LOS ANGELES – Maybe all of the folks who piled on the Gonzaga’s Bulldogs and their No. 1 seed in the West Regional after they were upset by Wichita State Saturday night in Salt Lake City should consider this:
In hindsight, the fact that the WSU Shockers needed a stunning shooting performance from long range – they dropped them in at a nifty .500 clip (14 of 28) from behind the arc – to record the upset is just another example of why the 32-3 Bulldogs are such a terrific club.
Of course, that verb should actually read were since Mark Few’s team was bounced from the third round of the NCAA Tournament by the Shockers, 76-70.
Wrapped around that WSU win over the Bulldogs was an 18-point victory over very-soon-to-be Atlantic Coast Conference member Pittsburgh last week and, Thursday night in The Staples Center, an eased-up, 14-point win against LaSalle in the West semifinals.
More perspective: La Salle knocked off Boise State of the Mountain West (in a First Four game on March 20), No. 4 seed and Big 12 co-champion Kansas State and Southeastern Conference Tournament winner Mississippi to earn its charter flight to Los Angeles.
Yes – a down-to-the-wire loss to a team that is now 40 minutes away from a Final Four slot doesn’t alter the fact that Gonzaga had a heck of a season and was a terrific team – as can also be said about another top seed, Indiana, which was bounced from the East Regional Thursday night by Syracuse.
The mostly iron-clad 40-minute effort by Coach Gregg Marshall’s Shockers set up what should be a regional that is equal parts grit and grind-it-out Saturday (about 4:05 p.m.).
The Arizona Wildcats and Ohio State Buckeyes took turns leading for the bulk of halves – Arizona the first, the Buckeyes the second – with the team from the Big Ten seemingly on the verse of pulling away in the closing minutes.
Xavier transfer Mark Lyons never evolved into the “true point guard” that many in the national and regional media assumed he would become once he transferred to an Arizona program that was need of one going into this season.
But he was a heck of a “big play-guy” and scorer for Coach Sean Miller and both of those elements got the Wildcats back into things.
Lyons scored 12 of his game-high 23 points in the final 6 ½ minutes of the contest, the last of those on an “And 1”, set up by a missed layup by OSU’s Aaron Craft (at least his fourth of the night by my calculation) and a sweet pass by Nick Johnson, with 21 seconds to go that tied the score at 70.
But with so many shooters on the floor and Craft at the point, the Buckeyes had a whole lot of scoring options on their final possession.
And Craft, whose 3-pointer with less than a second to go Sunday in Dayton enabled his team to do the “survive and advance” thing, 78-75, against Iowa State, took advantage of those options.
He took a hard dribble forward from out top with about five seconds to go, dished crisply to LaQuinton Ross on the left wing – about three foot or so behind the arc – and the oh-so-fluid and oh-so-offensively skilled sophomore dropped in the shot, just over the reach of 6-9 UA freshman Grant Jerrett, with two tics to go.
So, out West, say “so long” to La Salle and Arizona (well, to their 2012-13 seasons, that is).
For the Explorers, it was a season for the ages and a season that Coach John Gianni will build upon – especially with such a talent-rich recruiting base to draw from in Philadelphia and surrounding areas.
For the Wildcats, the expectations are always high for a program that was built to elite status by Lute Olson.
Those expectations haven’t tapered under Sean Miller and, truth be told, minus said “true point guard” and the fact that three freshmen saw so much playing time, the Wildcats probably over-achieved a tad in getting to the Sweet 16 this season
Losing Lyons and Solomon Hill – twice an all-Pac 12 choice and an absolute stud, Thursday night and throughout his career in Tucson – will be blows.
But the maturation of those freshmen front-court players – Grant Jerrett, Brandon Ashley and Kaleb Tarczewski – and junior-to-be guard Nick Johnson, along with the addition of redshirt T.J. McConnell (by way of Duquesne, he’s a “true” a point guard as you’ll find, short of the guy they played against Thursday night), provides enough of a foundation for the Wildcats to be consensus favorites to win the Pac 12 next season.
Toss in an already exceptional recruiting class with the likely addition of the best prep in the western United States – Aaron Gordon of San Jose, CA, who is expected to announce for the Wildcats next week – and it could be a team capable of making a legit Final Four.
The teams remaining standing – and, more importantly, of course, playing – in The Staples Center on Saturday should provide quite the Elite Eight tussle for one of those four slots in Atlanta next week.
Buckets are going to be so tough to come by, as well as should be the case, with so much at stake, IMHO. Easy points? Uh . . . they won’t exist with teams this sound, defensively and offensively.
In Washington, DC, it’s going to be a dandy of one last “true Big East” battle Saturday between Syracuse and Marquette.
Don’t look for any free-wheeling, free-flowing offensive performances in that one, either.
And what of Indiana – the regular-season champion of the toughest and deepest conference (Big Ten) in the country and No. 1 for much of the season – and Miami, a true “surprise” team which cruised to Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season and tourney championships but was throttled by Marquette Thursday night?
Like Gonzaga, they both had terrific seasons and were clearly among the half-dozen or so “best” teams coming into the NCAA Tournament.
But, also liked the Bulldogs, their seasons will, unfortunately, be evaluated through the haze of perceived tournament “failures”.
And that, as much as anything, is why it’s called “March Madness”.
Best commentary there is … thx Frank as always …