but I believe the committee does a much better job with seeding. Yes, the 12-5 seeds are still a thing, but I think we will rarely see a George Mason or similar program go far anymore.
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Which is a shame. That was the best thing about March Madness.
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Speaking of seeding, looking back, I’m still a bit annoyed that Utah got under-seeded some years. The 1991 squad entered the tournament with a 28-3 record and got a 4 seed. The 1996 team was 26 games entering the tournament and was in the top-20 all year and got a 4 seed, giving the Utes a Sweet 16 date with an all-time great Kentucky team. Even the '97 team got the shaft, I think. It got a 2 seed despite being ranked second in the nation. I thought the '05 team deserved higher than 6. On the other hand, I think the 2015 and 2016 Utes were fortunate to get No. 3 seeds.
Then you look at Gonzaga, which has been seeded first like four times.
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One year that seeding upset me was 1993. Utah and BYU tied for first in the WAC (Utes had tie-breaker and 1 seed in the WAC tourney) and New Mexico was 3rd. Utah was upset by UTEP in the semis and New Mexico ended up winning the tourney. Lobos received a somewhat generous 5 seed and were upset by 12 seed George Washington (led by Yinka Dare) and would have faced 13 seed Southern in the second round. Utah meanwhile received an 8 seed, beat 9th seed Pittsburgh and then faced Kentucky in Nashville which was effectively a home game for the Wildcats. The arena had a rather unusual configuration where the benches were behind the basket limiting the ability for Maji to coach when the action was on the far end.
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Ugh, 1993 was bothersome! Utah was rolling at 22-3, having just beaten BYU at home in a huge showdown. Then, Utah is swept by UNM and UTEP and loses in the WAC semis to UTEP, as you mentioned. (The tournament, along with the one the following year, was in the Delta Center. WAC teams complained about it, citing unfair advantages for Utah and BYU. But neither team won the tournament either year.) This 1-3 stretch cost Utah a 4 seed, dropping them to 8 and forcing them to play a Jamal Mushburn-led Kentucky team on that awful Vanderbilt court.
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Really annoyed me that New Mexico got the highest seed from the WAC and then was upset in the 5-12 game as 13th seed Southern had one of the worst RPI in the tourney and should probably have been a 16 seed. Their conference tourney ended so late that the 13 seed was assigned based on the expected winner who Southern beat in the final. Should have been an easy path to the sweet 16 for the Lobos.
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UNM had some very good teams in the '90s under Dave Bliss. Easily the second-best program in the WAC during that period. But they never made it to the Sweet 16.
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