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| 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) |
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
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