A lot of the hype entering this year’s Final Four was that it would be the ‘best-ever. Many based that solely on the fact that we were getting four #1 seeds for the first time. I disagreed with people immediately. I mean obviously I would have to say this has been one of the most intriguing and satisfying build-ups to a Final Four in recent history. Intriguing because there were just multiple basketball debates surrounding both games and both teams. Satisfying because we were finally going to see the top 4 teams in the country do battle for the National Championship. MJ banished all the Cinderella’s and if anything we were going to get a decisive champion. The BCS should take notice of this.
All in all, people could be disappointed by the games. And those people would have been wrong. Here are my thoughts on yesterday.
How creepy were those award presentations? I seriously think they brought Lesley Visser out of a cryogenic chamber. Also Dick Enberg and HD should not be associated with each other. Yikes. I literally am not sure I have the words to describe the awkwardness/creepiness associated with those award presentations.
Commercial of the day….E-Trade. That talking baby is the truth. And I’m not talking about the clown one, I’m talking about the one where he spits up.
Memphis/UCLA
The story of this game was UCLA just did not have enough offense to hang with Memphis. That’s it. Remember despite a big drought in the first half and the 6-8 turnovers they had…they were only down by three. Unfortunately when you only have three guys who can consistently score it’s a problem. UCLA finally had the scoring low-post presence but a) didn’t throw him the ball down low enough and b) didn’t have enough to help him. People say this UCLA should have won because they finally had a low-post presence…let us not forget they lost their alpha male, superstar, ‘I’m going to score 20 and lead us unless we’re playing Florida’ go-to-gu in Aaron Afflalo. They also were without their sharpshooter Michael Roll who would have spread the floor and made life easier on everyone. At the end of the day as good as role players as Keefe, Mata, Aboya and Mbah a Moute are they had to have another scorer to keep up with Memphis.
Derrick Rose is for real. Stop your snickering, I know this is a pretty obvious point…hear me out. In this day and age of ‘hype a guy until he does bad’ I tend to rebel against what the mainstream tells me is ‘good’. Not because I disagree or because they are wrong or because I’m trying to be cool. I rebel because I like coming to my own conclusions. I want to see players earn their stripes…I never understood how players could be regarded as so good before even playing a minute. So with the Rose’s and Mayo’s of the world I didn’t see it at first. They both have grown tremendously, especially Mr. Rose. I remember watching him when they played USC and seeing the flashes but didn’t like what I saw. He was too passive, a little too out of control at times and not in full attack mode. In the tournament he has been a completely different animal. People (including myself) have been quick to point out that he only averaged 4.7 assists this year. After watching him play…that doesn’t matter. In the tournament he has come up huge. He played in control, attacked UCLA relentlessly and led his team to victory. Not only that but he took on all comers. It wasn’t just him posting up Collision, he gave Westbrook everything he wanted and some. Someone should check Westbrook’s knees before he declares because that inside out move that Rose gave him (the one that froze Westbrook at halfcourt) might have some effects on him later in his life. Yucky.
Not only that but he absolutely destroyed Darren Collison. On both ends of the court. He out-played him so much that Collison will more than likely HAVE to go back to school last year. I have never seen someone’s reputation as a defender be so quickly downgraded from tremendous to iffy as Collison’s was last night. We all know Rose was too big for him, but the fact that Collision did nothing in response (2 points, 5 turnovers, fouled out) was even bigger. I joked during the game that he played himself from the NBA to Portugal yesterday. I mean he played so bad last night that I confidently stated his NBA ceiling was an ‘in control Jarrett Jack’. Which by the way is the highest insult I could give these days.
Back to Westbrook….he is as good as gone. He couldn’t have played any better last night and it doesn’t hurt him that he was one of two UCLA players that showed up offensively.
Kevin Love…he should have gotten the ball much more. I know people are going to credit Joey Dorsey (who did a good job) but frankly UCLA just did not go low to him enough in the game. Credit Dorsey for not letting him get that low post position…but over the course of the year going to Love in the post has paid off for the Bruins. He took over the Texas A&M game not because he got easy layups but because he hit fadeaway jumpers. He should have taken a lot more shots in the game. He’s too skilled to not be an NBA player…lets just be honest. I don’t know what his ceiling will be, but I know he has one.
Also if Dorsey doesn’t become the next Ben Wallace then there is something wrong with the world.
Kansas/UNC
I never fully understood the sub-plot of Roy Williams facing his old team. One player from his era remained and he didn’t even play that much. He wasn’t even going back to play AT Kansas…that would have been a story. I don’t know about you but I found that to be an example of the media trying to make something out of nothing.
Story of the game was Kansas just punching UNC in the mouth early. It was all Kansas’ D. No one had made UNC look that bad before. They were taking bad shots, turning the ball over, getting stripped. Everything. All of UNC’s swagger was sucked up. Credit them for fighting back and making it interesting. Everyone wanted to give the player of the game to Brandon Rush. I disagree. Yes he made the shots early but lets not forget he is the same guy who missed about 5 wide open threes when UNC was in a half-court trap. Player of the game goes to Sharron Collins because he made the biggest play. 64-59, I think about 5 minutes left. Hansborough had just missed the free throw on an And-1…Collins comes down and hits a big three to put it back up to 8. That was the game right there.
UNC might have had a chance if Lawson, Ginyard or Thompson had decided to show up.