Madness in the Truest Sense

The right team won on Monday....even with obvious incompetent reffing (Photo credit: fansided.com)

It’s 2 days after the conclusion of another insane wild roller coaster March Madness, and these 2 days were needed to digest the North Carolina v. Gonzaga final.

The game had 2 great elite teams, in what normally would be considered a blue blood program in North Carolina playing the ultimate mid-major Cinderella team in Gonzaga. I’ll stop you right there and declare Gonzaga a national powerhouse program.

Anyhoo, the game had pure Madness. There were 2 ‘national powerhouse’ teams that struggled and grinded the whole game despite performances that weren’t top performances.

Gonzaga’s Przemek Karnowski struggled mightily missing many 2-footers from the post. UNC’s Jr. PG Joel Berry was jacking erratic treys. The Zags All-American PG Nigel Williams-Boss was missing many drives through the lane.

Joel Berry came into the game with 2 sprained ankles, while Nigel Williams-Goss had to deal with the last few minutes hobbling on a sprained ankle that caused an obvious limp, but there was zero ways he was going to come out of the game.

Both teams had runs on offense to take slight leads and also stuffed the other team to struggle offensively due to suffocating defending.

But what the game also had was referee madness! All subsequent reports as well as conversations with Insanity Report participants was that the game “HAD NO FLOW”!  This was all due to the incompetent reffing that went on the entire game, but especially in the 2^nd half.

Before I go any further, I will go on record saying that no bad ref or bad ref call has ever won or lost a game for any team. This may seem like a bold statement to many as one may think back to many controversial calls in games past But as crucial a call may be late in the game doesn’t negate the hundreds of decisions both teams make during the game that affect their outcome more than one or two controversial calls. Moreover, despite a controversial call that may very well be a wrong call, the supposed victimizing team still has a chance to make a stop or a hoop, whatever is needed to negate that call. The control is always with both teams.

BUT…….

The refs made horrible call after horrible call led by the fouls on Gonzaga’s freshman big man, Zach Collins that allowed him to play only 14 minutes and be fouled out late in the game. Collins was by far the most productive player for the Bulldogs on Monday night. Three of his five fouls were absolute phantom calls led by his apparent offensive foul in the 2^nd half when he was trying to post up in the paint. The replay showed absolutely zero grounds for a foul, and the ref might as well have voiced to the scorers’ table, “Fouls on #32 blue for posting up!”

I have no idea what that foul was for. So the refs affected Gonzaga’s best player to play limited minutes and miss the crucial final minutes of this barn burner of a national championship.

There was viral photo on social media showing a jump ball where UNC regained possession where UNC Kennedy Meeks’ hand was out of bounds as he was also touching the ball. But later, Gonzaga shot an apparent air ball out of bounds, where the ball was awarded back to Gonzaga as the refs said the ball was partially blocked by UNC. Replay showed that the UNC player didn’t touch the ball.

The horrible reffing went both ways. This can be refer to the common adage that at least the refs sucked both ways.

But their obvious incompetency affected the FLOW of the game as both teams were playing defense on egg shells. They couldn’t afford to foul so they played rarely played zone defenses to try to avoid foul calls.

Once again, the right team won though. UNC made shots such as Isaiah Hicks absolute clutch And-1 in the last minute, and UNC stopped Gonzaga on crucial plays led by Nigel Williams-Goss blocked shot to try to tie the game in the last 30 seconds.

So whats the big deal?

The big deal is that the refs horrible and absolutely incompetent calls led to the absolute anxiety for both Gonzaga and UNC fans. I feel robbed of madness from this officiating incompetency. Of what could have been from both teams if there wasn’t the unnecessary foul trouble on Collins and Meeks.

Both teams struggled mightily from the shear magnitude of a National Championship game, and yet both grinded until the bitter end with Joel Berry’s 21 points on 19 shots and Karnowski’s clutch free throws late in the game and Williams-Goss’ late hoops in the last 2 minutes.

There were many clutch performances and the game as a whole was as exciting as it could be despite the lack of flow. The right team won.

BUT…

This shouldn’t exonerate the refs their own horrible performance.

But this is the Madness. It’s a Madness where the human element is celebrated of the players and coaches where season long journeys and 4-year journeys are culminated into great March Madness moments due to the intangibles gained from said journeys.

These human elements include buzzer beaters, great comebacks, great choke jobs of all that involved and this includes the referees.

So we got what we always want out of March Madness.

We got a roller coaster 3 weeks of great basketball, and it may be painful to some to admit, this roller coaster does….involve….the refs.

We got our Madness. We got our Insanity. Our straight jackets were torn once again.

All that is left is sadness that it’s over and the immediate anticipation of Midnight Madness in November!

Here’s to the greatest time of the year! Congratulations UNC. Congrats Zags and congrats to all graduating players!

Yours in Madness,

Commissioner Adolph

The Zags Family Gets Their Final 4, but They're Not Done!

The Gonzaga Family hoisting their Final 4 trophy. (photo credit: Sports Illustrated)

The Zags did it! It took 18 years. 18 years of Cinderella runs in the late 90’s to great runs in the mid-2000’s to a #1 seed in 2013.

There have been many criticisms and sceptical takes by many based on Gonzaga’s lack of a Final 4 berth in their history and also due to the small West Coast Conference they play in.

The whole time Gonzaga has been led by Head Coach, Mark Few who has become the Godfather of Spokane, Washington building a contingent of Gonzaga Bulldog powerhouse teams consisting of unranked and/or international recruits. He had a knack for finding many diamond in the rough recruits like Dan Dickau, Adam Morrison, Elias Harris and Kelly Olynyk, just to name a few. (No Paulsen Pun intended) Few has built a culture within his past teams that have emanated to this year’s team that includes 2 McDonald’s All-Americans in Nigel Williams-BOSS and Zach Collins.

If you build it…..that is, if Few builds it the way he has, then the big name recruits will come. In the manner Few has built his program, he’s also built a family of players that remain close together and forever loyal to Coach Few.

This was evident with the many posts on social media by groups of former players watching the Elite Eight game vs. Xavier together.

Support for the culture of Gonzaga is one that can be felt from all alumni. One that is genuine and thankful for what Few has instituted.

This present team which is now historical among a history-laden program among the Casey Calvery’s, Ronny Turiaf's and Kevin Pango's . This present team is an intelligent team not only in basketball IQ but academic prowess as well. They're intelligent in being fully aware of the ramifications of Sunday’s moment in winning the game vs. Xavier to clinch the program’s and Coach Few’s first Final 4 berth.

The team cut down the nets and celebrated with their fans as they flew back to campus in Spokane.

They enjoyed the moment as they returned to the Gonzaga campus, and they quickly shook hands as they entered their training facility on campus. They came out for some encore love to the raucous Zags faithful.  You should see the clip; the crowd was absolutely bonkers. It had screaming like this was a clip from a Beatles entrance in the 60's.

But what this moment was, was just that…a moment. Gonzaga walked through that crowd, not to give long victory parade-like speeches. They were walking through the pandemonium with well-deserved smiles and their smartphones in hand to film and savour the moment. They then were walking into their facility to prepare for their games this weekend.

This is such a great feeling after 18 past trips to the Madness with no Final 4 banner.

Those 18 trips were as The Cinderella team posters children for two decades.

No more. This Final 4 run was not as a mid major high seeded team. It was as a #1 seeded national powerhouse.

The moment was savoured.

As Matt Norlander from the CBS: Eye on College Basketball Podcast said, “Gonzaga has nothing to prove and still lots to accomplish!”

The criticisms and scepticism is non-existent to Coach Few. It’s non-existent to the team and to the alumni. It doesn’t exist as Few has built a program based on class, hard work and the ever valuable process.

That process and culture dictates that the Gonzaga team sincerely appreciated the moment with their fans upon their arrival back to campus, but there is still business to attend to. A national championship!

Zags aren't done. They're just getting started.

See y'all this Saturday!!!

#ZagUp #ZagsUnite

Yours in Madness,

Commissioner Adolph

Final 4 is Set!!

Utter Madness from Florida's Chris Chiozza over Wisconsin! (photo credit: New York Times)

Final 4 is set!!!!!

Whatta bunch of Elite 8 games we had too!

Let’s start with UNC vs. Kentucky in a rematch of arguably the best regular season game of the year when these two teams played in Viva Las Vegas in December to a 103-100 victory for Kentucky led by an unconscious 47 points by Malik Monk.

The game started off like another classic, but the wind was taken out of the classic sails with 1^st half foul trouble on pretty much all of the Kentucky starters. They weathered the storm and the Wildcats had lots of momentum with about 5 minutes to play. But the Tar Heels came out of nowhere to go on a run and boom! We had a game!

UNC Big man, Luke Maye was the only consistent offensive player for the entire game. He hit multiple treys in the 1^st half and early in the 2^nd half. After hitting a big shot, he was subbed off from about the 10-minute mark to 5-minute mark.

I’ve wondered for years why many coaches sub off players while they’re hot. I’ve never understood that. Any coaches out there if you have any insight, please let us know. The Insanity Staff is curious, not critical as many of these coaches that do these subbing practices are hall of famers. But still curious.

Anyways, Maye came back in with some more sparks leading to his game winning shot with 0.3 seconds left. Kentucky cut off the lead with difficult high-degree of difficulty three pointers to tie the game leading to Maye’s game winner!

Madness!!

UNC will play Oregon in their Final 4 match up. UNC has much more depth than Oregon. Oregon needs Tyler Dorsey and Dylan Brooks to have monster games. Brooks has been a tad less amazing then he’s been in the past, so he’ll need to pick it up.

Oregon dismantled KU to earn their Final 4 berth taking KU out of their comfort zone offensively and defensively while also catching KU on a night where they weren’t as sharp as other games in the Madness. Oregon’s Big Man Jordan Bell was an absolute beast with blocks and offensive rebounds coming outta his ears!

And the Zags momentous Final 4 berth beating Xavier? Lets save that for it’s own Insanity Report!

South Carolina is coming out of the South region beating a Florida team that had the game of the Madness with their amazing buzzer beater to beat Wisconsin. Many people were upset there was a non-marquee match in Madison Square Gardens with only Wisky playing Florida with the possible Villanova/Duke matchup squashed. Well we were treated to the moment of the Madness thus far!

And Melanie Booth was heard through 3 times in rejoice of Chris Chiozza’s buzzer beater three pointer!

One thing about South Carolina is their Head Coach, Frank Martin was seen as quite the nut job with his bulging, psycho eye balls and demonstrative demeaner on the sidelines from his days back when he coached Kansas State to his past 4-5 seasons in South Carolina. After listening to many interviews this past week as well as a couple throughout the season, Frank Martin seems like a stand up guy that is fiercely honest and more fiercely loyal to his players.

The Insanity Report Staff are all expecting more Final 4 magic this Saturday! It’s gonna be a long week waiting in anticipation! Until then!

Yours in Madness,

Cooler-issioner Adolph

Sweet 16...Great Subtle Madness!

Jordan Mathews' Zags defining trey to get them over the hump and infuse last final block of true belief, analogous to Roberto Alomar's 1992 ALCS homerun! (photo credit: spokesman.com)

Whatta great night of basketball tonight to start the Sweet 16!!!

There was indeed Madness led by the upset of Arizona by Xavier in the West Region, but tonight’s Gonzaga v. West Virginia game was an amazing game of subtle basketball!

Forget the played out storylines of Gonzaga and/or Mark Few’s lack of Final 4’s or even their first two averagely played games of this year’s Madness.

Tonight’s game between Mark Few’s Gonzaga Bulldogs and Bob Huggins’ (AKA “The Huggy Bear”) West Virginia Mountaineers was flat out great basketball. Both teams played ultra intelligent and efficient basketball predicated in minimal mistakes and battles won by both sides.

Gonzaga’s Nigel Williams-BOSS did a great job grinding vs. Huggy Bear’s Press Virginia. This led to an apparent disappointing stat line, but his assignment was to lead breaking the press with his underrated strength. This job sacrificed his great dribble drives, but any chance of beating West Virginia must start with weathering the hurricane that is Press Virginia.

There was just great basketball played tonight!

And ESPN stat showed that about 80% of all shots by both teams was contested. That is the defense on both sides were so great and there were minimal open looks for either side. Therefore most made shots were well earned.

Gonzaga played amazing help side defense by not committing too much on the ball allowing the defender to be one crucial step closer to West Virginia shooters. Even with this, WV’s PG Jevon Carter hit a nasty contested three pointer off a tight screen late in the game.

Gonzaga learned from that shot and they made the right adjustments defending on ball screens allowing for zero easy jumpers for the rest of the game.

The subtle madness was culminated with a defensive rebound by Gonzaga that Carter craftly stole the ball. West Virginia missed the lay up from this steal as Gonzaga dodged that bullet. On the transition play right after that missed shot, the Zags had a fast break with three Mountaineers trailing. This was an obvious fast break opportunity. The ball was headmanned to Zags Sr. SG Jordan Mathews who hit a game winning trey!

West Viginia had one more look that was defended absolutely perfectly and the Zags won the game.

Mathews shot was a defining make for this Gonzaga team. It seems to have infused the final peg of belief the Zags needed to make to traverse that final hump to get the the Final Four.

There was no Northern Iowa buzzer beater. No killer Grant Hill alley-oop. Just great great subtle Madness of intelligent basketball by West Virginia and Gonzaga.

The Xavier win over Arizona was another great game of subtle Madness, as they played a patient team oriented game led by some great hustle by Jr. G JP Macura.

The late game possessions had Arizona focus on their extremely talented line up with NBA-like isolation 1-on-1’s by super sophomore Alonzo Trier. This was well defended by Xavier who responded with great ball movement manufacturing great team oriented hoops to pull ahead late in the game.

The KU dismantling of Purdue was simply KU’s superstars of Frank Mason and Josh Jackson out-superstaring Purdue’s superstar, Caleb Swanigan. KU is peaking and has to be the favorite to win it all. Getting contributions from their role guys like Lagerald Vick is huge!

Paulsen and I got off work 30 minutes after the Zags tip off and spent three quarters of the game catching up on PVR, so we didn’t watch any part of the Oregon win of Michigan except for the last 6 seconds where Michigan has a clean look to win the game. They missed that shot and Oregon escaped with what looked like another well played game.

Whatta great night of well played basketball. No buzzer beaters. Some upsets. Subtle Madness. Tomorrow, the Elite Eight is set!

Yours in Madness,

Cooler-issioner Adolph