Quite a night in the NCAA tournament as #9 Iowa beat #4 Nebraska, 77-71, and #3 Illinois hammered #2 Houston, 65-55. They’ll play in the finals in the South.
Meanwhile, #1 Arizona throttled #4 Arkansas, 109-88, and #2 Purdue beat #11 Texas, 79-77. They’ll meet in the finals in the West.
The early games were riveting. Iowa has emerged as the most fascinating team in the field. We’re starting to get an idea of why Ben McCollum was so effective in the D-II tournament. His teams are very, very tough, and
tough-minded. In particular, Iowa crushed Nebraska down the stretch on the boards. They continued to crank up the pressure on the Cornhuskers, and ultimately, Nebraska crumbled, at one point late only managing to get four players on the court as Alvaro Foglueiras sprinted downcourt for a crucial dunk.
Generally speaking, but certainly in the clutch, Iowa plays with passion and precision. They’ll get the Illini next, and the teams played once during the season, with Illinois winning at Iowa on January 11th, 75-69. Would you put it past Iowa? We certainly wouldn’t, after what we’ve seen this March.
Purdue beat Texas on a last-second tip-in by Trey Kaufman-Renn, but the play is controversial, because it looks like he may have hooked the Longhorn defender.
“Hook ‘em” took on a new meaning in that one.
Texas lost, obviously, but it was a solid run by the Longhorns.
The later games were not close. Illinois dominated Houston in a way we really didn’t think it was capable of, and the game was only somewhat close at the end because the Cougars made one of their patented late comebacks. It was too late, though: Illinois was up 58-41 with 3:41 to play, and it was just too big a hill to climb.
We thought it would be Illinois’ offense vs. Houston’s defense, but the Illini defense was better. We didn’t think that was vaguely possible, but it was: Illinois held Houston to 28% on threes and 34% overall.
Houston, by contrast, allowed Illinois 39% on threes and 43% overall. It was a tremendous performance on both ends.
When Arizona beat Houston at Houston with significant injuries late in the season, to us, that made them the favorites. Their systematic destruction of Arkansas underscored that. John Calipari, helpless on the sidelines, did too.
As usual, Arizona didn’t take a lot of threes, shooting just 5-8, but overall hit 64%. The Wildcats also got to the line 39 times, hitting 30.
Darius Acuff had another great game offensively, but his defense is a real problem going forward. He’s not really what you could call a willing defender.
Our guess for Saturday is that Iowa will take Illinois, and here’s why: you don’t usually get two of those games in a row. Toss out VCU, and certainly toss out Penn. And keep in mind that Iowa has played them once, and very well.
Arizona is, in our opinion, just better than Purdue. The Boilermakers have small guards, and Arizona will shut them down. And their inside game is better, too.
On Friday, in the Midwest, we’ll get Alabama vs. Michigan and Tennessee vs. Iowa State. Michigan should be far better than Alabama on both ends, and we like Iowa State. Ja’Kobi Gillespie will be hounded across the court and Nate Ament will get the sort of treatment that Tennessee typically doles out.
In the East, we’ll get Michigan State vs. UConn and Duke vs. St. John’s. Michigan State is probably a tougher team than UConn, and almost certainly deeper up front. UConn is coached by a Hurley, which is apparently Irish for gritty. We can’t rule the Huskies out, but we think Michigan State is the better team. However, there are two emotional factors working in UConn’s favor.
First, Luke Murray was announced as Boston College’s coach Thursday, and that is likely to work in UConn’s favor. And second, if you haven’t caught on yet, Hurley has been spoiling for a shot at Duke for a very long time. His emotional extremes on the sideline can be a bit much for most people, but the key to Hurley is understanding those emotions.
As a coach, he is trying to live up to his father. As a player, he tried to live up to brother Bobby’s impossible legacy at Duke, something he could not do. He struggled a lot at Seton Hall, at one point taking a leave of absence, possibly because of depression, but certainly because of emotional turmoil, whatever it ultimately was.
Hurley is a brilliant coach, who is on a Hall of Fame track, but his emotional swings are likely difficult for the people around him. Small note: during the pandemic, Hurley’s wife told a podcaster that he asked her to decontaminate every Amazon delivery.
There was a lot of fear during that time, but Hurley’s anxiety was probably higher than normal.
We’re not sure that either Tom Izzo or Jon Scheyer is calculating enough to try to manipulate Hurley emotionally during a game, but is Rick Pitino that cutthroat?
Yes. Yes, he is, and if he gets the chance, he surely will try.
One last thing about Hurley’s churning emotions and Duke: you may have noticed that Hurley urged UConn and St. John fans to unite. There’s a reason for that, and it’s not altruistic. We can’t imagine that working with Duke and UNC.
Go to the DBR Boards to find Blue Healer Auctions | Drop us a line
