bierce

Arky gave Auburn a game but came up short, 67-60. UNM is getting run by Boise State in the second half. Dennis Gates telling the crowd with 1.5 seconds left to not storm the court. It didn't. Good for him.

In the sloppiest 3 seconds of basketball by top 20 teams, Alabama guard tries to switch hands with the dribble and missed the ball, only for the Missouri guard who picked it up to immediately lose his own dribble uncontested, giving Bama an uncontested three. A Missouri breakaway on the ensuing inbound pass and a Missouri steal and breakaway for a couple of ft seals this for Missouri, anyway. Not a bubble game, but I thought I'd mention that 3 seconds.

I nominate Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer singing a duet cover of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" with Tom Morello on guitar.

NCAA review rules suck. We just had a 2 minute delay to review whether an Oregon player's foot was out of bounds. Now we get another 3 minute review to see who touched the ball last before it went out of bounds. We've played 20 seconds of basketball in 8 minutes without a timeout being called. Just so Iowa can airball a three and have an attempt to rebound and follow barely hit rim. Oregon wins. Iowa is now out of lives, and Oregon is pretty much safe now.

Announcers were flabbergasted by the overrule, thinking not indisputable evidence. Iowa came down and missed a bunny. No review of a possible f1. Maybe a make up call. Oregon now trying to run clock and Iowa trying to burn fouls to force ft. Oregon to the line for 1-1 with 21.9 seconds left.

In what has to be the closest frame by frame review of a shot, Oregon's three-pointer as the shot clock was expiring was ruled . . . Waved off 78-76 Oregon with 51.5 seconds left.

Very cool, but I would have preferred him to work with Pavia's legal team to get another 2 years eligibility.

Vandy lost to Kentucky 82-61. At risk of falling out of the tournament at this point. Tough schedule left with 3 games against ranked teams. 3 of the 5 remaining games are at home, and Vandy is 4-2 at home in conference, so there is hope, but it is 1-6 on the road in conference with the only win being over LSU.

Nebraska lost by 17. Back to the 11 line for them. Cincy nearly had a miracle finish, hitting a three with 8 seconds to go, getting a steal, hitting a 3 with 5 seconds to go, then getting WVU to fumble the inbounds pass (with considerable help but apparently not enough visual evidence to overturn the call on the floor), but it missed an open three off the front of the rim. 62-59 WVU final. TV announcers called it a q1 win for WVU. Yeah, not. Game was in Morgantown.

Nebraska is down 50-27 at the half. It came back from down 18 in the second half against Northwestern, but this is playing with fire. Penn State has only once been outscored by more than 10 at home this year, and that was when was missing its starting center and was outscored by 12 by Minnesota. Niederhauser is not only around today; he has 15 points so far.

Had Hartzell announced his resignation effective May 31, 2025, to retire or take up an entirely different sort of job, then I would agree with you, but Hartzell announced he is leaving to take the same job at another university. Have to worry about divided loyalties and all that. Need someone to perform in the office while the candidate search/vetting process continues for the long-term replacement.

And the erroneous perception that a non-basketball school can money-whip anyone to become second banana to football. Beard? Sure, because he was previously an assistant here and was at a lesser school in the conference (sorry, Tech fans). But guys don't leave places like Arizona or UCLA unless they are kicked out. And May was talking up Michigan NIL over the summer, promising how it would soon lead the Big Ten in NIL for basketball, and saying it wasn't there yet, but it was making rapid strides. I guess so, landing in demand bigs like Goldin and Wolf, adding P5 starter Donaldson from tOSU, 20 mpg Auburn guard Gayle, and big name freshman Sam Walter from Alabama, while hanging on to Burnett and Tschetter and signing several four star out of high school. Here's a wild guess--that took quite a bit more than we spent on Johnson, Kaluma, Pope, and company.

Even better was the comment about how he blames only himself because he would be accused of throwing players under the bus otherwise. Then he described a bunch of things in terms of "I guess we didn't go over" while listing a bunch of things they obviously emphasized in practice for this particular game. He's not someone who interviews politely after a loss or two or four. He had a near meltdown, make it real meltdown, in mid-January.

SDSU won 83-60 last night in a q4 game. Yawn. But it goes to Utah State on Saturday and comes home to face UNM on Tuesday. Big games. A split would guarantee the Aztecs a bid. Lose them both and they'll start to sweat, mainly because they'll be 0-4 against MWC 1 and 2. I still think at that point they would profile stronger than a lot of the teams on the bubble. The neutral site win over Houston gives them a lot of goodwill, and don't laugh when I say beating UC San Diego was a good win. Wednesday's games It's Wednesday, so there are a bunch VCU (35) hosts UMass in a q4 game. Has to win that to keep status as a team to be considered for an at large bid. Nebraska (46) @ PSU (80) Nebraska losing would be like Texas losing @ South Carolina. PSU has played most teams close at home. Vandy (42) @ Kentucky I'm guessing someone is looking for major revenge, but Kentucky will be without Butler, Robinson, and Kriisa. Cincy (45) @ WVU (44) Consider it an elimination game. Cincy because it is on the outside and has few chances left to make a statement (home against Baylor, @ Hou and good luck with the last one). WVU because it is trending way, way wrong and follows this game by going to Tech and then on to Provo to face a hot BYU team. SMU (40) @ Notre Dame (out of contention, but the coach knows how to make microphones suffer) SMU can't lose this, but a win won't help it. Only beating Clemson this weekend can help. NC State @ UNC (50) UNC is nearly dead in the water. 1-10 q1, 5-0 q2, a q3 loss at home to Stanford. Can't lose this. Only 1 q1 game left, hosting Duke in season finale. Only 1 q2 game left, visiting UVa. Everything else is q3 (or q4 like hosting Miami). Oregon @ Iowa One team has to pretty much lose out to miss the tournament, and the other has to pretty much win out to get in. I think you can figure out which is which. Arky (43) @ Auburn (overall 1 seed) Arky might have to wait to the home stand against Missouri and Texas to solidify its position in the field. Also will have a game @ Vandy and host MSU to end the season, so it can still move up. San Jose State @ Utah State (38) Since Tim Miles arrived at SJSU for the 2021-22 season, it has won one game over 4000 feet in conference against a team not named Air Force. USU will next host SDSU before traveling to Boise State and Colorado State to try to cement second place in the conference and a tournament bid. It should be safe right now. It won @ St. Mary's and picked up 3 q2 wins on neutral floors in November. UNM (37) @ Boise State (47) UNM is 3-1 q1 and 8-1 q2. It does have the barely q3 loss @ SJSU and the barely q4 OT loss at home to NMSU, but it should be safe at this point barring a complete collapse, thanks to neutral site wins over UCLA and USC and a home 14 win over VCU. Of coures, UNM does have the advantage of playing at altitude. The fact that the playing surface at The Pit is 37 feet below street level doesn't do anything to offset the fact Albuquerque sits slightly higher than Denver. Boise State is in trouble. It is 0-5 so far against the other top teams in the MWC, so it needs a home win or two here or against Colorado State and SDSU. It probably needs to win all three because losses to BC and in its own home town to Wazzu are pretty bad.

Jans inherited a strong program from Howland at Miss State, and NMSU was the traditional power in the WAC, so it's not like he ever had to rebuild. He's also 55 and has won no more NCAA tournament games than Pitino.

McCollum plays a slow offense this year because his guys are used to playing that way from last year and moved up from DII with him. A few years back his teams lit up the scoreboard. Sark is not going to pay the basketball coach 80% of Sark's salary, which is probably about what it would take to get Lloyd, who is at one of those few career destination jobs in basketball.

I don't know what is wrong with Kansas, but I jokingly said I was thinking of putting it on the bubble watch if it lost tonight and it lost by 34, so I will. KU, NET way too high, 17-9, 5-8 q1 and 3-1 q2 but just 1-7 against top 50 teams since November. Has to win at least one of its last three games (@ Houston and home against Arizona and Tech) to keep a bid. OK, ok, it's still not at risk, but I can't believe it was still getting 4s from some bracketoozers.

Xavier won 76-63 to start climbing up the ranks. I won't be surprised to see it in the matrix next week, but it will need to beat Creighton the following Saturday to stay there.

Pitt won. Talk to me when it beats a top 100 team on the road, not when it beats a 125 or so team at home.

OU getting murdered 76-49 with 5:38 to go. Looking very much like 4 straight years without a tournament appearance for Porter Moser.

Villanova just met the fork. Was up 53-39 and lost 66-59.

2017. Minnesota offered, but it had a pretty full frontcourt. Sims wasn't going to play as a freshman on a team with Lynch, Coffey, Murphy, and Curry, but then Curry blew out a knee in a pick-up game at the end of the summer and missed all of 2017-18, Lynch was suspended in early January while under investigation for sexual misconduct and was later expelled, and Coffey hurt his shoulder one day after Lynch's suspension and played in only 2 more games. Minnesota finished the season on a 2-14 tear. Yeah, one of those years.

Which is something Pitino did manage to do with 2016 and 2018 recruiting classes.

I don't get why you would be so happy to have McCollum but not baby Pitino. Read the stuff Tyler wrote about his offensive style. Now consider that he built a powerhouse in the MWC which is several steps up from the MVC, where McCollum is a first year coach. Pitino already has recruiting contacts in Texas, having pulled multiple players from the Metroplex including future NBA draft pick JT Toppin, as well as guys from San Antonio and the Beaumont area. Don't know if he has any Houston contacts, but we can always get him to get palsy with TJ for that. For UNM he's mined the portal, the LA area, Phoenix, and internationals. He still has recruiting contacts in the Miami area from his time at UF and his year coaching FIU. He's kind of like McCollum with a nation-wide recruiting network already in place. Is it because he didn't do better at Minnesota, where no one has done well for 25 years? Seriously, the guy who put Gonzaga on the map crapped out there. Tubby Smith is a Hall of Fame coach, and he missed the tournament half the time, never won a tournament game, and never finished over .500 in conference there. Pitino would have made 3 tournaments out of the last 4 if he had not lost 2 starters with three weeks left in the season. His replacement has gone 20-53 in conference since then. That is how bad the Minnesota job is.

There are second round losses that are bad and there are second round losses that aren't. Imagine Texas winds up 8/9 seed and loses in the round of 32 to Duke by 3 or 4 points. Now imagine Texas winds up a 6/11 seed and loses to a 14 seed by double digits in the round of 32. Or by 30 to a 3 seed. One loss is most definitely not like the others. Yes, there is the issue of why we are still futzing around with a relatively poor seed, but the point is winning or losing in the round of 32 can mean a bunch of different things. So too could winning in the round of 32. Measuring success by how many games you survive in any one tournament is dumb. But . . . there are cracks in the program. There has been poor offensive execution. There is a paucity of incoming recruits. We already have a shortage of good P5 talent in some spots in the rotation. Those problems don't go away if we beat a 6 seed and a 14 seed and make the Sweet Sixteen. Or if we beat an 11 seed and a 3 seed to do it. It should put the shame to people who say donors shouldn't waste money on Terry, but it doesn't mean they will suddenly change their attitude and flood the program with contributions or have the guys handling the NIL dollars suddenly decide to give the basketball program a lot more money to retool over the spring and summer, and this roster will need substantial retooling after it loses Johnson, Kaluma, Shedrick, Larry, Kent, and probably Mark.