March Madness 2019 - National Championship

No matter who emerged victorious on Monday night, one school was going home with their first ever national championship in men's basketball.  For Virginia, it would complete the storybook turnaround from their disastrous flameout in the first round last year when they were the overall #1 seed coming into the tournament.  For Texas Tech, it would be the cherry on the sundae for their coach, Chris Beard, who has jumped to the top of the wish list of nearly every major program in the country in need of a new coach.  Taking a small basketball program like Texas Tech to the title game was remarkable enough.  But if his team could cut down the nets, schools like UCLA would be Fedex-ing him a blank check on Tuesday morning to have him come lead their team next year.

If I could give this game a nickname, I would call it "The Learning Curve".  With both teams known for their defensive prowess, there was concern that this could be an ugly low-scoring game.  Vegas set the line for the total score at a mere 118 points (1st team to 60 wins!).  Many pundits couldn't even fathom that level of fireworks.  It might only take 50 points to claim the national championship.  And early on, those who believed we'd have an ultra low-scoring title game looked to be prophetic.  Five minutes into the game, the score was 3-2.  Texas Tech wouldn't actually make a shot from the field until more than 7 minutes had elapsed from the clock.  Both teams looked tentative, unable to figure out how to get a clean look at the basket.  With the Red Raiders struggling badly, Virginia grabbed an early 10 point lead.  Even though there was 30 minutes left in the game, that advantage seemed oddly imposing.  How long would it take for Texas Tech to overcome that big of a deficit if they couldn't hit a shot?

The surprising answer was not long.  One of my favorite sayings is "sometimes you just need to see the ball go through the hoop".  In general, that phrase means that if you have a little taste of success, you'll soon regain your confidence.  In basketball, the meaning is quite literal.  Even if you're not hitting anything from the field, if you can sink a free throw and see the ball go through the hoop, it will help you get your mind right.  It won't be long before those shots from the field will start dropping as well.  That seemed to be the case with Texas Tech as they erased that 10 point deficit over the next 2 and a half minutes.  Not only did we have a whole new ballgame, there was some offense being displayed on the court.  The dark cloud of "ugly basketball" hanging over this game had dissipated and it felt like we were going to get two evenly matched teams playing solid basketball for the title.  So evenly matched that it took a Ty Jerome 3-pointer with one second left in the half to break the tie as Virginia took a three point lead to intermission.

The Cavs came out in the second half making defensive adjustments just as they had against Auburn. Texas Tech was struggling again on offense, while Virginia went on their version of a run.  Most runs in basketball involve one team going on a scoring burst.  10 quick points in a minute and a half that gets the crowd going and wrests momentum away from their opponent.  A Virginia run is nothing like that.  When the Cavs are clicking, they are like an NFL team that has controlled the time of possession and is just punishing the other team with 4-5 yard runs on every play of the 4th quarter.  The Cavs were making stops on defense.  They would then come down on offense, use up 20-25 seconds off the clock, and score.  It didn't feel like a huge momentum shift had taken place, but then you look at the scoreboard and see that they had built a 10 point lead again with 10 minutes to go.

In moments of adversity like this, Texas Tech has turned to their star player, Jarrett Culver, to get them back in the game.  But he wasn't doing anything right in this game.  In the semis, it was Matt Mooney who got hot to propel the Red Raiders.  However, he couldn't duplicate that performance in the finals.  Instead, Texas Tech would need their bench to propel them late.  Brandone Francis and Kyler Edwards would combine for 29 crucial points in this game.  And even though Davide Moretti was a starter, who wasn't known for his scoring production until this game, in which he contributed 15 points.  His three pointer with a minute and a half left brought the Red Raiders within one.

Virginia ran down the clock on the next possession, but it ended with a blocked shot.  Texas Tech looked to take the lead with a three pointer, but it was no good.  The rebound resulted in a jump ball and the possession arrow pointed to the Red Raiders.  They quickly converted with a layup and now they had the lead with 36 seconds left.  The Cavs missed a jumper on the other end and had to foul Texas Tech with 22 seconds left.  Two made free throws later and Virginia trailed by three.  That is when a team known for its defense made a crucial mistake in the most inopportune moment.  Virginia's Ty Jerome drove to the hoop and several Red Raiders collapsed in on him.  Even if Jerome hit an uncontested layup, Texas Tech would still hold the lead with 15 seconds to go.  But by collapsing on Jerome, they left Virginia's best player, De'Andre Hunter, wide open for the game tying 3.  He nailed it and things were tied again with 12 seconds to go.  Texas Tech leaned on Culver again in the final seconds, but he missed two shots to win it, the second one being blocked.  We were headed to overtime.

Early on in the overtime, it looked like Virginia was losing focus.  They made two free throws, but they also had missed two shots and then had an uncharacteristically sloppy turnover.  Meanwhile, Matt Mooney was heating up, scoring the first 5 points of overtime for Texas Tech.  That was when the first major call of OT occurred.  As Kyle Guy went behind his teammate's screen and headed to the baseline, he fell.  Both he and the basketball slid out of bounds.  Looked like another sloppy turnover for the Cavs and maybe the point where Texas Tech could break things open with a dagger from Mooney.  But instead the refs called a foul on the Red Raiders.  Texas Tech complained briefly, but then Guy headed to the line and knocked down two free throws to bring Virginia within one.  On the replay, you can see that Guy clearly tripped over his teammate as the defenders legs are nowhere near him.  It was a momentum changing play that went in Virginia's favor and it wouldn't be the last one.

There wasn't much scoring over the next few minutes, but De'Andre Hunter hit another three to put the Cavs up 2.  With about a minute to go, Jerome missed a jumper for Virginia and there was a long rebound.  Texas Tech's Davide Moretti got to it first, but Hunter swiped it away as they rambled down the other end.  The call was that it was Texas Tech's ball, but Hunter immediately called for a replay review.  Over the next few minutes, the replay was shown ad nauseam, slowed down as much as possible.  There was no doubt that Hunter knocked the ball away.  But if you slowed the video down enough, it looked like the ball was still touching Moretti's pinky as Hunter's hand stopped touching the ball.  The long review ended and the call was overturned.  Virginia had the ball and a two point lead with a minute to go.

Was this the correct call?  In my opinion, no.  When a defensive player swats the ball away from someone dribbling, the ball is almost always going to linger on the fingertips of the dribbler as it is knocked away.  That's why every time there is a review with the ball being knocked out of bounds, they look at it a million times.  The person hitting the ball touches it for a split second while the person in possession of the ball usually has their entire hand on it.  If you slow the video down to nanoseconds, then you'll likely see what was seen on this play: that the ball was knocked free, but technically the offensive player touched it last.  But that's the case almost all the time.  A different standard was used in this instance (in my humble opinion) and it cost the Red Raiders.

There wasn't much excitement the rest of the way.  Virginia had their issues from the charity stripe in the semi against Auburn, but they had no problems in the final minute of overtime.  They weren't hot from the free throw line, they went full dracarys to close out this game.  The Cavs made all 8 of their free throws down the stretch, making them 12-for-12 from the line in the extra period.  Redemption, thy name is Virginia.  UMBC who?  The Cavaliers are your national champions after an 85-77 overtime victory over Texas Tech.

Virginia's title was well deserved, but it is a bit remarkable to look back and see how many dominoes had to fall their way to win it all:

• They trailed #16 seed Gardner-Webb at halftime and came back to win.
• They trailed #12 Oregon with 5 minutes left in the game and came back to win.
• They trailed #3 Purdue by 3 with 5 seconds left.  They made 1 free throw, missed the second, had the ball swatted all the way to the other end of the court, retrieved it, fired the ball back up court for a shot at the buzzer, made that shot, then won in overtime.
• They trailed #5 Auburn by 4 with 10 seconds left.  They hit a three pointer, fouled Auburn, saw them only make one free throw, double dribbled but weren't called for it, were fouled with 1.5 seconds left at half court, were fouled with 0.6 seconds left on a three pointer, made all three free throws, avoided a miracle attempt by Auburn to win it on a shot at the buzzer.
• They trailed #3 Texas Tech by 3 with 15 seconds left.  Hit a game tying three, dodged Texas Tech's two chances to win in regulation, got a phantom foul call when one of their players tripped on a teammate to halt Texas Tech's momentum, got a dubious call reversal on a play where Texas Tech would have had the ball down 2 with a minute to go, made all 12 of their free throws in overtime.

That is quite the list.  If I'm associated with Virginia basketball, I'm buying myself a Powerball ticket.  Just sayin.

Speaking of insanely lucky, I won both of this year's pools.  But the other places on the podium weren't locked into place until the buzzer sounded at the end of overtime on Monday night.  So here's how things shook out when all was said and done:

Safety School:

1. Dave Nichols - 90 points
2. John Baxindine - 88 points
3. Aiden Schweitzer - 85 points

Paid For My Kids SATs:

1. Dave Nichols - 90 points
2. Dave Henderson - 88 points
3. Nate Heffner - 85 points (won the tiebreaker over King James)

To see the complete final standings, click here.

That's all for the 2019 edition of March Madness.  As always, I'm grateful that you all participate.  And I'm grateful that you read my long recaps (or at least pretend to).  Go enjoy the Masters and the last season of Game of Thrones!  Take care everyone!

March Madness 2019 - Final Four

After four amazing regional finals and six days to recover, the Final Four convened in Minneapolis on Saturday night.  It was going to be hard to surpass what we had seen last weekend, but the first national semifinal provided us with an ending that will not be forgotten for a long, long time.

Virginia and Auburn were the participants in that game and both teams had incredible storylines coming into this battle.  Virginia's story was all about redemption.  They will forever be remembered as the first #1 seed in the men's tournament to fall to a #16 seed.  And they didn't just lose, they were clobbered, ending up on the wrong end of a 20 point beatdown.  Once again they were a #1 seed and once again they had trouble in the opening round.  But they gathered themselves and found a way to win four straight tournament games, landing them a spot in the Final Four that they expected to have a year ago.

For Auburn, this was the story of an unprecedented run through the NCAA Tournament, following an impressive run through the SEC Tournament.  They had won 12 in a row coming into the Final Four. They had to beat Kansas, North Carolina, and Kentucky just to get here, a murderer's row of opponents that we've never seen a team overcome during the first two weekends of play.  (Arizona did beat the same three teams en route to winning the 1997 title, but they only had to beat one of them to get to the Final Four.).  Not only was Auburn's route to Minneapolis daunting, but they had to overcome adversity too, losing their top rebounder and one of their best players in general late in the game against North Carolina.  They managed to win shorthanded against Kentucky.  Could they do it again vs Virginia?

From the start it was apparent that the game would be played at Virginia's pace.  Auburn was the only team left in the tournament that was known for their offense, but the Cavaliers have a way of imposing their will on you defensively.  That didn't necessarily mean they were in charge of the game though.  In fact, it was the Tigers that led the game by 3 at halftime.  But Virginia found a way to ratchet up their defensive intensity even more.  It took Auburn nearly 6 minutes before they made a basket in the second half.  Even when the Tigers made a hoop, it was almost always on a heavily contested shot.  Nothing was going to come easy for the rest of the game.  The Cavaliers would eventually open up a 10 point lead with 5 minutes left and it looked like Auburn's run was over.

That was when a couple of weird things happened:

1. Virginia's Ty Jerome committed his 4th foul.  Not especially weird, right?  Except that he had zero fouls with 12 minutes left in the game.  He committed all four of these fouls within a span of 8 minutes.  Also weird was the fact that Virginia only had 4 fouls in the second half, so Jerome was responsible for every foul the Cavs had called on them.  Jerome was their "glue guy" (translation: holds the team together), so when he had to go to the bench, it was a problem.
2. More importantly, CBS showed a graphic that said Auburn was 30-0 when they held the lead with 5 minutes left in the game and 0-9 when they did not.  Major graphics jinx alert!

With Jerome out of the game and with CBS hexing Virgnia, the game took a turn.  The Cavs wouldn't score another point until there was less than 10 seconds to go in the game.  Meanwhile, Auburn began finding their rhythm and started knocking down one shot after another.  With 10 seconds to go, they were up 4.  They were headed to their first national championship, right?

Virginia got the ball to Kyle Guy in the corner and he hit a desperation three to keep the Cavs alive.  A foul was called before the ball could be inbounded, sending Auburn down to the other end for free throws.  They could only knock down one of two, making it a two point game with 7 seconds left.  Virginia was facing a bigger problem than a two point deficit though.  Auburn had only committed 4 fouls in the second half, meaning they had fouls to give (teams don't shoot free throws until 7 fouls have been committed in the half unless the foul occurred in the act of shooting).  Virginia inbounded the ball, but within 2 seconds, the Tigers had fouled them.  Only 5 seconds left in the game.  The Cavs next made the strange decision to inbound the ball away from their hoop.  As Virginia's Ty Jerome rushed up the court, he dribbled the ball off of his foot, quickly regained possession and then was fouled right after he dribbled again.  (We'll come back to this.)  The foul occurred at half court with 1.5 seconds left.

Virginia used their final timeout to draw up a play.  They found Kyle Guy in the corner and he put up another desperation three from the corner (the opposite one he hit from to bring them within 1).  There was a whistle, a buzzer, and chaos after the shot did not go in.  Auburn celebrated.  Virginia pointed to the officials.  And the broadcasters had no idea what was going on.  After the referees huddled together, they announced that a foul had been called on the shot.  Virginia would get three free throws with 0.6 seconds put back on the clock.  The crowd booed as Guy would go to the line for the three most pressure-filled free throws of his life.  He made the first.  He made the second.  He made the third.  Virginia was dead for a moment, but they were now one play away from the national championship.  Auburn drew up about as good of a play as you could come up with in terms of going the length of the court and making a shot in 0.6 seconds, but their fling at the buzzer did not fall.  Virginia survives yet again, ending Auburn's magical run.

So a few things about that ending:

• After the game, it was brought up that a double dribble should have been called on the second-to-last play when Jerome dribbled the ball off his foot, picked it up, and dribbled again.  Totally correct.  It was a missed call that undoubtedly affected who won this game.  But blaming the refs for missing the call in that moment seems a bit harsh.  None of the players reacted to the play indicating that they knew it was a double dribble.  No one on the sidelines did either.  Did the broadcasters notice it?  Nope.  Virginia actually called a timeout, the broadcast went to commercial, and when they came back, there was still no mention of the missed call.  This wasn't an obvious call that everyone noticed and the refs missed.  It was a call that everyone missed because of the chaos of the situation.
• The reason that sequence was so chaotic is because everyone knew Auburn was trying to foul on purpose and there was precious little time on the clock.  So when the ball bounced away from Jerome, I'm sure the ref was doing what the rest of us were: seeing if time was going to run out, seeing if Auburn was still going to foul, and seeing if Jerome was going to heave it from half court in desperation.  The second dribble seemed like such a minor part of what was going on in that sequence that a game-changing call was missed.
• If you've seen the replay of the foul, I don't think there is much dispute over whether it was the right call.  The defender hit the shooter's lower body while he was in the air and still had the ball in his hands.  Go try and make a three-pointer while someone runs into your legs and let me know how that goes.  It was a call that is rarely made, especially given the importance of the moment, but it was the right call.
• Finally, I would argue that the foul on the three-pointer was not the worst foul made in the last 7 seconds.  The foul after the missed double dribble was.  I'm sure the player was told to foul, I get that.  But after the ball bounced away from Jerome, the defender had to know there was no time left for the Cavs to get down the court for a reasonable shot.  The play started with only 5 seconds to go.  If the dude makes a defended shot from half court to send you home, so be it.  Instead, Virginia had the clock stopped for them, got to use their timeout, and got to take the ball out from the sideline near the hoop they were shooting at.  The second to last foul saved Virginia's season as much as the missed double dribble call did.

(Sorry, I'm always amazed at the poor decisions made by athletes and coaches in late game situations.  We live in an era dominated by stats, yet no one seems to have any grasp of good strategy.)

Oh yeah, there was a second national semifinal to be played!  And the expectation was that it would be lower scoring than the 63-62 slugfest that began the evening.  Michigan State has the reputation of a gritty team that will wear you down, while Texas Tech's calling card was suffocating defense.  Therefore it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise to see a halftime score of 23-21, advantage Red Raiders.  Could either team find their offensive touch in the second half?  I'm not sure you could say one team did as much as one player did.  Texas Tech's Matt Mooney caught fire in the second half, launching one trey after another that sank through the net, helping the Red Raiders open up a 13 point lead.  But Michigan State's gritty reputation is well earned and they would prove it late.  A 16-4 run brought them within 1 with less than 3 minutes to play.  That would be as close as they would get though.  Texas Tech star Jarrett Culver was silent most of the game, but he scored 6 key points down the stretch to lead the Red Raiders to a spot in the title game.  Texas Tech will take on Virginia for the title after defeating the Spartans, 61-51.

They say a broken clock is right twice every 20 years.  (Is that not the saying?)  If my memory serves me right, I started this pool in 1999.  I won my own pool that year.  And I haven't won it since.  But this year's pools were a tribute to Aunt Becky and the story of those who rig the system to benefit themselves.  Did I send money to Yahoo to constantly change my bracket throughout the tournament, ensuring that I would emerge victorious?  Unknown.  Perhaps the more important question is whether any of you can prove that I did.  All I can tell you is that if I were going to hatch a plan like that, I wouldn't be as sloppy about it as Aunt Becky and Mrs. William H. Macy were.

Virginia's victory and Michigan State's defeat gave me the top spot in both pools this year.  You can rest easy knowing I won't be in contention again until 2039.  As for the other spots on the podium, you'll have to await the outcome of the national championship.  In the main pool, a Virginia victory would put John Baxindine second and Aiden Schweitzer third, while a Texas Tech victory keeps Aiden in second and Scott Brown in third.  As for the Pled Guilty In Court This Afternoon pool, Dave Henderson has second locked up, with a tiebreaker needed for third.  If the championship game total is under 131, 3rd goes to James Dematteo.  Over 131 and it goes to Nate Heffner.  If it lands on 131 exactly, I will quit gambling forever.  

(I'm kidding.  Obviously that would never happen.  They would split third place.)

Here are the top three in each pool with one game to go:

Safety School:

1. Dave Nichols - 90 points
2. Aiden Schweitzer - 85 points
3. Scott Brown - 84 points

Paid For My Kids SATs:

1. Dave Nichols - 90 points
2. Dave Henderson - 88 points
3. James Dematteo and Nate Heffner - 85 points

For the full standings, click here.

One more game, one shining moment, and one last recap.  The Madness comes to a close for another year after Virginia and Texas Tech meet for the title on Monday night.