It's the Eagles or the Hornets
by Mike Rutherford on Mar 17, 2009 7:19 PM EDT
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I'd really like to be able to cheer wholly for Morehead tonight, but it's sort of an odd feeling to pull for a team that you hope will be pummeled three days later.
True story: I made my play-in game debut in 2005, the last year the Cardinals went to the Final Four. The game also featured a historically black Alabama college. Coincidence? Totally.
Enjoy the game, and then enjoy Kentucky playing an NIT tilt in its women's gym.
Life's good.
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An empty upper deck
For the play-in game thread. Care to go back and forth, Mike? I’m a diehard who is just now getting to look at the brackets because I had finals (quarter system) today and yesterday, resulting in a grand total of 3 hours of sleep over two nights. Sorry, I’ll stop whining. But you’re invited to my pity party. Bracket speak?
This game always make me think of...
The 01 tourney. Right before Pitino was hired, he was an analyst for ESPN for the play-in game (I think that was the first one, but I’m not sure), does anyone else remember this? He was basically trying to coach both teams from press row, and had very little positive to say, if I remember correctly, more or less saying that the game didn’t matter because the winner was going to get obliterated. Gotta love him.
Camera angle for play-in game....
Seriously, my nose is bleeding. I feel like I’m sitting a few rows from the top of Rupp (which I’ve done before – it SUCKS).
Yeah, not to discourage anyone who is headed up there...
But I hate this gym and always have. No, I have never actually been there. But they’re a tourney site every few years, and I always get the impression, just from watching, that it’s kind of a high school gym. Only secondhand of course.
Hosted in 06
When Georgetown beat the 2 seed…Ohio State.
by doctorofdunk on Mar 17, 2009 8:25 PM EDT up reply actions
We will beat whoever wins this game
That is all.
by Mike Rutherford on Mar 17, 2009 8:25 PM EDT reply actions
I really do not like the idea of potentially playing Wake....
IF we, and they, take care of business. Go Vikings!
I'm super scared of Wake
But I’m also taking Cleveland State.
by Mike Rutherford on Mar 17, 2009 8:48 PM EDT up reply actions
Not that scared of Wake....
….young team, good point guard (which is tough for our press) but a guy who has not faced a full 40 minutes of andre, preston, JHER-REE!, and Edgar to a lesser extent. They shoot 3s and are athletic but we can out run and out athlete them. They also played pretty crappy down the stretch, AND it would be a sweet 16 game, which Pitino has never lost. I don’t think they play much defense, either.
Sure they are good, and obviously could beat us even if we play well. But we are coming into the tourney playing VERY well, much better than we were playing last year, and if the open shots fall I don’t see how they really can beat us.
I hate being so confident and deep down I am freaking out that we lose to the 16. But we are really good, we are playing well, and there’s only one big east team in our bracket.
Hit open 3s, refs let our guards play aggressive defense, Earl keeps playing like he has, I really think this is the team we’ve all been waiting for. We could easily flame out, of course, and that would SUCK.
I love seeing people pick Nova to win that bracket. We just beat them by 14! In a game we trailed by 8 at half! We are freaking good.
I don't know
There is Good Wake and Bad Wake, and when Good Wake shows up they’re every bit as athletic as we are 1 to 5 and and are as similar to UConn and Pitt as any non-Big East team around. I assure you that when they show up, they can play. They played down to their competition often, but would get up for the games against tourney teams, an odd trend that continued through ACC play. Aminu and Johnson are long and athletic and would definitely provide a challenge The problem is their inexperience; there’s a lot to be said for having been to this rodeo before. I hope if we get there, they aren’t in our way, I’m more concerned about that matchup than any in the potential regional final.
Fun side plot of a potential Wake-Louisville game: Jeff Teague playing in his hometown, in front of his Dad, who played for the opposing team’s coach, and his brother, who is allegedly Derby City-bound. Perhaps Marques can play the role of Angela, and we can battle it out with Wake, Dwight and Andy style?
by doctorofdunk on Mar 17, 2009 9:01 PM EDT up reply actions
And yes
Bad Wake lost to Georgia Tech, North Carolina State, and Virginia Tech. They could lose on Friday or play us tough, but as I said, I don’t want to find out.
by doctorofdunk on Mar 17, 2009 9:03 PM EDT up reply actions
Interesting.....
….I haven’t seen them much this year, and I appreciate your comments.
I also love the Office reference. I hope Teague commits before that game so the announcers have something to talk about.
We’ll see – they could easily hang with us in a shoot-out, I can see them getting off to a hot start and us missing some and us playing catch-up the whole game. I don’t know if I can take a tough 2nd half comeback in any of our tourney games. That was too rough for just the BET!
Neutral sites...
….here’s a thought. It seems like we always lose the early season neutral site games, but play extraordinarily well on the road. And at Freedom Hall.
My theory is that we play so much better when we play with energy, and that when the arena is rocking and there is energy in and from the crowd (doesn’t matter whether pro-UL or anti-) it really plays into our strengths.
All of which is to say, I’d much rather be in an area with lots of fans of UofL and OSU than in some random area in Arizona with a smattering. Remember the MN game? Tell me if that was an away game under similar circumstances our guys wouldn’t have woken up and played with just a tad bit of energy?
Totally agree with this
We have a better chance at winning in Cameron against Duke than we do against Murray in Peru.
by Mike Rutherford on Mar 17, 2009 8:56 PM EDT up reply actions
Better off Dead reference?
The comments section is really stepping it up.
by Mike Rutherford on Mar 17, 2009 10:42 PM EDT up reply actions
Bellarmine in OT at Findlay
You can listen here.
by Mike Rutherford on Mar 17, 2009 8:54 PM EDT reply actions
The real question...
….which BCS team do we just annihilate like we did Stanford and OK? Do we even do that this year?
And to what do we attribute our ability to do that at seemingly random times. We start the game doing our thing, play with the intensity, get a few plays and the other team is just like, “wtf is this? Ok I give up”.
How does that happen? Can we do it this year? And to whom?
Here's hoping it's Ohio State
There’s nothing good about who they are or what they do.
by Mike Rutherford on Mar 17, 2009 9:03 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Yeah, that's the best
Especially in that Stanford game in Rupp. When it comes to stressful events for a sports fan, nothing compares to games in the Big Dance from the second round on (or, if you’re playing Xavier and their guards decide that they’re going to be All-World and make a deep tourney run, or when you decide that you’d like to be losing to Louisiana-Lafayette with 4 minutes remaining in a 4-13 matchup in Nashville, first round on), so being up 20 before the under-12 timeout is always a good thing. My favorite part of those games is that we can never get enough, we always to demoralize them a little bit more, extend our lead by a few more points, even when they’ve clearly flown the white flag (I was in Birmingham when we nearly drove Blake Griffin to the NBA in the span of two hours) and want no more.
Discussion topic: how do people who don’t like March Madness and college basketball as a whole lead fulfilling lives? Is it possible?
by doctorofdunk on Mar 17, 2009 9:13 PM EDT up reply actions
i disagree, clubtrillion is by an ohio state player and that is awesome
on the court, nothing good though
CardinalS, Lavin, CARDINALSSSSSS
Son of a bitch.
by Mike Rutherford on Mar 17, 2009 9:22 PM EDT reply actions
Has anyone ever...
…seen a UK game at Memorial Coliseum?
Also, Musberger and Lavin defending Gillespie is both sickening and awesome — keep Billy G! Keep Billy G!
“Young players” – you realize, Brent, there are no freshman who start?
“Rebuild” – you realize, Lavin, that Tubby recruited Meeks and was close to closing the deal with PPat?
Whatever. Love it. Keep Billy G! Keep Billy G! Or hire Morehead’s coach’s daughter they keep creepily showing on ESPN to turn the program around.
Atrociously played game
By any sort of postseason standards. I feel like the play-ins in the past haven’t been this bad, have they?
Who are they playing?
Also, anyone see the interview with the Morehead coach? What a sweet, sweet man. The anti-Billy G.
Wake Forest
Interesting that we would be potentially facing Wake in Indy, Jeff Teague’s hometown. Indy is also home to Jeff’s brother whom the Cardinals are aggressively pursuing.
Night and day
Whoever above me said Wake shoots 3’s was way way way off base. They hardly ever shoot 3’s. They live and die with their inside game. We shot the most 3’s in the BE (600+). Wake shot the least 3’s in the ACC (200). And we have fouls to give inside with SS and TJ platooning. I honestly don’t understand why some of you are so god-awful skeert of Wake. Not that they’re bad, but we will simply dare them to shoot from long-range, and when they prove to be unreliable from there, collapse down and snuff out the interior passing. If they had Huggy Bear coaching them, I’d be worried. But I don’t think those guys will know what hit them.
People are worried because they've played extremely well at times.
Especially against UNC. And just because they don’t shoot a lot of threes doesn’t mean they’re bad at them. They’re still pretty solid percentage-wise.
Yes
They’re worrisome of course and capable, but I’m less worried about them than most seem to be. The point about 3’s is that, while they make 31% and Louisville makes about 33% (basically the same), Louisville takes so many more per game that we can beat – even get beat substantially – inside and still win the game going away. Unless we have a total clunker from 3 land, we’ll be trading a lot more 3-for-2 baskets in that game than against virtually any other opponent we’ve faced (BCS schools) all year.
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