Final Four

The most dominant team in college basketball is the South Carolina women. They beat NC State by 19 in the Final Four. They were led, as usual, by their All America center, Kamilla Cardoso, who had a double double (22 and 11) in only 23 minutes of action. A 1-point game at the half, USC left no doubt of the outcome with a dominant 29-6 third period. [Editor's Note: the men's college game really needs to switch back to quarters, which they used prior to 1954. Believe it or not, the idea of using halves instead was meant to speed the game up. In practice, not so much. The lack of a shot clock for decades allowed coaches like Dean Smith to sit on a lead rather than play the game. It took 30 years to get to the current 30-second shot clock, which is about right (the NBA's is 24). The biggest issue now is fouls leading to free throws. The men hit the bonus after 6 per half; the women 4 per quarter. The women shoot fewer free throws. The women also have fewer TV timeouts, 3 vs 4 per 20 minutes. And thus we arrive at the reason that the men continue to play halves: advertising. Makes sense, right? Way fewer people watch the women's game. Wrong. The Iowa-LSU rematch in the Elite 8 was the most watched college basketball game on ESPN ever (over 12 million viewers). Period. The men's game needs to switch back to quarters. Back to the Notes.]

The UConn-Iowa game was fantastic. I figured the stars, UConn's Caitlin Clark and UConn's Paige Bueckers, would more or less cancel one another out. The difference would come down to everyone else, pitting UConn's All America big, Aaliyah Edwards, against a bunch of Iowa role players. Iowa's Hannah Stuelke would like a word. She was unstoppable in the post, pouring in 23 points on 9-12 shooting. She was brilliant, benefitting from excelent post passes from Clark.

I also expected a fast-paced 3-point fest. Again, not so much. Very physical game resulting in multiple injuries. At the start, UConn seemed to have the cheat code. Their defensive stopper, Nika Mühl, was all over Clark from the moment she stepped out of the locker room. The Croatian threw Clark out of sync and Iowa with her. UConn up 32-26 at the break. Clark ended up a very uncharacteristic 3-11 from deep. She still put up an impressive stat line of 21 points, 9 boards and 7 assists. Iowa pulled ahead by 10 heading down the stretch, seeming in control. UConn went to an effective half court trap and found itself with the ball, down by 1 with 10 seconds to go. Then this happened.

Kiva texted me last week to make sure I knew about the Iowa-LSU rematch. He loves the women's game. For good reason.

Kiva put his thoughts in writing. I think we officially have a women's correspondent! Good stuff Kiva!

Akiva Cohen:

If you were writing a notes for the women’s tourney.  Last night would go something like this:

LSU and Iowa squared off in a repeat of last year's championship game.  The game was played at a frenetic pace with Iowa relying on outside shot making by superstar Caitlin Clark while LSU got the ball to their bigs and did their damage on the inside.  Each team went on runs but the other team quickly returned the favor.  Half time was all tied up.  The third quarter was Caitlin Clark time.  With all the pressure on her, Caitlin stepped up to the plate and hit big three after big three.  All her threes were at least 26 feet from the hoop and they kept getting longer (27 and even >28 feet from the hoop).  Angel went down with a bad ankle sprain and returned to the game but was never the same.  Kim Mulkey threw different defenders at Clark but none could stop her.  No matter what defense LSU came up with simply put Clark was unstoppable.  It was obvious by her play in the 3rd quarter that Caitlin was simply not going to let Iowa lose.  LSU made a comeback and got within 4  but could just never get over the hump.  Kim Mulkey said it best…they have a once in generation player and you are not going to stop Catilin.  Iowa moves on to join SC and NC state in final four. 

The late game was even better staring Paige Bueckers for UConn vs JuJu Watkins of USC.  This was a battle from the jump ball.  Both stars took their shots and did their best to get their teams going.  The game remained close but in the 3rd the two stars put their teams on their backs and battled each other.  The game was close and it was Paige time.  She took big shot after big shot and every time UCONN took a bit of a lead USC stormed back (usually it was Juju) to close the gap.  However, UConn maintained their cool and Gino settled the team down and it showed it the 4th.  UConn made the stops and shots they needed.  The stress must have got to them as UConn missed several free throw in final minutes which allowed USC to close the gap.  In the end UConn made enough free shots and a couple of shots did not fall for USC.  UConn moves on to play Iowa in the Final Four. It will be the Paige vs Caitlin show.

If you haven't seen it, the floor in Portland, Oregon for the women's Elite 8 had mismatched 3 point lines. Incredible. The coaches of NC State and Texas agreed to play the game anyway (installing a new floor would have delayed the contest by at least a day). Both teams shot better from 3 on the end of the court with the line farther from the basket.

As noted above, the quallity of play in the women's tournament has been outstanding. But there have been several off-court distractions. There was a referee pulled out of a game at halftime in the first round. Utah faced racist harassment before its first-round game. Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo was forced to remove a nose ring and missed time in a Sweet 16 loss to Oregon State. LSU coach Kim Mulkey threatened to sue The Washington Post over a then-unpublished profile of her and later called out a Los Angeles Times columnist for sexist criticism of her team. Incredibly, the guy called them "dirty debutants". And the LA Times ran it. SMH.

We are in New Hampshire for the eclipse on Monday. Our place is close to the path of totality but just outside it. Friends Ellen and Mike have a place over in Vermont that is right in the sweet spot. They generously invited us over for the big event (it'll be a first for me). Then, the blizzard. A nor'easter blew into the region and slowly twisted over New England dumping over a foot of snow. We left a day early to beat the storm (to be here for the eclipse and Mrs Notes' birthday!). Within hours of our arrival, the power went out for hundreds of thousands including us and Mike and Ellen. Ours came back online surprisingly quickly, Mike and Ellen after a couple days. Bev, who is also heading to Vermont on Monday, is still without power. Not sure what we would have done without electricity all this time - I had work Zooms and games to cover! [Editor's Note: this might be the year we finally get a backup generator.]

At lot of great basketball this week. Unfortunately, this game was not representative. At least the first half went by quickly - the teams went nearly 7 minutes with no fouls called. Surprising, given the post-oriented play on both sides. The extended action was bad for DJ Burns in particular, who was gassed when he picked up his second foul against Edey. Neither team played particularly well. Edey had 14 in the first half, but he had surprising trouble with State dropping a guard down to double team him in the post, leading to 8 Purdue turnovers in the first. The Boilermakers with not one but two over and backs in the first five minutes of the game. DJ Horne had 13 for State before the break, but it took a lot of shots to get them.

NC State started the second with O'Connell (hamstring) and Diarra (poked eye) in the locker room. Both played in the second; neither was effective. The offensive explosion in the second half against Duke was a distance memory. Nothing went right for State in this one; they shot 38% for the game. The two DJs combined for 12-31 shooting. Purdue only managed 63 points but it was more than enough. NC State scored only 50, their lowest point total of the season. Edey had 20 and 12. 

Three starters for Purdue are from Indiana. They will try to take their home-state school to the title on Monday.

This is the first Final Four in 32 years without Jim Nantz. Sort of. Those Capital One commercials with Barkley, Spike, Samuel L. and Jennifer Garner are in heavy rotation. Nantz was replaced by Ian Eagle, who is much younger (55) but has been in the business for decades, handling play by play for games in the NFL, NBA, college basketball and football, pro tennis and NCAA track and field.

Eagle comes from a show business background. His parents were an entertainment team on the old Borscht Belt circuit in the Catskills. Mom, Monica Maris, was a singer who opened the act. Dad, Jack Eagle, then did comedy. Finally, Monica would return to the show for comedic banter the gimmick being that the crowd didn't realize that the two were married until the (evidently hilarious) end of the show. When Ian turned 6, they included him in the act. He did impressions of Cosell and Ali among others. The crowd loved it. 

Jack Eagle started out as a trumpet player, at one point playing in the big band led by Buddy Rich. The comedian Buddy Hackett, hanging out with Jack at the bar after a gig, was impressed with Eagle's sense of humor and suggested he try stand-up. He moved on from music and eventually ended up in commercials, famously as Brother Dominic in Xerox commercials one of which aired during the 1977 Super Bowl. [Editor's Note: Am I the only one who remembers this?]

Bill Raftery refers to his broadcast partner as Bird. He actually called him by his first name during the UConn game, causing Ian (pronounced Eye-an) to laugh and make note of the rare occurrence. 

Coaches Dan Hurley and Nate Oates are close, which was obvious when they greeted one another at half court. Dan and his brother Bobby met Oates when they recruiting one of his high school players (Dan was head coach at Rhode Island, Bobby his assistant). When Bobby Hurley took over at Buffalo, he hired Oates as an assistant. When Bobby Hurley left for the Arizona State job, Oates took over at Buffalo. Now Dan and Nate meet in the Final Four in Bobby's town, Phoenix.

Nate Oates is Coach Analytics. His teams don't shoot from mid-range. At. All. In this tournament, Bama has made 69 shots in the paint and 48 3-pointers. Only 4 in the mid-range. I agree with this offensive philosophy, which is based on numbers. Oates doesn't spend much time analyzing defense, although this team is better now than the group that gave up 115 to my team just a month ago.

Fun first half, which played out exactly according to the script. Bama doubled Clingan in the post, which was somewhat effective limiting him to 8 in the first. Castle picked up the slack with 13 and Spencer had an opportunistic 8. Bama stayed in it from 3, hitting 72% from deep (!). Expect to see that number regress to the mean in the second. Advantage UConn.

The Tide's 3-point accuracy did indeed regress in the second half, slipping below 50% for the game. They kept it close, matching every UConn run. The Huskies went small to get Clingan a breather, which is usually danger time. The second team went on a run of their own and Clingan and Castle (in foul trouble) stayed on the bench. When they returned, the hammer came down. Game over. All five UConn starters scored in double figures led by Castle, a freshman, with 21. Clingan with 18 and four blocks all of which seemed perfectly timed to halt a Bama comeback. The game was closer than the final score indicated, but it registers as yet another double-digit win for the defending champs (86-72).

The finals will be a battle of the bigs, Edey vs. Clingan. The two best teams all season meet for a place in history.