I'm still getting over the fact that college season has ended.
News:
President Obama called UConn Coach Geno Auriemma yesterday to congratulate the team.
The Husky victory parade will be Sunday.
Cardinal fans welcomed their team home.
Louisville Coach Jeff Walz says he has a great situation.
UConn wasn't a unanimous number one selection in the final USA Today poll.
Breanna Stewart is as good as advertised.
Kiah Stokes' father says she's at UConn for the long haul.
Florida Gulf Coast is ready to move on after a disappointing end to their season.
Iowa's Morgan Johnson has been selected to play with the NetScouts Basketball United States All-Star Team.
Shooting hoops with Santa Clara's Megan Fulps.
New Missouri State Coach Kellie Harper delivers the right message.
North Carolina Coach Sylvia Hatchell is savoring her Naismith selection.
Business:
Documents reveal that Iowa State's NCAA violations were major. They involve 33 coaches, and every athletic program at the University. Wow.
Final USA Today poll.
Coaching changes:
Krista Gerlich is the new coach at UT-Arlington.
Mary Gleason has resigned at Houston Baptist. Donna Finnie is the interim head coach.
High school news:
The MaxPreps Basketball Coach of the Year is Duncanville's Cathy Self-Morgan.
Illinois Gatorade Player of the Year Jackie Kemph is building her legacy.
Detroit's Antania Hayes has fought past tragedy and into a bright future.
My college thoughts:
1. There's plenty of parity in the game. But stacking the brackets the way they were makes it look like there isn't. Why put Notre Dame and UConn on the same side? The Championship game was a let down after a great season.
2. It's ironic to me that on one hand, Skylar Diggins gets backlash because she is attractive, while Brittney Griner gets clowned for being big. Women just can't win.
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11 comments:
Terrible final game. 33 points as a margin of victory hurts the women's game. You are right the seeding was ridiculous.
The seeding was fine going into the tourney. No one could have anticipated Louisville beating Baylor. McGraw was mumbling something about reseeding the final four. While that would have been rosy for ND and UConn how would that have been fair to Louisville when they were the ones that beat the team that neither ND or UConn could beat during the season? The reason the seeding looked stupid in the finals is because Baylor choked in the sweet sixteen.
The championship game certainly was a beatdown but UConn also crushed ND by 18 on Sunday. The spread was tighter but that game was also over well before the final buzzer. Louisville earned the right to play in the championship fair and square.
As usual UConn has a wealth of talent. It just so happened that the stars aligned in the final four for them when Stewart hit her stride. No one will beat them for the next three years if they can play like that going forward. So hopefully we'll get some surprises that will keep UConn from running the table for the foreseeable future.
The final four ended up being about the reemergence of UConn as the King Kong of WCBB after the Cards took care of Griner for them. It also puts Geno on the fast track to catching up with Wooden's twelve national championships.
People can say what they want about the guy but 8 for 8 in championship games is amazing.
President Obama should have Geno on speed dial by now. They've met twice in his first term and will meet again for his second.....and probably 1 or 2 more times before Obama is done. #GR8TNESS
And Anonymous: I LOVE the way you think. People are talking about the 33 pt blowout, what about the 18pt butt whoopin we handed ND?! Geno had a game plan and it was excuted to perfection. We took Diggins and KMac out of their game, we applied that UConn stingy defense.
Sue: Its not Skylars looks that make ppl loathe her, its
the "Im a Champion (without a CShip) mentality that I
personally dont care for. ND had the AP COTY, the
Freshmen OTY, and the BE POTY and YET still fail to get a CShip.
They had all the ingredients for a Title and they beat Conn 3 times In a sseason. All you had to do was get by UConn and the title was yours...and you failed to show
up. That NCAA Trophy was practically gift wrapped with Diggins' name on it. Smh
As usual, HuskyGirl1, we agree to disagree. But I love ya anyway.
Jeff Sink, you are right on the money, sir.
I also thought from the sweet sixteen on that the quality of the coaching really took center stage. Some looked really good, like Walz & Auriemma.
Some looked good but not quite there yet, like Warlick and Gottlieb.
Others were disappointing (at least to me), Mulkey in particular and McGraw. Given the years of experience these coaches have under their belts it didn't seem like they had their respective teams totally ready to play and also they didn't respond that well to what their opponents threw at them either strategically or tactically. Plus Mulkey acted like a Total Tool during and after the Louisville game.
I'm not bagging on them but it was pretty clear who was ready to rock, adjusted on the fly and took control of their games.
I think much of this is due to the fact so many WCBB games are blow outs that neither the coaches nor the ballers have a chance to coach or play under pressure or come back from being behind.
UConn choked their three close games with ND during the season and they end up being national champs. So we have a national champ that didn't win a closely contested game all season. Don't get me wrong, they deserve to be champs, but if you watched the competitiveness of the men's games throughout their tourney it was pretty compelling. The women's tourney not so much.
So if a person only tuned in for the women's final four they probably weren't that impressed. For those of us that watched as much of the tourney as we could it was a different story.
Excellent assessment, Anonymous.
And thats why Geno is THE MAN. 8 for 8 in Title games. He gets it
My original comment was wrong about Wooden having 12 championships. He has 10. Given that it looks like Auriemma / UConn may well tie or pass him by the time Stewart graduates.
Pretty interesting how the season worked out. Baylor / Griner / Mulkey's place in WCBB history ends up being less significant many thought it might be and UConn gets a jump start on making history. Pretty amazing as it seemed like most of the pundits had UConn as the third best team this year.
I don't know where to find the stats but I'm betting that UConn's average margin of victory in the Final Four of 25.5 points must be a record.
Perfect timing. Back on top where we belong.
Tourneys are all about being Good and Lucky. Who knows what would have happened if Louisville hadn't taken down Baylor? It doesn't matter now. That's tourney basketball, love it or not.
But no one "belongs" at the top. You need to earn it and UConn, by legitimate means, earned it.
The real and appreciated credit I will throw Geno's way is he never made any excuses when ND kicked UConn's asses in 7 of 8 games. Not once. He and the team always owned their losses which is what great coaches and teams do. If they hadn't owned it they wouldn't have had the final four that they did. So full credit to them.
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