#johnarkblog13

March 29, 2017. We are down to the final four in both the men’s and women’s tournaments. The only team in my bracket that is in the Final Four is UNC. We had quite a few teams to follow and root for this year: Razorbacks, Texas A&M, Nevada, Kansas, Wichita State, Michigan, and Gonzaga. I think the reason I root for the Shockers and the Zags is that they seem to always be relegated to the underdog role and they play good team basketball. I root for the Wolfpack because it’s my home town college team. I root for the Aggies, Kansas and Michigan because we have a family link to those teams. Of course I’m a Razorback fan because it’s my home state team and I am an alumnus as are many family members. I also am a back-up rooter for the Oregon Ducks. This is Tami’s favorite team. I think the main reason Tami has adopted them as her favorite team is the logo.

How can you not like that cute little duck? Tami became a Duck fan after observing the varied uniforms of the football team. Here are a few examples. Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike and Oregon alumnus, makes sure that the Ducks have plenty of outstanding gear. The same sort of thing goes on with the Oklahoma State Cowboys. Billionaire T. Boone Pickens, Oklahoma State alumnus, makes sure that the Cowboys don’t lack anything in the way of equipment. Tami has an interesting description of the game of football: “they line up – they pile up – they line up – they pile up – they line up – they pile up.”

Well, back to basketball. We have the final four in both the men’s and women’s tournaments. On the men’s side they’re playing out here in the West in the domed, multipurposed University of Phoenix stadium, home of the NFL Arizona Cardinals. The name is a corporate sponsorship bought by the University for about $150 million over 20 years. The University of Phoenix has no intercollegiate athletic programs. The stadium is located in Glendale AZ, nearby to, but not in, Phoenix. The women’s Final Four will be played in the American Airlines Center (corporate sponsorship again) in Dallas, home of the NBA Dallas Mavericks. The Mavericks are owned by Mark Cuban. It was interesting that on 17 February 2017 at the NBA All Star Game, Mark insisted on having number 46 in the NBA Celebrity Game. When questioned about it, he said “if Donald Trump can do it, I can.” 

Nevada is not quite as prolific as Britain, but you can place a wager on most big events here and March Madness is a big money maker for the casinos. They have handicappers who make a living predicting who will win the games and by how much. It is amazing how good they are at this. They better be. It’s their livelihood and the casinos can make or lose significant money using their analysis. On the men’s side, right now Gonzaga is favored over USC by 7 points, and UNC is favored over Oregon by 4 points. UNC is an 8 – 5 favorite to win it all. Gonzaga is at 3 – 2, Oregon at 4 – 1 and USC at 8 – 1. On the women’s side UConn is such an overwhelming favorite that all the odds are skewed. UConn is favored by 21 over MSU. USC is favored over Stanford by 2. To win it all it’s Uconn at 1 – 10, USC is 15 – 1, Stanford is 25 – 1 and MSU is 35 – 1. We don’t bet or gamble on anything even though we certainly have the opportunity. I was a poker player though while I was in the military, winning and saving enough to pay for my college education. Never played or gambled after that. I noticed that Derek Stevens, Las Vegas casino magnate and Detroit native, bet $12,500 for Michigan to win it all at 80 – 1 odds. He placed the bet at his friend’s casino, the Golden Nugget – just to see Tilman Fertitta sweat a bit. The very affluent have their own type of fun, don’t they? Here is a copy of the ticket, just in case you have never seen one.

I was curious to see where these really great college basketball players came from. We all have seen the proliferation of foreign players in the NBA. A lot of these foreign players hone their skills right here in the USA. Eleven percent of this year’s NCAA tournament players are foreigners. Here are the states and countries with the most players in this year’s NCAA tournament:

There are other interesting aspects to this year’s Final Four. Gonzaga and USC are there for the first time. Oregon is there for the first time in 78 years. UNC is there for the second consecutive year and a record 20th time overall. For the 13th time in NCAA Division 1 history, both men’s and women’s teams from the same school are in it – that being USC. The SEC player of the year, USC’s Sindarius Thornwell,  is there. The Pac 12 player of the year, Oregon’s Dillon Brooks, is there. The AP player of the year, Kansas’ Frank Mason III is out. Before this postseason, the Gamecocks had not won an NCAA Tournament game in 44 years. Getting this far in the tournament with defense is rare, but that’s the mantra of USC. They swarm with a zone defense that not even Florida could solve and they had seen it in conference play. And they have Thornwell on offense. USC is the only one of the Final Four that has not had a really close call. And they beat the 2, 3 and 4 seeds to get to play Number 1, Gonzaga. The Ducks escaped Rhode Island 75 – 72 and had a miracle finish against Michigan 69 – 68. Down by 3 with seconds to play, Jordan Bell, although well blocked out, secured the offensive rebound and kept the key possession alive. That was the biggest play of the game, even Dorsey, who hit the winning basket, said so. Many picked the Ducks to win it all when they had Bell and Chris Boucher, elite shot blocker and good three point shooter, who was lost to injury. How would you like to drive to the basket with Bell and Boucher guarding the rim? No one will face that dilemma in this year’s tournament.

Gonzaga had close calls with Northwestern 79 – 73 and West Virginia 61 – 58. They don’t have that outstanding player on defense or offense, but they play very good team basketball. It is a team game, isn’t it? Tami asked me “where did they get the school name, Gonzaga? Is it a Native American word?” Actually, it is an Italian family name. The Gonzaga family was an affluent, aristocratic family in the 1500s. Aloysius Gonzaga was born in 1568, joined the Society of Jesus and while at Roman College died while caring for victims of an epidemic. He was canonized in 1726. Gonzaga University is a private Roman Catholic University in Spokane, Washington. It was founded in 1887 by the Society of Jesus and named after Jesuit Saint Gonzaga. UNC had two very close calls: Arkansas 72 – 65 and Kentucky 75 – 73. They seemed to get some help from the officials in both of those games. In the Arkansas game in the round of 32, the Razorbacks led 65 – 60 with 3:28 left. UNC clawed back to lead 66 – 65. With 44.2 seconds left Joel Berry drove and collided with Adrio Bailey and traveled with the ball. There was no whistle – no charge, no travel, so Berry just flung the ball onto the backboard. In the scramble, Kennedy Meeks got inside position on Moses Kingsley and tapped it in for a 68 – 65 lead. This rather than calling a turnover, or calling a foul and sending Bailey to the foul line with a chance to put the Hogs ahead 67 – 66. After the game Roy Williams essentially said “we were lucky.” In the game with Kentucky, UNC broke a 73 – 73 tie with a jumper by Luke Maye with 0.3 seconds left. The story of the game though is that Kentucky’s Fox, Monk and Adebayo all had two fouls after 5:53. Fox, who is the motor of this Kentucky team, played only 8 minutes in the first half. There is a lot more regarding the fouls and how they were called according to Mike DeCourcy writing for the Sporting News. His column of 27 March 2017 is on the Internet.

The Kansas Jayhawks had significant foul troubles in the Kansas – Oregon game in the Elite Eight. Oregon was aggressive and intense from the tipoff, quickly building a lead and closed the first half with an 8 – 0 run in the final 1:27 to lead by 11 at intermission. The key I thought was that Josh Jackson committed two early fouls and went to the bench. Frank Mason played well, but without Jackson, Kansas just could not find their rhythm. Oregon came out explosive in the second half and built their lead to 18. Then the Ducks became very tentative, appearing to just try to run out the clock, but doing so way too early. They had 2 or 3 shot clock violations and 2 or 3 possessions where they had 5 seconds or less to shoot and just threw up a shot. This gave Kansas the opening they needed, but uncharacteristically they did not take advantage. The Jayhawks had encountered this situation several times in the regular season and with uncanny discipline and control mastered crunch time – notably against Baylor and West Virginia. That 18 point lead did dwindle to 6 with 2:49 left, but then Oregon hit a three and it was back to 9 with 1:51 to go and Kansas had to play the foul game. Kansas had their comeback chance, but missed or rushed shots in crunch time. Of course with Jordan Bell guarding the rim, Kansas was limited in their customary drives to the bucket. Mason kept Kansas in the game, but with Jackson and Mykhailiuk stuck in second gear, Kansas just never got going. The Jayhawks shot 35% and 5 for 25 on 3s. Jackson went 0 for 6 on 3s. Meanwhile Oregon was shooting 50.9 percent.

In the women’s Final Four, we have two of our SEC teams in it. And they are both good teams, with the University of South Carolina being a very good team. But unfortunately this is going to be a case of Casey at the Bat with the goliath of women’s basketball standing strong. What can be said about the University of Connecticut and Geno Auriemma’s Huskies that hasn’t been said addendum? They just clobbered our Oregon Ducks to get here and the Oregon girls are a good team. Oregon can play better than they did, but UConn played one of their best games of the season. Geno said so: “They were great!” Unusual for a coach to say something like that. They are on a 111 game winning streak. The last time they lost was on 17 November 2014 to Stanford in overtime. Stanford ended a UConn 46 game winning streak with that game. So the Huskies are 156 – 1 over their last 157 games. I watched the end of that 17 November game on TV. When a good game is coming up on TV and I don’t have time to watch the game, I try to tune in for the last 5 minutes or so to see the drama if there is any. When I turned on the TV, the Huskies were up by 9 with 3 or 4 minutes to go. With Husky errors and Stanford hustle the gap was closed and the Cardinal hit a three with 1.4 seconds to go to send it to overtime. Both teams made errors in overtime and it could have gone either way, but Stanford with good defensive effort prevailed 88 – 86. Otherwise we would be looking at a 157 game winning streak. Is Mississippi State University the next victim? Probably. If not, it will be a big upset. The casino handicappers have UConn favored by 21. Two good teams play in the first game Friday – the University of South Carolina and Stanford. Will Stanford get another chance to snap a big UConn winning streak? You know Stanford ended a 90 game UConn streak and then the 46 game streak I just talked about – but I don’t think they will have a chance this time. I think USC will defeat Stanford, UConn will defeat MSU and then in the Championship Game I think UConn will win over USC. That seems to be what most other people think, also. However, anyone of these four could win the championship this year. That’s why we play it out rather than just awarding the trophies according to statistics. Early in the season this UConn team beat Tulane 100 – 56. Then on 18 February UConn escaped an upset by 18 & 15 Tulane 63 – 60. UConn had a tough game with Florida State, winning 78 – 76. South  Carolina played them tough before losing 66 – 55 on 13 February. I’ll be watching, supporting and rooting for our two SEC teams, USC and MSU. The SEC had eight women’s teams in the tournament this year: Auburn, LSU, MSU, Missouri, USC, Tennessee, Texas A&M, and Kentucky. The SEC had five men’s teams in the tournament: Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina and Vanderbilt. I supported and rooted for them all except Kentucky. There are two prominent teams that I do not support and they are both from Kentucky – KU and Louisville. I do not like the basketball coaches of these two schools and my tendency to support the underdog puts me against them because they are so successful.

I remember when Arkansas dropped out to the Southwest Conference and entered the Southeastern Conference; we thought that Arkansas and Kentucky would be battling for the basketball championship every year. Arkansas had won the SWC basketball championship more than any SWC school and Kentucky had won more SEC basketball championships than any other school. Do you remember Ron Brewer, Sidney Moncrief, Alvin Robertson, Lenzie Howell, Todd Day, or Oliver Miller? Well, anyway, it didn’t turn out that way. Arkansas has won the regular season SEC twice and the SEC Tournament once. Kentucky has 48 regular season titles and 30 tournament titles. Unfortunately our Razorbacks are seldom in contention with Kentucky for the title, far from what we thought. I attach the 2017 NCAA Brackets for both the men’s and women’s competition below in jpg (or photo) format so you can copy them out and expand them on your computer if you don’t have a good magnifying glass and want to take a closer look.

I have said that we are fans of the Oregon Ducks. The Ducks were eliminated by UConn in the Elite Eight. We in Reno had a link to both teams in this game. Gabby Williams, a 2014 Reno Reed High School graduate who plays for UConn scored 25 points, had 6 rebounds and 4 steals. Mallory McGwire, Reno High School graduate who plays for Oregon had 4 points, 3 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocks. They both had good press in our local newspaper, the Reno Gazette – Journal.

You may be thinking that Geno Auriemma has a very easy job coaching the University of Connecticut  women’s basketball team.  After all he attracts the best women’s players in the country. He takes good players and makes them great players. But when they come there a lot of them think that they already are great players. You can bet that a lot of them have big egos. He must manage those egos and make a team that plays team basketball, willing to pass and give up the ball to the open player. He’s on his 32nd year there.