Running 2023-24 NCAA Basketball Thread

South Dakota State trying to produce the biggest choke of all-time on CBSSN.

 

Portland's women beat Gonzaga 67-66 today for the WCC championship. Gonzaga beat them by 50 in the regular season.

 

I miss it - because of the man who bears the name - but I don't because I got tired to going to the ACC Tournament, and leaving by Friday morning.

In case anyone needed another reason to love the guy ... he was great to people around campus (and the way in which Marye Anne Fox treated him when she was Chancellor and Les was AD over Mike O'Cain's firing – she batted Les aside, went to O'Cain's house to notify him that he was gone, then had Les staff the ensuing presser when he had next to nothing to do with the proceedings – was embarrassing and wrong).

Did the Wolfpack Club caravan stop in my town one year because the SE knew where I had gone to school, etc. ...

Chuck Amato was antagonistic and prickly. No surprise.

Kay Yow was the class act as always. No surprise.

Herb Sendek could not have been nicer and more accommodating. Too many had Sendek badly misread, IMO.

Kay is obviously revered by just about anyone who doesn't have a problem with women playing sports (still my favorite coach and no one else is really close). And while I'm glad Amato recovered from throat cancer - Keep Pounding, Chuck - his firing following a season-ending loss to East Carolina almost made the loss worth it (Almost). And I was on this board saying that the school would regret how it treated Sendek when he went to Tempe all those years ago.

Suddenly, five NCAA Tournament appearances in Sendek's last five seasons, a Sweet 16 appearance, an ACC POY and graduating every kid who stayed four or more seasons shouldn't look so bad to NCSU fans/supporters/alums. Yet, look at the program now. Most of the fans want to run off Kevin Keatts, who isn't faring as poorly as many might think, but isn't within a galaxy of what Sendek was doing once he picked up the pieces that Les had to deal with.

 

If Kim Mulkey wasn't a basketball savant, she would be living in a shack without electricity.

 

It's like the Pitt nimrods who wanted Jaime Dixon run off. How'd that work out for everyone? It took nearly 10 years to get back to a level that everyone was either disgusted or bored with. And then you waived his buyout when he want to TCU because...I have no fuckin' idea. They pulled a similar stunt when Jackie left for Texas A&M, just left the buyout money sitting on the table. Keep in mind this is a university with an endowment in the top 25 so they clearly have no problem begging for money from anyone except people they know damn certain have it.

 

I've never been Dawn Staley fan (more because of jealousy for what she's accomplished as my team wanders into irrelevance), but Mulkey gives the conference a real hateful person to root against.

 

Surpassed Sharon Fanning as the best villain in SEC women’s basketball history.

 

I've been a fan of Mulkey's for years and not just for what she did at Baylor. There are some personal family reasons for my admiration for her, but damn, it's really hard to defend some things she's done while at LSU. It's like she's gone off the deep(er) end.

 

Why do State people hate Sendek? He’s the only coach in their history who had any consistent success without drawing the attention of the NCAA’s enforcement division.

 

An unusual final on the women’s side of the AAC with East Carolina and Rice. Not sure I’ve ever seen a 9 vs 10 championship game for either gender.

 

His team's style of play was too boring, too defense oriented. He didn't glad-hand the boosters well enough. He lost to Carolina too much.

At least that's what I recall as a Carolina fan who was dumbfounded by my State brethren's consistent complaining about Herb.