Duke in the NCAA Tournament: A fan's bracing himself for the inevitable landing

Aisander Duda wrote this. He’s been here many times before. Somehow someway this post is about the mixed feelings of optimism and pessimism that surface at the start of any NCAA Tournament run:

"So, let me get this straight. You're saying we're not losing to Robert Morris? That I can just 'chill' for the next couple of hours while the illusion of a basketball game takes place? One more thing, are these wings real or not?" 

On Sunday evening, Icarus awoke. He first tried moving his arms and then his legs, but his whole body felt stiff and unable to easily rise from the surface of his bed. His head ached terribly, and his eyes were blurry and unfocused. As he regained some sense of the past 48 hours, it dawned on him why it was so difficult to move. 

Gut Reaction to Selection Sunday: Duke Edition

Unlike our UK reaction, this one is from an actual fan of the team. Here's Russell Morris on Duke's NCAA tourney chances :

Jahlil Okafor looks deep into the committee's eyes and says, "Thank you, we didn't win anything."

After an uninspiring performance against Notre Dame on Friday night, I wasn’t sure if Duke was still going to be a one seed. Based on whom they beat and where, nobody had better wins, Kentucky included, but with not winning the ACC regular season or conference tournament, I thought a two seed was coming. In 2013, they had a one seed resume, but ended up as a two seed in eventual champion Louisville’s bracket. The team eventually lost to the Cardinals in the Elite Eight that year. With that in mind, as long as we weren’t in Kentucky’s region, I would be happy. As ESPN revealed the bracket, I was surprised and ecstatic. Not only was Duke a one seed, but they have the weakest bracket of the four regions. Duke fans couldn’t have asked for a better set up for a deep run.

Gut Reaction to Selection Sunday: Kentucky Edition

From the perspective of a UK fan:

Possibly the most shocking event in UK's quest to repeat will turn out to be the moment between these two.

Well, I was disappointed to see the committee didn't give my Wildcats byes all the way through to the championship game like they deserve. Still, I can't complain about not having to play anyone until the round of eight. All in all, this gives me more time to Google pictures of Ashley Judd. I think given another fourteen days or so I can find one that's at the perfect angle for photoshopping my face in place of Dickie V's, although I believe doing so might be a more difficult task than the Harrison twins repeating. Do you think Karl-Anthony Towns gets to kiss Ashley Judd? What about Wynonna? He's had to have kissed Wynonna, right? Seriously, Dickie V, wow, I always thought it would be Coach K.

In the Time of Volunteers: Ignoring the Shadow of Bruce

In mid-February, Tennessee fans were lamenting a lost season for the Vols. A birth in the NIT seemed to be a certainty. As idiotic as it may seem, friends of mine and fellow Vol fans openly called for the re-hiring of Bruce Pearl. Then the Vols went on a run. They went from bubble team to a tournament lock.

They got under-seeded as an 11 seed, put in a play-in game. I texted friends reminding them that the play-in game helped propel VCU to a Final Four. And though I projected optimism, I secretly had them losing to Duke in the third round of my bracket.

Then they shocked Iowa in OT. They followed that up by destroying UMass and Mercer. They were in the Sweet 16 with a favorable match-up against the Michigan Wolverines. The pessimism felt in Vol country in mid-February was quickly forgotten and replaced with unbridled enthusiasm. Bruce Pearl wasn’t coming back and no [sane] Vol fans wanted him back, any more.

On Friday night, I went to dinner with my parents. We got sushi. It took 20 minutes of waiting for them to put the game on. It wasn’t in HD. Thanks to the circa-1989 quality picture, I couldn’t tell what the score was. I got out my phone, looked at the score and quickly realized the Vols were in a drought and on the wrong end of a loss. It started raining.

Tennessee couldn’t hit anything. We all agreed that they would play better if we watched at home. At half-time, we raced home. We beat half-time home. My dad remarks that he thinks it’s over. I tell him it’s a game of runs. I’m not sure I believe it when I say it but “Tennessee has another one left in them”.

We turned on the game, my dogs barked with joy in our reappearance. I gave them a treat and hoped they could wait until the end of the game for a walk. Tennessee starts a couple runs. They get derailed by Michigan threes. My dad says “it’s tough, still don’t see it”.

Then a real run. I’m not sure what happens but it’s like Jordan McRae finally realized he’s the best player on the court. He steals the ball, sets up a nice Jarnell Stokes dunk then goes on a 5 point run almost all by himself. Tennessee is within 5 points. My dad is beginning to believe.

Then a Tennessee turnover. All hope is beginning to leave all of us. I wonder where Chris Lofton is. Michigan has a chance to put the game away. Turnover. Hope and a timeout. Google Chris Lofton. Europe. Tennessee responds with a dumb three, miss. Hope is really low. Then Michigan turns it over again. Everything that can go wrong for Michigan, is. Josh Richardson takes advantage, makes a great move and lay-up. Tennessee is down 3. Hope is renewed but still low. They haven’t fouled enough, only 3 second-half team fouls. Jordan McRae scores. Tennessee is down 1. But with 10 seconds left and two fouls to give before the bonus, hope is low. Michigan inexplicably steps out-of-bounds on the inbound. Tennessee is going to win.

There is no way they don’t.

Then, the refs.

Jarnell Stokes receives the inbounds pass, he spins and the Michigan defender falls before any contact. Ref whistle. It’s a block. Stokes to the line… Nope. It’s a charge. 2 fouls, 2 Stauskas free throws and a full-court heave later, the game is over and Tennessee’s remarkable comeback falls short.

We’re flustered. Wondering how a ref can insert themselves in a game that late on a fifty-fifty call. Then my dad says “They should be proud. They never gave up. When everyone [including their biggest fans] thought all was lost, they found a way to claw back in. No shame in that.” And while he didn’t know it, that is about the best way to explain the 2014 season, one of the best in Tennessee history. Well done. Cuonzo.

Mike Langston can be followed @LangstonLCB.

In the Time of Tar Heels: A Short Story

The week ended and the weekend began with Duke losing. I laughed.

After I laughed, I texted Aisander, a Duke fan, "At least your sons aren't old enough that they will remember what Mercer means." Then I laughed some more and wished Aisander's sons were older.

In the time of Blue Devils: A Short Story

This story was not written by me, but by one Aisander Duda ,who used to post here more often, and whose Duke fandom I am constantly trying to unravel, analyze, and, hopefully, to one day understand:

Defining the Term Scavenger

scav-en-ger: 


--noun


1. an animal or other organism that feeds on dead organic matter.

Derrick Williams of Arizona is from the Future

Being on the east coast, the sun often sets before the ball is even tipped out west. We go to sleep with the day behind us, not knowing that out in the deserts of the southwest and the beaches of the Pacific there is a man fighting for our present, by way of the future. And that man is Arizona's Derrick Williams, whose physique suggests that evolution is not done with the human race, that there is hope for us yet, to press on farther and further. And watching him put up 32 points on the Duke Blue Devils, in the Sweet 16, with thunderous dunks and a spray of three pointers has been like watching some hero walk through a time portal to save a race of mutant basketball fans who long for a new beginning.  The only question that now remains in the Age of Apocalypse, that is the current state of college basketball, is how many X-Men had to die at the hands of Coach K before Bishop foiled him. Because, yes, Coach K is an evil mastermind--and Derrick Williams is blasting biokinetic energy.

Thinking about Breakfast: Butler Upsets Pitt

Some despise these kinds of games, and they have a right to--it doesn't seem fair that we put kids under such a microscope, at such a young age, when so much comes down to attrition, fouls, and grit, that in the NCAA Tournament one of the best games of the year can devolve into a foul shooting contest. And while I do enjoy the NBA's postseason more than the NCAA Tournament, I can't go as far as Bethlehem Shoals and say that "whatever this is it isn't basketball." A clock is a clock, whether it is digital or mechanical and you still have to tell time by it. And even in an age when life is lived at a faster pace than ever before, it often transforms into the frozen stare downs of first world powers and third world dictators. This is life. This is basketball. Pace has nothing to do with it. And despite our calls for everyone to just get along, world peace, and the rapture of scintillating beauty, ugliness and violence clot in our veins and reduce us to primal beasts marking our territories, like dogs, and yesterday, while watching Pitt and Butler, it was clear that no matter what Shoals says there are winners and losers in college basketball.




SIDENOTE: While I disagree with two statements Shoals made about the Tournament compared to the NBA, his larger premise about the former being a broken narrative and the latter being one consistent narrative is something I'm going to have to think about further, because I think it's more complicated than one is this and the other is that. Shoals believes that the NCAA Tournament relies on anarchy and chaos and that those who love it--love it for its unpredictability. However, doesn't the predictability of the NBA rob its narrative of a true exposition? And doesn't each Playoff series turn into a separate vignette or a labor of Hercules? I don't know. Just pondering. Eating some breakfast before moving on to the next, big thing.

Bracketing the End of Days

The sky will be on fire. The earth will tremble. The seas will swallow cities whole. And teams that we thought were long dead will rise up out of the ground with their dreams rekindled. While Revelatory statements about basketball may be deemed inappropriate in the wake of real life tsunamis, earthquakes, and personal loss, sport always epitomizes a way for us to understand and have faith in life regenerating, that new ages eclipse the old ones, and that all is not lost. Our obsession is both our cure and our disease, paradoxically putting our world into focus, while displacing us from the reality of what's truly important.

Around The Power 6, March Forecast

I've always wondered how the process worked. I've always wondered why there couldn't be an easier way to objectively pick the 65 (now 68) teams for the Big Dance each March. So I created one. Using http://www.kenpom.com/ as my guide, I came up with a crude formula to seed teams as they stood up until Sunday's games. All for the LCB universe. You're welcome.

How it works: All I did was take Ken Pomeroy's Top 100 teams, which is probably similar to the RPI Top 100. I gave teams points based on their victories, with different points for winning against top 20's, top 50's, and top 100's. I also scored it based on whether the game was on the road, at home, or at a  neutral site. I then took points away based on losses, using the same thing. So a team like Xavier for example, lost a lot of points and didn't make the cut because it has a couple of bad losses against teams outside the top 100. If a team won or lost by 15 or more, they were rewarded or penalized accordingly. I'm by no means a mathematician, and this process took way too long for me to ever do it more than once or twice, but I like the way it turned out. Here's how I have it after Sunday's games.

1. Ohio St., Pittsburgh, Texas, Kansas                                                                                          
2. San Diego St., Duke, BYU, UConn
3. Purdue, Notre Dame, Villanova, Georgetown
4. WVU, Louisville, Kentucky, Wisconsin
5. Syracuse, Washington, Utah St., Missouri
6. Tennessee, Illinois, Minnesota, Texas A&M
7. Michigan St., Cincinnati, Marquette, Arizona
8. Vanderbilt, Georgia, Temple, UNC
9. St. Mary's, St. Johns, UNLV, Florida
10. Harvard, FSU, UCLA, Cleveland St.
11. Nebraska, Wichita St., George Mason, Belmont
12. Clemson/Penn St., Maryland/ODU, Alabama, Missouri St.
13. UTEP, Oakland, Duquesne, VCU
14. Florida Atlantic, Fairfield, Coastal Carolina, Vermont
15. Bucknell, Montana, Austin Peay, Long Island
16. Chatanooga/Texas Southern, McNeese St./Long Beach St., Buffalo, Bethune-Cookman

Around the “Power 6” Plus 1
37 of the 68 spots in my mock field are taken up by these teams, with the Big East getting a whopping 11 into the field. The Big 10 has 7, the SEC has a surprising 6, followed by the Big 12 and ACC with 5. The Pac 10 and Mountain West get 3 bids apiece, with the CAA flying under the radar with 3 squads as well. I could be accused of having a state of Virginia bias with that, but Mason, VCU, and ODU all have strong resumes looking at the parameters I used.

ACC
Teams In: Clemson, FSU, Duke, UNC, Maryland
Close but no Cigar: : VT, Boston College
Player of the Week: John Henson ( 13 pts, 10 rbs, 5 blks)
On The Horizon: Duke at Maryland (2-2), VT at Boston College (2-5), Florida St. at UNC (2-6), UNC at Duke (2-9)

I bumped Duke up to a 2 seed even though by the math they should have been a 4. Maryland and Clemson were two of the last 4 at large teams, although they both seem to be creeping up and getting better. If UNC keeps winning and winning convincingly like last night at BC, they have a great chance to be a 4 or a 5. There are huge matchups in the next 7 days looming, with the bloodbath on next Wednesday overshadowing the Duke-Maryland and Florida St-UNC tilts this week.

Big East
Teams In: West Virginia, Syracuse, Georgetown, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Villanova, Louisville, Notre Dame, St.Johns, UCONN, Marquette
Close but no Cigar: None
Player of the Week: Ben Hansbrough (20 pts, 4 rbs, 6 assists)
On the Horizon: Syracuse at UCONN (2-2), Villanova at Marquette (2-2), West Virginia at Villanova (2-5), Pitt at West Virginia (2-7), Georgetown at Syracuse (2-9)

The Big East is really good. You don't need to be an unpaid blogger who waits tables to inform you of this. The numbers bare it out in that all of these teams are going to have monster strength of schedule and RPI numbers simply by taking turns pummeling one another. St. Johns win over Duke bumped them up quite a bit. Hansbrough put up 26 against Pitt, bringing the Irish up to number 8 in the polls. All in all, these teams not only got into my fake field, but also came in with 8 in the 1-5 seeds. West Virginia had a surprisingly good number, and has a couple of big games to move up further at Villanova and at home against Pitt.

Big 10
Teams In: Ohio St., Michigan St., Wisconsin, Purdue, Illinois, Minnesota, Penn St.,
Close but no Cigar: Michigan
Player of the Week: Darius Morris, Michigan ( 14 pts, 5 rbs, 7 assts)
On the Horizon: Michigan at Ohio St. (2-3), Michigan St at Wisconsin (2-6), Ohio St. at Minnesota (2-6)

Penn St. was the only real shocker here, though, Michigan was closer than I thought. If these teams can win one or two more against the Buckeyes' and Boilermakers' of the world, at the same time avoiding losing to Iowa and Indiana, they have a real shot at dancing. Darius Morris gets the nod for POTW over Jared Sullinger with his triple-double (12 points, 10 rebounds, and 11 assists) against Iowa. Michigan St. at Wisconsin highlights the week ahead, as a win in Madison would help Sparty gear up for their inevitable Final Four run. I may be the only person still left on the bandwagon, since I picked them to win it all in October. I like to be right and feel smart. I am insecure and small inside.

Big 12
Teams In: Kansas, Texas, Texas A&M, Missouri, Nebraska
Close but no Cigar: Baylor, Kansas St
Player of the Week: Jordan Hamilton (18 pts, 10 rbs, 3 asst)
On the Horizon: Kansas at Nebraska (2-5), Missouri at Kansas (2-7)

The Big 12 is largely regarded as being a top 3 conference, but with the crashes of Baylor and Kansas St., they're really not that great outside of Texas, Kansas, and Missouri. Nebraska has been interesting, and we shall see if they are for real when they play the Jayhawks at home Saturday. Jordan Hamilton might be the most improved player in the country, not only scoring-wise but putting up huge rebound numbers and playing lock down D. He held Khris Middleton of the Aggies in check to the tune of zero for nine shooting in their win over the Aggies Monday night.

SEC
Teams In: Kentucky, Tennessee, Florida, Vanderbilt, Georgia, Alabama.
Close but no Cigar: Mississippi St, South Carolina
Player of the Week: JaMychel Green, Alabama ( 18 pts, 8 rbs, 2 blks)
On the Horizon: Miss.St at Alabama (2-3), Kentucky at Florida (2-5), Alabama at Tennesee (2-5), Tennesee at Kentucky (2-8), Xavier at Georgia (2-8)

I didn't think Alabama would do what they've done so far, giving the SEC 6 teams in right now. They're 5-1 in league play, but need some wins against some of the East's elite to buff up their resume a little bit. No real great teams here, but Kentucky and Florida still could do some damage. Tennessee has done better than I thought without Bruce Pearl, so they might be a factor as well in the extremely tight SEC East race.

Mountain West
Teams In: BYU, San Diego St, UNLV
Close but no Cigar: New Mexico, Colorado St.
Player of the Week: Jimmer Fredette (35 pts, 4 rbs, 4 assts, 2 stls)
On the Horizon: San Diego St. at Colorado St. (2-3), UNLV at BYU (2-6)

BYU and San Diego St. ended up doing better than I thought, especially with BYU's win over Arizona looking better and better as the Wildcats climb in the polls. New Mexico is playing better after struggling early on. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Jimmer is going to be my player of the week every time I do this for the rest of the year. UNLV gets a rematch against the Cougs in Provo on Saturday, while Colorado St. can move up with their game against San Diego St. at home tonight.

Pac 10
Teams In: Arizona, UCLA, Washington
Close but no Cigar: Washington St, Cal.
Player of the Week: Derrick Williams ( 20 pts, 9 rbs)
On the Horizon: USC at UCLA (2-3), Arizona at Cal (2-6)

UCLA looks to be getting better and better after some early season losses. Cal also has some better early season wins than I thought, and winning games like the one coming up at home versus Arizona will go a long way, although they already have 9 losses. The battle for Pac 10 player of the year between Williams, Isaiah Thomas, and Klay Thompson won't get much play on the East Coast, but all three might be in the top 15 overall, yet, remain completely overlooked.