Monday, April 06, 2009

David and Goliath

So writing this in "real time" so to speak. Second half just started with a...wait for it....Spartan turnover.

First Half Recap:
Quite possibly the most one-sided half of basketball I've seen since the 1990-1991 Freshman boys A team at Westlake High School vs. De Valle. This looks like a premier college team vs. a mediocre high school team. The one thing that Michigan State did so well in their last 2 games was force Louisville and UCONN to play *their* game. They slowed the game down, defended tenaciously, and worked for the high-percentage shot. They come out against UNC and try and run the ball up and down the court. Yea, UNC is pretty f'ng good at that, you may want to rethink that strategy.

At the halfway point the Spartans had 5 field goals, 9 fouls and 8 turnovers. They were down by like 20. I'll be frank, it's going to take a f'ng miracle for the Spartans to even make this a halfway decent game. We'll see, but I'm pretty sure the Tarheels didn't break a sweat or start breathing hard until about 8 minutes to go in the half.

Second Half:
Just when MSU starts to get a little something going with a couple of big shots and a couple of stops, they force the damn ball and turn it over....then give up a 3-point play. Ugh - this may go down as one of the top 6 most frustrating college basketball games I've ever seen. The one thing that keeps playing in my heads is lack of experience in big games...

Look, at the end of the day, we learned that on top of a horrible night in general, Michigan State just isn't as good as UNC. It's really just Lawson, Hansbrough and Green that are too much for the Spartans. Lawson is ridiculous good - with about 4 minutes or so to go he had 15 points, 6 assists and 8 steals. That's really something. Too bad for the Spartans - good year for Izzo and his crew, but they just ran into a better team.

Carolina was tremendous at turning Michigan State turnovers (a lot of them) into points - it seems like 90% of their shots were inside the free throw line. That sure makes it easy. Great run by this team - like many others I have some enormous doubts about Hasbrough's effectiveness at the next level, but he'll get a shot and he'll give it his all. But Lawson, forget about it. That dude is good. He'll definitely get a shot...and big dollars. I think it's safe to say the Roy Williams experiment has proven to be a successful venture for the good folks in Chapel Hill.

NBA Notes:
Just saw an article that Ginobli is out for the season - thereby officially securing the Lakers spot in the finals this year. I'm telling you - it's going to be Kobe vs. Lebron. And if it is I swear I will watch every single minute of every game.

MLB:
So baseball season started today. That's all I got on that.

Enjoy the week.