...Michigan State with a double digit lead and less than 7 minutes to play.

I think they may have shot their wad against Zona. Came out listless against a good Spartans team.

Still time left, but you know the men in green are going to start to milk clock and they have been able to get most any shot they want in their half-court offense.

Cheers,
Neil

Sometimes you run into a buzzsaw, and it doesn't matter what you do. Anything you try just seems to compound the problem. That seems to be the case for Louisville today. The Spartans have taken them out of their game, and dictated tempo. They also haven't missed many open shots, and the Cards pressure hasn't bothered them at all. Louisville needs to play like they did in their last game, before it's too late...

I think it's already too late. They can't stop Michigan State...

(03-29-2009 03:15 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  Sometimes you run into a buzzsaw, and it doesn't matter what you do. Anything you try just seems to compound the problem. That seems to be the case for Louisville today. The Spartans have taken them out of their game, and dictated tempo. They also haven't missed many open shots, and the Cards pressure hasn't bothered them at all. Louisville needs to play like they did in their last game, before it's too late...

I think it's already too late. They can't stop Michigan State...

That's the key. Their stops are mostly the result of causing TOs and their offense is running off of those TOs.

It will be interesting to see if the accumulation effect (getting tired from all of the pressing for 36 minutes) works against MSU in the final 4, but it doesn't look like it is going to happen.

Cheers,
Neil

I think the finals may come down the UCONN and UNC. Sort of what was predicted at the start of the season.

UCONN can take Michigan State. I hope Oklahoma can take UNC. I'd like to see Griffin and Thebeet go at it.

(03-29-2009 03:24 PM)frogman Wrote:  I think the finals may come down the UCONN and UNC. Sort of what was predicted at the start of the season.

UCONN can take Michigan State. I hope Oklahoma can take UNC. I'd like to see Griffin and Thebeet go at it.

Don't sleep Michigan State. The Spartans, with Suton, have been a great team this year. Plus they will be playing in Detroit. Didn't seem to help the Cards much today playing an hour and half away from home, but this is going to be something different.

Cheers,
Neil

I watched a lot of the UConn & Missouri game. Missouri must have had 5 shots rim out. If Missouri would have made their freethrows who knows? UConn was the better team. I doubt I get it, but I picked UConn over Okla. in the finals. I did pick MichST to beat Louisville. Pitt is the team that let me down so far.

(03-29-2009 03:19 PM)omnicarrier Wrote:  It will be interesting to see if the accumulation effect (getting tired from all of the pressing for 36 minutes) works against MSU in the final 4, but it doesn't look like it is going to happen.

Not with a whole week to rest up...

(03-29-2009 03:32 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(03-29-2009 03:19 PM)omnicarrier Wrote:  It will be interesting to see if the accumulation effect (getting tired from all of the pressing for 36 minutes) works against MSU in the final 4, but it doesn't look like it is going to happen.

Not with a whole week to rest up...

When I posted this, there were still 4 minutes left in the game. LOL!

Remember, the Cards have had some furious comebacks this year, the supposed result of teams being fatigued going into the final 4 minutes.

Anyway, Congrats to the Cards on their season.

And Hail to the Spartans! Izzo's teams always seem to have that Warrior Heart every 4 years or so.

Cheers,
Neil

At any rate, having 2 teams in the final 4 is a great accomplishment for any conference as thinly as the talent is spread out anymore for a varied number of reasons.

(03-29-2009 03:28 PM)omnicarrier Wrote:  

(03-29-2009 03:24 PM)frogman Wrote:  I think the finals may come down the UCONN and UNC. Sort of what was predicted at the start of the season.

UCONN can take Michigan State. I hope Oklahoma can take UNC. I'd like to see Griffin and Thebeet go at it.

Don't sleep Michigan State. The Spartans, with Suton, have been a great team this year. Plus they will be playing in Detroit. Didn't seem to help the Cards much today playing an hour and half away from home, but this is going to be something different.

Cheers,
Neil

The location item is something that hasn't been brought up much and why I was pretty high on MSU coming into the tournament. The Indy location of the regional final neutralized a lot of the virtual home court advantage that Louisville might have had if they didn't have to play a Big Ten team - MSU is only a couple of hours from Indy, as well, and Spartan fans travel as well as anyone. Meanwhile, Detroit is going to be a complete home court advantage for MSU. While it only goes so far if the opponent is clearly more talented (my Illini didn't have more than a 3 hour bus ride to any locale in the 2005 tournament, where they got the 1st weekend in Indy, the 2nd weekend in Chicago, and the Final Four in St. Louis, but eventually ran into the buzzsaw UNC team in the national championship game), it's still a nice advantage in a sport where a home fan advantage is considered to have more of an impact than any other sport.

Good insight from Pitino on one of the reasons why the Cards lost today. He said the team had faced 7 straight zone teams and that they weren't ready for a good m2m team.

Cheers,
Neil

he was flat out-out coached

(03-29-2009 03:55 PM)templefootballfan Wrote:  he was flat out-out coached

Yep. Suton hitting 3-3 from the arc in the first half sure was great coaching on Izzo's part.

This, obviously, is not to take anything away from the brilliance of Izzo. But the guy on the other bench is quite a brilliant coach himself. But the players on the court still need to perform. Sometimes they perform up to expectation, sometimes they exceed it, and sometimes they do not perform as well as they are capable.

Suton played out of his mind today, particularly in the first half, and TWill disappeared. That was the major difference, not coaching, imho.

Cheers,
Neil

Cards don't have any guard who can really penetrate the lane other than Clark. They settled for all the jump shots and they can't make any FTs when it counted.

I'll say this much about Tom Izzo - he's a heckuva coach who gets the most out of his teams come tourney time. 5 FFs in 11 years is quite a feat in this era.

Sorry Cards - wished you could have joined us & Nova in Detroit. Props on a great season.

(03-29-2009 10:27 PM)BugsyCT Wrote:  I'll say this much about Tom Izzo - he's a heckuva coach who gets the most out of his teams come tourney time. 5 FFs in 11 years is quite a feat in this era.

Oh, without a doubt, Izzo is a fantastic coach. And he wins with marginal NBA talent mixed in with solid college players. Which is why those who claim Pitt will never win the BIG ONE are off on that criticism.

They'll get there sooner or later.

Cheers,
Neil

(03-29-2009 03:15 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  Sometimes you run into a buzzsaw, and it doesn't matter what you do. Anything you try just seems to compound the problem. That seems to be the case for Louisville today. The Spartans have taken them out of their game, and dictated tempo. They also haven't missed many open shots, and the Cards pressure hasn't bothered them at all. Louisville needs to play like they did in their last game, before it's too late...

I think it's already too late. They can't stop Michigan State...

Sometimes you're just overrated and a fraud. That's what we were...

The Cards were just outplayed yesterday. Missing FT's didn't help things by any stretch, but MSU just flat out deserved to win the game. Credit to them, they played great defense and UofL did not bring their best game by any stretch, but part of that is the Spartans.