Happy Tuesday Cougs, and here at blog we hope all is well with you and yours.
So in what I can only call a fun, interesting game from start to finish, The Louisville Cardinals won it all last night, and in the process handed us the office pool championship! That's right, even with picking just 1 team out of the Final Four in what is likely one of the worst-ever brackets to actually win, well, anything, Louisville's victory brought it home for us. Yay Cardinals. But I couldn't help but sit back and be riveted at the action last night. I actually thought Michigan was going to win this thing, and man did they play well early on. But Louisville kept hanging in there, and then made that huge run to end the first half and build serious "MO" to close out the half, and you knew it was going to be a barnburner the rest of the way!
What was really interesting was to see how, for the first time in this tournament, late in the game Michigan looked gassed? Maybe it was just my imagination but it looked like they were wearing out down the stretch, that all that defensive pressure that Louisville threw at them all game finally started to take it's toll. Watching Trey Burke at the free throw lane just struggling to catch his breath, you wondered how much he had left in the tank. But that's just my completely uneducated look at things, I mean I know next to zip, zero, ZILCH about college hoops. For those of you hoops junkies out there, did my eyes deceive me or was Michigan truly wearing out down the stretch?
And one cool moment to see Kevin Ware cut down the net at the end. That broken leg will go down on the same level as Joe Theismann, I mean it's going to be something people will always remember from this tourney. But it was really cool to see him get a piece of that thing after all he went through to help get the team to that point.
One SHINING MOMENT Y'ALL!
One other thing for the hoops guys – can someone tell me why, exactly, more teams don't employ the Syracuse zone defense?? I am still amazed that Michigan figured out a way to beat them, and I guess big #4 in the middle, McGary, had to be special to beat 'Cuse. But I watch that defensive scheme and was so amazed by what I saw out of them this year, and left thinking "Why doesn't a team like, oh, I don't know, WSU, employ something like that?" Is it just too tough to coach and too intricate to learn the ins-and-outs unless you hire someone straight out of Boeheim's coaching tree to figure it out? Or does it simply rely too much on great athleticism to cover all that ground? Because I don't know about you, but watching that zone defense, I was just blown away at how hard it looked to just get a clean look at the hoop! When you make teams work that hard to get good looks, you know that wears teams down as the game goes on and frustration starts to set in? Anyway, as a hoops know-nothing, I'm hoping someone can fill me in/educate me/whatever.
On to the links….
As most of you are likely aware, the WSU spring game is next weekend (April 20th). And none other than Howie Stalwick has a nice look at Spokane Week for WSU. Per Howie, WSU is hoping for 15K at the spring game this year, up from something north of 10K last year?
15K might be a little optimistic, coming off a 3-9 season and the scent seems, I don't know, somewhat "off" on the new coach smell? Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of Spokane Week and all that comes with it. And isn't it pretty clear that Bill Moos and company continue to sharpen their focus on the Spokane market? It is just 80 miles away and a few hundred thousand people call the Inland Empire their home. But the event itself is well done for the whole week, and the game itself is free admission and it's pretty "kid friendly" from what we experienced the last couple of years at the spring game. I guess we'll see how it all plays out, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were right around that 15K number when it's all said and done.
Unfortunately yours truly won't be in attendance this year (I know, I know). Call me bandwagon or whatever you want, but we have other commitments on the 20th as my oldest son has a Lacrosse game AND he's in the school play this year (What????). I am not sure of any of the other blogfathers will be there (Huddy? Longball? SUTRA??) but I hope it's a great experience for all of you. I know I'll be DVR'ing it off the Pac-12 network and I do look forward to seeing what's up for this year.
Finally, a huge tip o' the hat towards former Supersonic great Gary Payton. Yesterday was a huge day, as the Glove was officially announced as a Hall of Famer!
I know that many in the NBA hated GP and the whole trash-talking act that got under the skin of various opponents around the league. But GP brought it, night in and night out, and to this day has been a big proponent of bringing the NBA back to Seattle. Here's hoping this fall there is a special moment where #20's jersey is hung from the rafters of the old barn known as Key Arena.
All for now. Enjoy your Tuesday, and of course, GO COUGS!
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