January 12, 2010 –
by Brendon
Those viewers who slogged through Monday night’s two-hour, 40-minute game between Villanova and Louisville are owed a debt of gratitude by both teams and the three officials. It was not a propitious start to the first true Big Monday of the season.
Villanova defeated the Cardinals at Freedom Hall, 92-84, in what was an intensely competitive game, but no one will wish to see it in full again. Forty-four turnovers, 67 fouls (plus a technical on Jay Wright), 94 free-throw attempts — this game had all the flow of a Los Angeles freeway interchange. Highlights only, please.
| Team |
Poss |
PPP |
eFG |
Turn |
Reb |
FTR |
| Villanova |
80 |
1.15 |
0.582 |
0.276 |
0.441 |
0.714 |
| Louisville |
80 |
1.05 |
0.375 |
0.276 |
0.523 |
0.650 |
It’s impossible to get a full grasp of how the game was played from the final score — or even the Four Factors above — but the one thing that is easy to see is that this game was foul-marred. Ten players on each team played at least five minutes, and all but one — Louisville’s Reginald Delk — committed at least two fouls. Nine players committed at least four fouls. Read More »
Posted in Big East, Game of the Night
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Tagged Big East, Connecticut, Corey Fisher, Edgar Sosa, Georgetown, Jay Wright, Jerry Smith, John Cahill, Karl Hess, Ken Pomeroy, Louisville, Maalik Wayns, Michael Stephens, Mike Marra, Pittsburgh, Preston Knowles, Reginald Delk, Samardo Samuels, Scottie Reynolds, Seton Hall, Taylor King, Villanova
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November 18, 2009 –
by Brendon
In retrospect, it was bad planning that I chose Arkansas-Louisville rather than the game that followed it, Memphis-Kansas, as the first game of the new season on which to take possession-by-possession notes. Still, there’s nothing as useful as taking possession data by hand to give me a good sense of a team and its players.
As it turned out, Arkansas’ lack of depth caught up with it in the game’s final 15 minutes, and Louisville’s 3-point shooting and ball-hawking defense ended the competitive phase of this game. The 96-66 Louisville victory, while lacking the last-second drama of the nightcap of Tuesday’s doubleheader, still left plenty of interesting conclusions to glean.
Let’s start with the basic tempo-free team box:
|
Poss |
PPP |
eFG |
Turn |
Reb |
FTR |
| Arkansas |
76 |
0.87 |
0.422 |
0.211 |
0.262 |
0.293 |
| Louisville |
75 |
1.26 |
0.568 |
0.132 |
0.390 |
0.178 |
For a team with just six scholarship players thanks to a bevy of suspensions, Arkansas did a pretty good job of taking care of the ball against Louisville’s zone press. Julysses Nobles had just two turnovers in 38 minutes as the point guard facing most of the heat from the Cardinals’ seemingly endless depth of aggressive guards. It was big man Mike Washington’s careless play — six turnovers — in just 28 minutes — that accounted for more than a third of the team total (16). The senior center was called for three travels and had two shots blocked in Arkansas’ first 21 possessions. Read More »
Posted in Big East, Game of the Night, SEC
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Tagged Alcorn State, Appalachian State, Arkansas, Big East, Earl Clark, Edgar Sosa, Jared Swopshire, Jerry Smith, John Pelphrey, Julysses Nobles, Kansas, Kentucky, Kyle Kuric, Louisville, Marshawn Powell, Memphis, Mike Washington, Preston Knowles, Reginald Delk, Rick Pitino, Rotnei Clarke, Samardo Samuels, SEC, Stefan Welsh, Terrence Jennings, Terrence Williams, UNLV, USF, Western Kentucky, Yinka Dare
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March 27, 2009 –
by Brendon
Not much time to wax today, but I did want to put electronic pen to paper before Friday’s games and the Elite Eight. I’ll breakdown all of Thursday’s games and give a glimpse at Friday and Saturday’s matchups herein.
West Region: In my West Region preview, I noted two keys to the Missouri-Memphis game — Memphis’ turnovers and Missouri’s 2-point shooting. Memphis had 14 turnovers, probably a couple more than John Calipari would have liked but nothing out of the norm — Antonio Anderson did duplicate his six-turnover performance from the win over Cal State-Northridge. The other key — Missouri’s 2-point shooting — was the difference. The Tigers hit 58.7 percent of their 2-point attempts, including far too many layups with several difficult 18-footers mixed in. Read More »
Posted in National Perspective, Reviews/Previews
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Tagged A.J. Price, Arizona, Blake Griffin, Chase Budinger, Connecticut, Dante Cunningham, DeJuan Blair, Duke, East Region, Gerald Henderson, Gonzaga, Hasheem Thabeet, J.T. Tiller, Jerry Smith, Jon Sheyer, Jordan Hill, Kansas, Levance Fields, Louisville, Memphis, Michigan State, Midwest Region, Missouri, Nic Wise, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Sam Young, South Region, Syracuse, Terrence Williams, Ty Lawson, Tyler Hansbrough, Tyreke Evans, Villanova, West Region, Willie Warren, Xavier
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March 18, 2009 –
by Brendon
Let me start off my first regional preview with a preface.
I’m not big into brackets. People always ask me who my Final Four is and who I have going far and what upsets I picked and when I’m going to come out with my bracket. And I understand why — this is the point at which the casual or non-fan relates to college basketball.
But I find that, when I am really into my brackets, I start rooting for teams I don’t like.
“Hey, Brendon, why are you rooting for Ohio State to beat Xavier? Wouldn’t that be a great upset?”
“Oh, it would — it’s true, and I would normally prefer Xavier, but I have OSU in the national final in my bracket.”
Aaargh!
No longer. I will pick a bracket and not get too attached to it. I will continue to root for the teams I want to root for and not worry about whether my bracket is ruined — and not get annoyed when people ask me how bracket is doing, as if it’s a newborn baby or a 401K. Read More »
Posted in National Perspective, Reviews/Previews
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Tagged Alex Ruoff, Andre McGee, Arizona, Bob Huggins, Boston College, Cleveland State, Cole Aldrich, Da'Sean Butler, Darryl Bryant, Dayton, DeMar DeRozen, Devin Ebanks, Evan Turner, Fran McCaffery, Jerry Smith, Jon Diebler, Kalin Lucas, Kansas, Louisville, Michigan State, Mike Tranghese, Ohio State, Preston Knowles, Raymar Morgan, Rob Lowery, Sherron Colling, Siena, Southern Cal, Taj Gibson, Terrence Williams, Tim Floyd, Utah, Wake Forest, West Virginia, Williams Buford
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March 14, 2009 –
by Brendon
NEW YORK — Fans and members of the media like to construct a basketball team’s character around its ability to play defense. Good defensive teams “try harder,” have “more heart” and “want it more” than their opponents. That may be true in hackneyed leads and on messageboard threads, but, on a basketball floor, defense is built on talent and coaching just as much if not more than offense is.
There isn’t a team more talented or coached better defensively than Louisville, and the Cards proved it again in a 69-55 win over Villanova in Friday’s first Big East Tournament semifinal at Madison Square Garden. Read More »
Posted in Big East, Game of the Night
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Tagged Andre McGee, Big East, Big East Tournament, Corey Fisher, Dante Cunningham, Earl Clark, Jay Wright, Jerry Smith, Louisville, Preston Knowles, Rick Pitino, Scottie Reynolds, Terrence Jennings, Terrence Williams, Villanova
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