Confession time. With March Madness just a few weeks away, yours truly has been a Coach on a Couch Potato. Looked at the AP Top 25 for the first time all season (this is where the problem begins) and realized I haven’t watched nine of those teams!
The time has come to wean me off my Duke addiction (have watched the Blue Devils a dozen times) and diversify my college hoops portfolio. Yes, it’s pretty much impossible not to gravitate to the TV to admire RJ’s and Zion’s throwdowns on a weekly basis. Went into serious withdrawals after watching Zion blow out his Nike shoe and injure his knee in the opening minute of the North Carolina game. Nike’s shares even went down 2% after the most famous shoe blowout in sports history.
But found a way to cover my designated Game of the Week (an LSU overtime win over visiting Tennessee), and in addition to watching LSU, checked out five other teams in the Top 25 for the first time. Even watched 13th ranked LSU twice, as the Tigers found a way to bounce back from an uninspiring 82-77 overtime loss to visiting Florida to beat No. 5 ranked Tennessee 82-80 in a bizarre matchup Saturday afternoon.
If anybody would have suggested the young and talented Tigers could beat veteran Tennessee with their star point guard Tremont Waters sidelined with sickness and their next best player, Naz Reid, scoring just one point on 0-9 shooting, they probably would have been locked in a padded cell. Waters has been one of the SEC’s best players this season while averaging 15.7 points, 5.9 assists and a nation’s third-best 3.1 steals. Meanwhile, Reid has been the top freshman in a Tiger recruiting class that ranks right behind Duke and Kentucky. The multi-talented 6-10 center (a really good shooter) came into the game averaging nearly 14 points, but after missing almost the entire first half with two quick fouls, Reid never captured his usual swagger.
Thankfully for LSU, fellow freshman Ja’vonte Smart stepped up bigtime. Moving into Waters’ spot in the starting lineup, Smart played one of the best games of the college season on his way to 29 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals. Not that this was such a big surprise. After all, Smart was ranked ESPN’s 31st best recruit coming out of high school in local Baton Rouge.
This peculiar SEC storyline was punctuated with a play at the end of overtime that will surely rank as one of the season’s most unexplainable. Scrambling for a loose ball, Tennessee star forward Grant Williams fouled Smart 70 feet from the basket with just .6 seconds left on the clock. Yes, it was a foul, as the official had little choice but to blow his whistle after witnessing a football-like collision initiated by Williams. Smart calmly made both free throws for the margin of victory.
Earlier in the week, the Tigers were asleep at the wheel (or more accurately, on under-inbounds plays) in the loss to Florida. Give Florida Coach Mike White credit for having his team ready, as the Gators are playing like a team that could make a late run at the NCAA’s. Also discovered a great new talent in the broadcasting booth, as ESPN color commentator Andy Kennedy (most recently the head coach at Ole Miss) was superb in his analysis while displaying a good sense of humor. I knew Kennedy from my first job as a basketball coach as a graduate assistant at UAB. Kennedy was an outstanding 3-point shooter for the Blazers and now he’s
Kennedy keenly observed, that as a coach, you like to control what you can control while watching Florida succeed on under-inbounds plays two times for layups against the Tigers. White was certainly in control, with his creative inbounds plays, while LSU’s Will Wade clearly was not, with his team’s under-inbounds defense. But Wade is a good coach and has done an excellent job rebuilding the LSU program with strong recruiting. Last week, I made a case for Kentucky being the second-most talented team in the country behind Duke, and I would rate the Tigers just behind those two with their length and athletic ability. Wade had a monster recruiting class, with four players (Reid 12, Emmitt Williams 21, Smart 31, and Darius Days 53) in ESPN’s Top 100.
LSU is now the frontrunner to win its first SEC regular-season title since 2009. The Tigers are locked in a three-way tie with Tennessee and Kentucky at 12-2 but have the most favorable schedule, with all five remaining league games against teams with .500 or below records. Kentucky and Tennessee will meet again next week. As LSU looks ahead to the NCAA’s, the Tigers now possess a Smart device with endless possibilities competing against the best. Bad news for the rest of the field, as the Tigers are definitely a team with Final Four talent.
Another team with Final Four aspirations is No. 6 ranked Nevada, but the Wolf Pack didn’t even look like an NCAA team in a disappointing 65-57 loss to San Diego State. The Aztecs are not an NCAA team this season but give them credit for shutting down Nevada with some outstanding halfcourt man-to-man defense. The normally efficient and explosive Pack (7th lowest in the country in turnovers at 10 while averaging 82 points) struggled to find good shots against San Diego State’s aggressive defense.
During the broadcast, ESPN color commentator Steve Lappas, the former Villanova coach, expressed dismay at Nevada’s sloppy play after watching an intense and spirited Pack shootaround earlier in the day. Wasn’t surprising from my vantage point. Nevada Coach Eric Musselman has a veteran team that has enough talent to make a deep run in the NCAA’s and this is probably his one chance to land a bigtime coaching job. So, if it means pushing his players extra hard during practices and shootarounds, Musselman will do just that to prepare them for the pressures of March Madness. Which might also make his team more vulnerable in meaningless regular-season contests. Nevada looked tired and a step
Without a doubt, Musselman (son of former NBA Coach Bill Musselman) is one of the most intense coaches in the country. At one point in the San Diego State game, he went face-to-face with the lead official over a disputed call. Not sure even a piece of plywood could have slid in between the two faces jawing at each other. Earlier in the season, in a win over Utah State, I was shocked to see Musselman chasing an official down underneath the basket during a media timeout. Probably avoided the technical foul only because the ref was in the restricted area.
Yes, Musselman’s has an intense personality but he’s also an excellent recruiter courting transfer prospects. The Pack has the rare distinction of having seven 1,000 point scorers on their roster that transferred in from other programs: Caroline, 1,953 points, Southern Illinois; Caleb Martin, 1,707, NC State; Tre’Shawn Thurman, 1,346, Omaha; Corey Henson, 1,224, Wagner; Nisre Zouzoua, 1,050, Bryant; Cody Martin, 1,046, NC State; and Jazz Johnson, 1,012, Portland. To put this in perspective, the next best team in college basketball with 1,000 points scorers is Gonzaga with four. The Martins are fun to watch and college basketball’s best brother combination in some time.
Yet another mid-major with legitimate NCAA ambitions is No. 25 ranked Buffalo, which turned in an impressive 80-59 victory over a 19-win Kent State team. The Bulls have now won 24 straight games at home. As
Buffalo reminds me of the Wichita State team that made the Final Four in 2013. No sure-fire NBA prospects but a bunch of tough-minded players who compete hard and know how to win. Nate Oats has done a superb job building the Buffalo program and will be making his third NCAA appearance in the last four years. Like Musselman, Oats could be riding March Madness into a bigtime coaching gig next season.
While Musselman and Oats could have new coaching opportunities, Mark Turgeon is looking to hold onto his job at Maryland. Now in his 8th season with the Terps, Turgeon was on the hot seat entering this campaign. But Turgeon has his young No. 24 ranked Maryland team playing inspired basketball. After a thrilling 66-65 win over No. 21 Iowa on the road last week, it looks like Turgeon will have a chance to make some noise with his Terps in the NCAA’s and be around for a while. It was Turgeon’s first road win over a ranked opponent at Maryland.
The Terps are strong on the defensive end, and with noticeably good chemistry, they play well together. As a sophomore, Bruno Fernando has emerged as one of the nation’s best big man. Fernando is extremely active on both ends of the floor, and luckily for the Terps, he was in position to tip in the game-winner against Iowa with seven seconds remaining. Looks like the key player for Maryland is shooting guard Anthony Cowan. If Cowan (who was in a shooting slump entering the Iowa game) is making 3’s, the Terps could beat anybody in the NCAA’s. Case in point: Cowan’s 5 of 10 shooting from the arc in the Iowa game put the Terps in position for their biggest road win in years.
Meanwhile, Iowa is having a strong season and could be a dangerous team in March. The Hawkeyes are among the better 3-point shooting teams in the country at nearly 38 percent. If Iowa shoots well in the NCAA’s, it could easily advance past the first weekend and possibly even beyond.
Finally, there’s Louisville, a team that has been struggling since blowing a 23-point second-half lead against Duke a few weeks ago. The 18th ranked Cardinals had a rough week. At Syracuse, Louisville made just 1 of its first 19 3-pointers in a 69-49 loss to the Orangemen. When you are shooting that poorly against Syracuse’s 2-3 zone in the Carrier Dome, you usually get blown out. Louisville returned home to face No. 3 ranked Virginia hoping to turn its season around. For 20 minutes, it looked promising for the Cards, as they made 10-of-16 treys in the first half for a 37-27 halftime lead. But in the second half, Louisville reverted back to Carrier Dome form, making just 2-of-17 from the arc as UVA outscored the Cards by 22 in the second half for a 64-52 win.
Coaching in his first season at Louisville, there was talk about Chris Mack being the ACC Coach of the Year before the Duke game. Don’t count the Cards out just yet, though, as Mack is a good coach who enjoyed strong post-season success at Xavier.
Overtime Coach-Couch Talk:
Have three more Top 25 teams to cover — Purdue, Kansas State, and Wisconsin — and will watch them all this week. Also, haven’t forgotten about 11th ranked Marquette. Watched the 23-4 Golden Eagles lose a one-point thriller to St. John’s a few weeks ago. Marquette guard Markus Howard is one of the best scorers in the country but St. John’s did a great job stopping him that night. The Red Storm’s Shamorie Pons was the star of the game, scoring his team’s final 14 points and the game-winning basket. Pons is one of the most exciting players in the country to watch and is the main reason former NBA star Chris Mullin’s team is in position for its first NCAA appearance since 2015. The Red Storm have a strong resume, with two wins over Marquette and one over defending national champion Villanova.