Running NCAA men's tournament thread 2012

Why do the networks keep referring to the live-game scores as "Allstate March Mayhem" updates... Is nobody but CBS and the networks that broadcast the game allowed to use the phrase "March Madness?" Does this include sponsors for the network?

 

Probably because Allstate is PAYING CBS et. al. to call it March Mayhem.

 

Wisky is not trying to "take the air out of the ball."

Doing that is playing like Alabama used to play Loyola Marymount in the Westhead days -- stand with the ball on your hip for the first 30 seconds of the shot clock to shorten the game ...

Wisky runs a patterned offense -- one that has several entries, but it's pretty much a backscreen for a cutter to the basket, and a weak-side cutter coming off a baseline screen to the block, which leads to a lot of inside-out post-ups or 3-point opportunities (basically, putting the John Wooden "UCLA" offense and the flex offense together). If a good look results on the first or second pass, great. If not, they'll continue to run the pattern until a defender falls asleep. It's not about "taking the air out of the ball," but about an offense that creates shot opportunities, and it has proven to be very effective.

It's just as legitimate of an offense -- if not more legitimate -- than the NBA-style spread the floor and use spacing to attack-and-jack -- either get to the rim with a drive or dump either to the post (if the D helps up) or kick out for the 3 (if the D sags in). But with the players Wisconsin has, the swing is a pretty solid offense. Not always the prettiest thing to watch, but an effective one. It is trying to score on every pass, not take 20 seconds off the shot clock. But against any offense, the defense is going to defend the first 2-3 passes pretty well. It's on the sixth or seventh pass that someone is going to fall asleep and the shot opportunity comes.

 

And it is awful to watch. I could have afforded nosebleeds at the Garden in Boston if I wanted that view. Please don't make me watch from up there when I'm at home.

 

Seriously. Zero plays in the Top 10 for the NCAA Tournament thus far. It's ridiculous.

 

Are you trying to call Whatwhat the biggest bitch in the whole wide world?

 

Was Rick Pitino in a fire? What's wrong with his face?

 

It's amazing -- coached basketball at the HS level for a handful of years, watched it for a long time. Players respond to pressure differently (and it's amazing how many players completely panic or alter their game ... or forget the rules -- as Notre Dame did). Wisconsin was obviously not ready for Syracuse to extend its pressure out top (as it should have been), and the guards panicked and that's when the set bogged down. Even on that play, the shot was not a good one, but had they attacked it well, they'd have had a layup. The rebounder under the basket rushed, too -- and fumbled the rebound to a teammate in a bad shooting position. He had a clear offensive board with time to grab it and get a putback off, but rushed the play and lost control. Pressure causes players to play differently than they would normally play.

Most zone sets -- even in transition -- assume that the defending team isn't going to extend beyond the 3-point line. They do have counters for a team that plays *that* aggressively (the wing pass or high-post flash should be wide-open), but no set works if the point guard panics, which is what happened there. When the two Syracuse players ran out on him, he started going sideways, which will kill any set (you've got to go *somewhere*) and send the rest of the team into scramble mode. When he started going sideways, that's when Ryan should've called timeout ... or try to pass the ball deep and get it inside the 3 line, then call timeout to get a baseline out-of-bounds play (which are great scoring opportunities).

That's one thing that makes Syracuse very effective -- zone offense is a different beast, it often requires a team to really slow down and be patient (which Wisconsin does anyway) -- but their guards are so effective and they challenge every screen so hard, it's hard to attack. That said, there is a way to attack it (feed the person setting the screen, who rolls to the FT line for either the mid-range jumper or dump-off to the low post, depending on what the bottom guy on D does), but Wisconsin didn't attack it well.

 

And that UNC team was pretty damn good.
Even if Michigan State had lost by 50, I wouldn't call making the championship game a poor tournament performance. Chronic bed-shitting would be what Kansas did for much of the 1990s, when they were almost always a 1- or 2-seed and barely sniffed a regional final, let alone a Final Four.

 

The more important part of the equation is to first go ahead.