I was on a youth soccer team in fourth grade that had the greatest assemblance of talent in the southeast Charlotte area of YMCAs. We were called the "Red Stallions" and through our entire season that year, we went undefeated. We had a few close calls in the playoffs but unlike 18-1, we finished the job, fortunately there was no crazy header for a goal that took us down Tyree style. The point is, in any dimension of competition, whether it is youth sports, fantasy leagues, pro, college, or even a local trivia night, going unbeaten is impressive.
The UConn women's team obviously completed an accomplishment that trumps anything the Red Stallions were able to achieve and did it in historic fashion beating Lousville 76-54 in the women's national championship game. The Huskies went 39-0 after completing a 3 game sweep of the Cardinals this year in St. Louis on one of the worst designed courts I have ever seen. The playing field (court?) may not be as level as on the men's side, but the women's game is not as lopsided as it used to be. The Huskies not only beat every opponent they faced this year, they did it in convincing fashion by double digits. Their closest game was their first of the year which they won by 11 against Georgia Tech.
The blogosphere is constantly rife with jokes about women's basketball, but save the old quips for once, you are not being original. This is not the most unbelievable feat ever recorded, even as far as college athletics go, but credit should be given to this team of individuals for striving for and maintaining perfection this year.
Yes I know it is odd we mention the women's champion before getting to the Tar Heels, but our resident Carolina fanatic Catfish is still recovering from his celebratory hangover. More stuff to come on the Heels this week, we make some MLB picks, and more random items.
Wednesday, April 8
Perfection In Any Form Is Impressive
Saturday, April 4
Final Four Frenzy
That's right, I'm working on a Saturday. No, do not fear I will be able to watch the games and luckily it will be coinciding with K-man's bachelor party festivities. At least I am getting paid for my weekend work, right? Wait, what? Noooooo. Anyway it affords me a few moments to put together the crap(s) we have heard all week about the game tonight.
Villanova
You may have heard, but the Wildcats won the 1985 national championship as underdog 8 seeds over Georgetown. In that title game they shot 78.6% from the field. So far this tournament the 3 seed underdog Wildcats have shot a total 45.1% in all their games. If they want to be the upset story again this year, the only chance they have is shoot over 60%. Turnovers and rebounding will be important but Carolina has too much in too many areas in this match-up. You cannot stop the Heels from scoring, so if Nova wants a shot, they will have to be ripping the nets and that means early, right from the tip. You fall behind early, UNC smells blood and it is over. The Wildcats need look no further than the tape from the Oklahoma game against Carolina; miss a ton of shots, early fall behind even while playing at a slow pace. Those shots have to fall for Nova and that requires a way above average performance in shooting.
North Carolina
Trying to stop any one facet of the Heel's offense is literally a roll of the dice. Even if one of their offensive weapons comes up snake eyes, you will likely get a strong performance from another area. Gambling jokes aside, Ty Lawson is getting undeserved heat for his casino trip, but the press was dying for a story outside of Nate Miles and good coaching. Carolina is going to come out swinging in this game and put the pressure on Nova, if Nova cannot keep up, it will be over quickly. I think Carolina's point of attack needs to be Lawson and Hansbrough. There is probably no guard in the country that can contain Lawson and he is the conduit for getting the Heels open shots, particularly in transition. Getting the ball to Hansbrough will lead to him powering his way to the bucket or better yet, drawing fouls on Dante Cunningham, which cripples Nova's inside game.
Prediction: UNC takes this one in a snoozer.
Michigan State
Everyone wants to give Tom Izzo credit and who can blame them. The man runs a clean program (apparently), he gives hope to his crumbling state, he has reached 5 Final Fours and cut the nets down once. He is one of the best tournament coaches in the country right now and a lot of people talk about the one day turnaround from 1st to 2nd round and Sweet 16 to Elite 8. One glaring stat that is not so pretty is his 1-4 record in national semifinals. Granted you are playing the toughest competition at that point but the other teams have a whole week to prepare for you instead of one day in the Elite 8. The key for the Spartans is rebounding, they usually outrebound their opponents by the widest margin in the country but they face a terrific rebounding team in UConn. Their defense will frustrate the Huskies but can they keep them off the offensive boards? Suton will probably not be covered by Thabeet who will hang back in the paint, but if Goran hits the threes like he did against Lousiville, the Spartans will have the edge. They do have to be careful about getting too hyped by playing in front of the home crowd, the energy you get from that will wear off quickly. 
Connecticut
A.J. Price has been through a lot, and he struggled at times against Mizzou in the Elite 8, but he hit the big shots when he needed to and finished with 18. He needs to go 20+ in this game in my opinion for the Huskies to win. Thabeet does not need to score, only rebound, play defense, and have the occasional dunk or tip in down low. Stanley Robinson will hopefully continue his great play and Jeff Adrien has to hit his 15 foot jumper. If Adrien does that it creates about the same effect as Suton and will make it easier to rebound. The guard duo of Craig Austrie and Kemba Walker are also important, they cannot turn the ball over and need to drive and create as the UConn offense does get stagnant at certain times. Jim Calhoun is 4-0 in the final four and it is 10 and 5 years since his last trip, if they had a healthy Jerome Dyson I would be banging the drum for them, but instead it is left up to the collective effort of their players. They have to get the contributions from all areas to win as opposed to the pick your poison action of Carolina.
Prediction: UConn takes it in a squeaker.
Friday, March 27
Quick Reaction To Last Night In The Sweet 16
UCONN 72, Purdue 60
They got Thabeet, they got Thabeet, they got Thabeet, yeah they got him. Hasheem has been oft criticized for a variety of deficiencies in his game; he is too soft, he has bad hands, no touch around the goal, does not make himself available for entry passes. The 7'3" center from Tanzania who has only been playing basketball for about 5 years put together a 15 point, 15 rebound effort against a feisty Boilermaker team, including 8 points in a row to begin the second half and a thunderous dunk that made it look like he was playing on a Fischer-Price goal. The Huskies jumped ahead early, but their shooting was not all that impressive and a lot of that had to do with Purdue. Jeff Adrien looked nothing like the confident jump-shooter we saw in the early rounds, going 1 for 9. Stanley Robinson's double double should also not be lost in the shuffle, although his jump shot was weak as he airballed one 18 footer. UCONN will have to play better if they want to survive Missouri, but it was a big win for everyone involved at UCONN after the events of the last couple days.
Pitt 60, Xavier 55
Xavier just seems to be the hard luck kids of the tournament. I feel bad for these players, but shooting 32.8% will not get it done. It almost did and if it were not for the jeuvos of Levance Fields, Pitt was looking at another dissapointing tournament. This has been the script we have seen out of the Panthers in recent years but Field, Blair and Young refuse to let this team go down, scoring 71.6% of the team's points. They will have to bring forth their best effort against Villanova though, who may be the hottest team in the country.
Missouri 102, Memphis 91
"They beat us at our own game." That is all you need to know about Mizzou's impressive effort. It was given by Memphis coach John Calipari after the game. If you went strictly by eyeball test, Missouri would be 1-A to Nova's 1 in terms of teams playing well. Missouri came out and basically did the things Memphis does well and beat them over the head with it. Mizzou was the sexy pick to come out of this region and they have not dissapointed. There were not that many turnovers (14 for Memphis, 12 for Missouri) and both teams shot over 50%. Memphis's glaring bad spot was their 3-15 effort behind the arc, and the fact that their defense had no answer for Missouri's shooting or J.T. Tiller. If the Tigers can keep things this chaotic and high-paced against UCONN, they will probably move on to Detroit.
Villanova 77, Duke 54
Duke has fallen before in the Sweet 16 in recent history, but they have not been dominated the way they were last night. It seemed as if the teams were operating on two different planes; Nova the powerhouse from the power conference playing suffocating defense and penetrating at will and Duke the less athletic team from some mid-major conference who was outgunned from the start. Even people who pretend to think they know about college basketball were saying "Duke needs to knock down the outside shots to be effective, if not they have no chance." No chance, that's what they had. 26.7% shooting and just 5-27 from deep. It is hard for me to say any other team is playing as well as the Wildcats are right now on both ends of the court. If Blue Devil fans are looking for a bright spot, they did get one more free-throw attempt than Villanova.
Wednesday, March 25
Connecticut In Trouble: Recruiting Violations Revealed
By now, you no doubt have heard about the story. Yahoo Sports unviels a lengthy and detailed investigation into rules violations committed by Connecticut basketball in relation to their recruitment of Nate Miles, a player who was expelled last fall from UConn for trouble with the law. Hard to defend the Huskies on this one; it appears they have been caught with phone records to back up the charges. How timely of Yahoo to unveil this on the eve of the Sweet 16 match-up against Purdue. I would not be surprised to see UConn come out flat due to the story, but that is really up to the players who had nothing to do with this.
Calhoun has been the subject of praise and disdain in his tenure at Connecticut. He built the program literally out of nothing into one of the premeire programs in the sport, but his salty attitude and what some would call sketchy recruiting practices had landed him scrutiny from those who do not care for him. Earlier this season he got into a verbal exchange with a reporter some jackass in a postgame press conference about his million dollar salary. He has never faced any kind of challenge like this where the facts seem laid out in plain sight. The critcism from the detractors will be overwhelming now.
The story of this kid seems to be one that encompasses the entire dark side of college basketball. He had academic and personal problems, he had vampires all around him "advising" him, there were respected people in basketball that did their part to stay away from him, and he eventually self-imploded. As a lifelong fan of Connecticut basketball it is a dark day and I am not even going to try to spin this until we here from the NCAA or Calhoun. If one were trying to force themselves to see the intentions in this, it would be the UConn staff was trying to get this kid on the right track while improving their team at the same time and then cut him loose after he got arrested, but the story indicates the Huskies have continued to recruit him even after Miles landed in a JC in Idaho.
The two cases that came to mind when reading this story were USC and Oklahoma. USC because Yahoo reported on the Reggie Bush scandal and the "advisor" involved with OJ Mayo which has subsequently been swept neatly under the rug and Oklahoma because of the improper phone calls made by former coach Kelvin Sampson. What will happen in this case? We will certainly discuss this story more as it develops and I'm certain will cover it on the Shackleford Files this week. Link to the story below.
UConn violated NCAA rules [Yahoo Sports]
Friday, March 13
A Word on Cuse/Conn Sextuple Overtime
127-117 in 6 Overtimes. Before the Orange and the Huskies squared off last night in the Big East quarterfinals, my good friend The Concierge and I had a phone conversation. We said we just wanted a good game. Our conversations have toned down since high school when we were at each other's throats everytime these two teams took the court. Concierge has been a Syracuse fan since forever and eventually attended the school, while I had a devotion to UCONN since it was the place of my birth. Even though I ended up going to the U, I never stopped pulling for the Huskies and thankfully the Canes moved to the ACC. I am not a supporter of having more than one team in a sport, but I very well could not drop my childhood team as I began rooting for Miami.
Both of us have had some memorable victories in the rivalry and have celebrated when the teams won national championships, but last night was something completely new to college basketball alltogether. I know the teams did not set a record for most overtimes which is 7, but I can honestly say I have never seen a game go on that long in my life. Concierge and I texted during the game, but it was after the first overtime that he called me to talk about how crazy this was. At the end of the brief call he said, "I'll call you at the end." That soon turned into "I'll call you at the third overtime....call you at the fourth" and so on. By the end it was past 1:00 am and Connecticut lost and I was not looking forward to work today.
The game was an epic, but not an all-time in terms of greatness. Both teams made mistakes that prevented them from ending the game early. Not to say it was not great, but the length and marathon style is what made it unbelievable. In regulation, UCONN had 22 turnovers, shot 44% from the free-throw line, and shot 3-13 from the 3 point line. I thought that had bought them a ticket home after regulation, but Syracuse left the door open. In overtime it was UCONN's turn to keep the Orange in the game, as the Orange did not lead the game until the 6th OT. The UCONN led the game by as much as 6 in the extra sessions but could not close the deal. 24-42 free-throws overall is not the way to get it done if you are Connecticut. The Orange almost won the game in regulation but Eric Devendorf's shot was just after the buzzer. On the replay, the game clock started late after Gavin Edwards tipped the ball and it fell to Devendorf. If the shot had counted with the clock starting late I would have been upset, but then again they could have counted it and spared us all the overtime sessions. By the 6th overtime, both teams had lost critical players to fouls, but it was one of the Cuse staples that sustained them to the victory. As the players grew more exhausted and Thabeet left the game, Johnny Flynn overcame his heavy legs and worked his way to the basket as Andy Rautins hit the deep balls. The famous 2-3 zone became the difference. Connecticut perhaps should have switched to a zone themselves as they started playing seldom used players off their bench. Paul Harris and company took over against the bench players since they had the man-to-man advantaged. Once Syracuse went up by 7 A.J. Price took his last foul and headed for the bench.
The lasting image I will take from the game was after Devendorf fouled out and was replaced by Justin Thomas who had not even played 30 minutes all season. As UCONN brought the ball up the Orange players sat dead tired in the zone, but Thomas who had just come in was jumping around and waving his arms, the lone source of energy on a court of drained players. After the game Jim Calhoun was his usual salty self saying that he will look back on the game this summer, but for now it is a loss. Jim Boeheim could not have been prouder of his team.
This was a game no one will ever forget, but now UCONN has to drag itself into the tournament. They will likely get a number one seed since Oklahoma, Kansas and Pittsburgh also lost yesterday but the Huskies have never advance to the final four without winning the Big East tournament so it does not bode well they will not get to Detroit if they shoot under 60 percent from the foul line and turn the ball over more than 20 times. The Orange will face West Virginia tonight and without a deep bench, I cannot see how they can play at a high level. No doubt Bobby Huggins will be turning up the pressure on the leg-weary Orange. West Virginia will be playing their third game in as many days so that goes in Syracuse's favor. If the Cuse find someway to win tonight they will have to play tomorrow night against Louisville or Villanova and if they go on to win this tourney it will be one of the greatest team accomplishments in the history of college basketball.
As I went to bed or rather tried to, I was still worked up from the game, I simply texted the Concierge, "Grats sir." There was nothing else to say after a game for the ages and everyone, not just the players and coaches, was wiped out.
Thursday, February 26
An Injury No One Wanted
Being a Connecticut fan, I was elated with the Huskies' 93-82 victory over Marquette, placing them in first in the Big East for the moment at 14-2 in the conference and in number one seed position at 26-2. Jim Calhoun, who has faced some scrutiny lately for his spat with a douchebag reporter, picked up his 800th career win joining some pretty elite company. A.J. Price had 36 and a sick crossover while Stanley Robinson looked like his old self as he had 19 and 10.
The Golden Eagles lost more than the game though as senior guard Dominic James broke the fifth metatarsal in his left foot. James was one part of the three-headed senior guard trio for Marquette along with Jerel McNeal and Wesley Matthews. If you are a fan of college basketball or sports in general, you cannot help but fell horrible for this kid, who from all appearances seems to be a good person, and who is undeniably a star on the court. The fates are not always just in how they dole out their courses of action, and this one appears a bitter card dealt to James and Marquette. Coach Buzz Williams was emotional after the game discussing James but indicated the team would move on and compete. The Eagles are assured an NCAA tourney bid but how far they can go is now more a mystery than it usually is come March. After the game several of UCONN's players and Calhoun offered some words to James but I'm sure there will be no comfort for the young man who has played his final college game.
Elsewhere:
Duke survives a hostile environment with hostile screens in College Park. [ESPN]
The Gamecocks virtually have their tickets punched. [FoxSports]
It's just Clemson being Clemson. [SportingNews]
Mizzou stays hot. [SI]
The recap of these games and the rest of the action. [Rush the Court]
Wednesday, February 11
The ASD Universe Explodes Tonight
The slate is extremely busy for ASD and friends this evening.
First off, we have our weekly trivia contest a the local pub. After winning 4 weeks in a row we hit a 3 week losing streak but got back on track last week. Luckily, I will not be alone this week as Catfish and Xtra Medium will run the Triangle Offense of useless knowledge. A win means 25 bucks off our tab, a loss means humiliation and degredation in the form of free pizza or a bucket.
The Buffalo Sabres are 8 games over .500 and in 7th place in the Eastern Conference but just 3 points out of 4th. They square off against the Senators at the HSBC tonight.
In the NBA, Catfish is riding high after the Bobcats snapped their 5 game losing streak Monday. Their last game before the all-star break is tonight at home against Washington. The days off will certainly help get everyone healthy, especially Gerald Wallace. The Wizards have lost 8 of their last 10 and the Cats can not afford to drop this one going into the break because with the Bucks most likely out of the playoff picture now with their injuries, Charlotte is very much in the playoff race.
Before the main course of UNC-Duke, my favorite (tied with the CANES) team UCONN hosts Syracuse (ESPN 7 PM) which is the alma mater of our friend the Concierge. Going back to our high school days games between these two have been heated and wagers were made and hillarity ensued. The Orange need to get back on track but will have a tough test tonight in Gampel.
Then of course we have the game of the night and I'm willing to bet Catfish will be lacing the air with some profanities. I cannot see Carolina losing this game but if Duke is going to stay in this they have to shoot more than 34 percent from three and get one or more of the key Tar Heel players in foul trouble. Oh my the officiating should be fun in this one.
The countdown on the clock at the office has already begun...almost gametime.
