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

SWEET 16 COMETH! ...AND AN OVERLY LONG RANT ON LAVAR BALL

The most anticipated match up for the upcoming Sweet 16: Kentucky vs. UCLA (photo credit: flipps.com)

Day 4 of the Madness started right off the bat with another bracket buster game in the Midwest Region with #7 Michigan outlasting #2 Louisville. Michigan was led by big man, Mo Wagner’s 26 hustle points despite Louisville had a big advantage on the boards, especially the offensive boards. Michigan grinded to a 4-5 point lead late in the game where Louisville played the fouling comeback game perfectly with quick hoops and quick fouling to stop the clock. But Michigan hit all their free throws to outlast Louisville. This busted many brackets of Insanity Pool Contestants, including this guy’s. For the umpteenth year in a row, I am in the bottom cellar of the Insanity Pool standing, AGAIN! It doesn’t bode well for any team that I pick. You could say I am quite the ‘cooler’. You coooould say I am the “Cooler-issioner”! #PaulsenPun of the day!

Michigan will play #3 Oregon in the Sweet 16, who looked good in handling a tough #11 Rhode Island team in the Midwest Region. This will be a great match up with Oregon’s guards/wings in Tyler Dorsey and Dylan Brooks showing that they can shoulder the load between them. This will be a great matchup vs. Michigan’s guards led by Derrick Walton. Michigan has an advantage over the Oregon’s bigs, even if Chris “Not Foucher” Boucher was in the line up. So now that he’s out of the line, somewhere Scoobie is herd saying, “Ruh Row!”

Huge ups for Insanity Pool leader as well as Pete Vieweg Money Division leader Derran Watts picking Michigan over Louisville. That’s some great prognostication D-Watt!

The next game was more amazing then I believe most realize. It was #10 Wichita State coming close to winning the rematch from their ultra super-duper classic 2^nd Round game from the 2014 March Madness vs. #2 Kentucky in the South Region.

For those that remember that 2014 game, it was a heavyweight boxing match where both teams hit big shot after big shot, with neither team buckling under the pressure of each ridiculous clutch shot being exchanged.

Highly rated freshman post, Bam Adebayo had his coming out party this game for Kentucky. He has been a consistently solid player all year for Kentucky, but he was nowhere near the expectation of such a highly rated froshie. Well this game he ate up the boards and hit some clutch bunnies. The super freshmen back court of PG DeAaron Fox and SG Malik Monk were their good ol’ selves displaying their nutty athleticism on both sides of the ball, This athleticism is what made this rematch from their 2014 classic eerily similar but just from the other end of the spectrum.

As in 2014, Kentucky outlasted Wichita State with out-of-this-world treys to answer Shocker buckets, and this past Sunday, Kentucky was equally as clutch with equally amazing plays but from the defensive end with nutty steals and blocked shots from Fox and Monk. It was quite impressive and their defense peaking right at the best moment bodes well for their match up vs. the generational offensive team in UCLA.

The next game was a marquee match up between two hall of fame coaches in KU’s Bill Self and Michigan State’s Tom Izzo. Izzo was coming off their absolute best game of the year in their first round win vs. Miami and KU was, well KU.

This game was tight for two-thirds of the game, as Michigan State tried to control the tempo, but KU’s athleticism and veteran leadership outshined Izzo’s valiant efforts.

KU super froshie Josh Jackson is a special player, but the question before the Madness was is he late-game special? He answered that question when it counted most with step-back one-on-one J’s late in the second half that were just daggers on Michigan State. Also, energy guy LaGerald Vick had a big game with a rare barrage of treys. And Frank Mason was his regular Outhet Player of the Year self, with his fearless aggression and calming presence in such a high-pressure game vs. a quality opponent in Sparty.

The KU bigs played well, but their hands will be full and then some vs. Purdue and do-it-all post, Caleb Swanigan. It will be the Mason vs. Swanigan show that will be one hundred and fiddy percent more exciting and compelling then Batman vs. Superman.

The next game was #8 Arkansas vs. #1 North Carolina was one of those games where there is the silly saying by analysts of, “Arkansas didn’t lose that game, they just ran out of time.” That saying is so silly as in there’s a finite amount of time in a basketball game and whoever has more points after that finite amount of time is completed is the winner. What the hell does “ran out of time” mean??? That has always been so silly of a saying!......until this game. UNC showed the ugliest version of themselves with their low-IQ play. The Tar Heels play was so ugly that one could say, “UNC didn’t win the game, they just ran outta time to completely choke it away to the Razorbacks!” UNC squeaked by, by the squeakiest of margins.

The next games I gotta admit, fell victim to the commercial vortex phenomenon and so there’s little intel on Baylor’s 4 point victory over super-gamer-team USC. USC has the most double-digit comebacks in the nation this year and used a double-digit comeback in their play-in game and first round game. USC were up early and then what seemed like, purposely sunk themselves into a 10 point deficit only to dig themselves out and get the lead back only to lose at the end after both team exchanged leads over and over again.

Then there was the shocking upset of #7 South Carolina over #2 seed and possible tourney fave Duke. Two things about this game: 1) Duke was searching for their identity all year, as previously mentioned. It seemed they found it after winning the ACC tournament last week. But the other question was how could Duke fare with no true point guard.

Well the answer came Sunday, as Duke’s lack of true point guard to settle the offense fell victim to the actual team that found their identity in South Carolina. Playing the game in Greenville, South Carolina gave the Gamecocks quite the partisan home court raucous crowd. But South Carolina had similar identity issues with great talent with Sindarious Thornwell and PJ Dozier, just like Duke did with not being to find the right combo within their stacked lineup. But it was South Carolina that found their right combo and they did so right at the best time here in March Madness.

The last game was a close game at first that turned into a snoozer as UCLA dismantled Cincinnati. Lonzo Ball displayed his all-world passing and he does so despite the constant self-promotional ranting of his father, LaVar Ball. I believe most of you know of the headlines LaVar is making with his outlandish comments, so no need to tell y’all what you already know on the background of his story.

But here’s the Insanity Reports take on LaVar as it’s been asked by many over the past couple weeks. He’s a father that supports his sons, first and foremost. He does so with his outlandish comments/demands in a supportive yet self-promotional manner that dispels anything that actually may be of merit outta LaVar’s mouth.

This is all predicated under the present media age we live in where it’s the outlandish comments that gets the headlines. Heck it got a guy elected into the White House. This present media age also takes the views of people with minimal skills (cough…Kardashian) , minimal political clout (ahhh duh, Trump) and now a hack former football player and 2 point a game ex-college hoops player in LaVar saying he can beat MJ and Charles Barkley. LaVar is not helping his kids out, but it’s the present media age we live in that makes it so he’s not hurting them either.

Many teams would pass on such a phenomenal talent such as Lonzo Ball based solely on what could be perceived as a difficult parent. Not in this case. LaVar Ball is so harmless, that any NBA team that actually drafts Lonzo can easily say, “listen LaVar, we drafted your son and not you, now shut the hell up.”

The main criticism I can see on LaVar actually is his demands are that of an agent. So he’s acting as an agent for his son in a parental loophole where agents are obviously against NCAA rules. So way to be ahead of the curb on that LaVar. So the only possible criticism will be if  Lonzo ever hires an agent after he leaves UCLA. He’s already had an agent and a free one at that, and any agent hired will be a waste of money. Bad bidness LaVar.

Bottom line is LaVar is a harmless, annoying supportive father that somehow gets attention these days such as being invited to ESPN studios. Is it LaVar shoving his antics down our throats or cheap rating mongers such as ESPN?

This LaVar rant got too long! See y’all Thursday for the Sweet 16!

Yours in Madness,

Cooler-issioner Adolph