I love Fred Willard's character in A Mighty Wind repeating that and thought it was appropriate for this editions title. What an engaging weekend, and not just because I put a ring on it. Memories.....On with the much sadder news......
My Wildcats broke Ashley's and my heart with their Boy's and Girl's Club 6 year old instructional league shooting display, en route to their early exit (again!) out of this year's big boy's tournament. All hail to the one D Butler. Another great all around effort, showing Wall and other youngsters just how to make other's around you not just better, but winners. I will say it again. Butler will be an impact NBA guard. Maybe not out of the gate, but down the line. Not an All-Star, but a solid starter. Watch. I must add that Wall and Cousins, and maybe Bledsoe and Patterson will be monsters in the league. J/S But enough hole licking, my boys couldn't buy a bucket. That's been our Achilles heel all season. If we are on, we're deadly. And, on most occasions, if our shooting was off, our overpowering defense would make up for it. Problem with this game though was the fact the opponent was also an elite team. They never slipped, and played hard, and consistent for the full forty minutes. They never wained, which never allowed us to make our customary late game surge. Our knockout punch worked in the SEC tourney against Miss. St. Too bad this was West Virginia. With their improbable win, they get a date with the new tourney fave....
Dooooookie! Once again I reiterate how easy of a path this team has had to the Final Four. Baylor was their toughest opponent, and not to make excuses, but when you've played warm up games the first two rounds, this of course allows the Devils to become noticeably more well rested down the stretch. And that just so happens to be where they won the game. A haggard and exhausted Baylor squad looked helpless late, deferring to touch fouls and hands-on-knees enthusiasm. I will give kudos to Duke for exploiting this. Plus the fact that Baylor's main inside presence fouled out with about half of the second half to go. But that couldn't have help the Blue Devils right? Well Zoubek's Serge Zwikker reminding garbageness had four fouls and looked worried. Three seconds later Baylor's whole inside game fouls out and the look the Plumlee twins and Zoubek had on their faces resembled six year olds at Dylan's Candy Shop. Suffice it to say Zoubek was a dominating force late, grabbing two monster offensive rebounds for kick out spasm inducing threes, that in turn left Baylor with nothing but gasped air to focus on. Clutch free throw shooting from Scheyer, Mr. O-fer Singler, Smith, and even Lance Thomas sealed the game for Duke. Hey, maybe Cal should conference with Coach K in the off season and learn free throw teaching drills. Lord knows we could have used those against the Mountaineers.
Final Four....WVU dammit. Screw Duke. I'm a hater til the end.
Other side tommorrow.
the only mighty wind i know is the one i let go after eating some pork bbq smothered in stubbs with a mean side of baked beans. why can't people admit that john wall just may be over rated. you tell me 5 great one and done or straight to the nba point guards. brandon jennings is not and example, one..he is still in his rookie year..and two he went over seas to play for a year which exempts him from my requirements. still no answer i thought so. you need time to be a great point guard and a "healthy" environment to shine in. if he goes to the nets like all these other pundits are predicting, he will be on the bench for most of his rookie season behind harris. if they share the back court they will end up with the same record as this year since everyone else in the league has at least one 6'+ player in their back court to keep them from shooting. plus do you really want a guy who barely led his team to a victory vs miss st. thanks for bringing that up. what is their record in the ncaa tourney...hmm oh yeah 0-0 NO TICKET TO THE DANCE. I love how people say duke had the "easy path" when they played the teams that beat the teams that were supposed to shut down duke. don't be upset because once again duke got further than kentucky. just because you won a few games the past three seasons...lets look at the overall comparisons. if you don't count the adolph rupp "i won't let black players play" years your school only has three championships.....same number as coach k has by himself. and if you want to compare rupp to coach k, he only has 87 or so more wins. rupp was the coach for 41 years. i definitely think coach k can cover that in 10 more years. lets face it. its easy to hate duke. harder to like kentucky
ReplyDeleteDuke is a great program, and Coach K will go down as one of the greatest basketball coaches in history. But Sam, they could have had a lot more Final 4's and chances at championships because they are choke artists. There has been a lot of elite Duke teams the past 10 years that lost in the sweet 16 and elite 8. Here's to a Cardinals sweep of the Mets this year.
ReplyDeleteThank you Marbles. And for the record Mr. Lee uh two of the best young guards in the league right now (D Rose, Tyreke Evans) both not only played for coach Cal, but were both one and dones. And that's just in the last two years. Wall hasn't even learned to shoot completely yet, but he didn;t need to, and his distribution skills parallel Da-ron when he was at Illinois. Now, to touch on your loss theory. Please do keep in mind that three of our five starters were freshman. Three. Does Coach K even let freshman play? If it wasn't for the inevitable Duke "5th year" rule I don't think you guys would have even made the dance, let alone beat only one credible squad (Baylor) on your way to the Final Four. Did Duke even get past the second round when Brand, Magette, etc were one and done's? Now imagine if they had three freshman starters? Give these guys on UK two more years of college basketball training and we'd be putting up UCONN women's type streaks. And I guarantee you the Mets finish last in the East. Last. No pitching + injuries galore = utter disappointment for my best friend and my fiance.
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