NCAA Tournament Open Thread

[brewcity77]

One thing I noticed is that Bennett doesn't use a lot of TOs and let's his players "play through it."  I guess in the end it worked, but I thought he could have called a TO or two last night to stop TT when they were making their run at the end.  He did something similar v. Purdue and Auburn, really only using TOs to stop the clock late.

+1

So many times I thought "stop the bleeding." Felt like he wasn't really coaching them much. In the end, it worked out, but felt like a dicey plan to go with.

[Schmidtyfactor]

On a whim, the wife and I made the 20 minute trek to Minneapolis last night and got to US Bank Stadium at 8pm. Talked to a bunch of scalpers who had crazy prices. Waited em out until minutes before tip and scored some sweet lower level corner seats for a solid price. Sat in the midst of TT fans so since we didn't care, we just cheered along with them.

The game was a blast. The TT fans were a lot of fun. Though nerves got the best of many of them. The couple next to us had chartered a 10 person plane and landed an hour before tip. $$$

I was trying to imagine how much yellow would've filled the stands had MU ended up in Minneapolis. Next year...

[MU82]

I had to laugh at the end of regulation when Mooney inbounded the ball for TTech. I could practically hear Ners screaming that Mooney should be available to shoot or be a decoy because he knows better than Beard, too. This time, Ners would have been "right," just as he was "wrong" about the end of regulation at Creighton.

[Billy Hoyle]

Several national hoops observers are pointing out that, as great as Beard coached this season and as good as TTech's defense is, they inexplicably left Hunter -- a 40% 3-point shooter and the team's star all season -- wide, wide, wide open at the arc when leading by 3 with 13 seconds to go.

Let Jerome make the layup, for crissakes.

But that's the deal. Beard probably told his kids, "Just don't give up a wide-open 3 to one of their great shooters." But kids are kids, and they sometimes don't follow the coach's instructions and sometimes don't do the right things.

Between that defensive play, and a horrible scud of an unnecessary 3 that Mooney launched in OT, those were two huge plays that killed an otherwise wonderful, well-coached team.

Again, I am NOT saying Beard is anything other than a great coach. I wish we had him, and I wish we had several of the TTech players, too.

It looked to me that the entire TTU defense was flatfooted on that play as if they were just going to give up the two. Then a defender dropped off of Hunter and that left him open.

I was talking to a coach this morning and asked him his opinion on Tech's last offensive possession in regulation and Culver taking that three. Should Beard have called TO?  He agreed with me that Beard made the right decision, saying that if you give UVA a chance to set their D you're screwed.  Culver panicked, IMO, he should have driven to the lane, he shot the ball with more than 5 seconds remaining. Hell of a finish, that's for sure.

[MU82]

It looked to me that the entire TTU defense was flatfooted on that play as if they were just going to give up the two. Then a defender dropped off of Hunter and that left him open.

I was talking to a coach this morning and asked him his opinion on Tech's last offensive possession in regulation and Culver taking that three. Should Beard have called TO?  He agreed with me that Beard made the right decision, saying that if you give UVA a chance to set their D you're screwed.  Culver panicked, IMO, he should have driven to the lane, he shot the ball with more than 5 seconds remaining. Hell of a finish, that's for sure.

Obviously, it's easy for all of us (including me) to second-guess this stuff, but yes I agree with that too.