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| Coach Izzo take a chill pill? Naw man, he's just developing players! He's demanding, and this was not demeaning! (Photo cred: Detroit Free Press) |
Merry Madness!!!
As Insanity Report Board Member, Marc “Dabestus” Paulsen stated yesterday at an Insanity Report meeting, the days leading up to the Thursday 1st round is the longest wait!
Well wait no further Mr. Paulsen! Today came and went and it did not disappoint. The higher seed won 12 of the 16 games today. You know what that means? Expect for shear Madness Upset Anarchy tomorrow!!!
But first, here’s a quick overview of todays games:
10th seeded Minnesota Golden Gophers started the day with a convincing 86-76 win over the Louisville Cardinals. Louisville made little runs and couldn’t get closer to 5-6 pts at any point of the game as Minny had momentum the entire game by controlling both sides of the floor. The storyline of Minny Head Coach, Richard Pitino getting revenge on Louisville for firing his father, Rick Pitino was one that had no causative effect on this game. Louisville Head Coach, Chris Mack has taken over from the Rick Pitino era for the Cardinals and he did a great job of maximizing the mediocre talent left from the whole Pitino mess to make it to the Madness as they were picked to finish 13th in the 15 team ACC to be a 7 seed in the Madness. Coach Mack can freaking coach and he can recruit intelligent ballers; Watch out for them in the next 1-2 seasons.
Now speaking of a coach being on the hot seat having a possible effect on the game, there’s LSU’s Head Coach, Will Wade getting a 79-74 victory over Yale. The next court cases in the FBI Investigation exposing apparent fraud within the recruitment of high school basketball players includes a subpoena for Coach Wade to testify in the near future. This will be a testimony under oath that may prove Wade’s involvement in a payment to an LSU recruit. This may confirm court proof of the first big name head coach’s involvement in this investigation. Upon the news of this development many thought that Wade would step down. He was passively defiant in saying he wouldn’t step down.
There is a theory within the Insanity Report newsroom that Wade’s perceived defiance may be a big middle finger to the whole investigation and to the NCAA. Wade may have been caught, but lets call a spade a spade; Players have been getting paid for many years, possibly decades. Under the table there is a value to high school players as they give value to hundreds of universities, athletic departments and the entire NCAA in the amount of billions of dollars. What these top players get for their services may be up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition, room, board, world class facilities and chartered flights, but these over-the-table and under-the-table benefits pales in comparison to the billions of dollars these services give the NCAA and D1 schools.
Who knows if Wade is directly rallying his players in this manner, but Wade’s job is on the line; He hasn’t been fired, nor will he step down. If certain players got paid, there is no recourse for them to pay the money back. As of now there is no proof of payment/fraud revealed….yet. So why not go down with the ship and coach LSU for this last Madness run?!? Even if this action or in-action isn’t deliberate, it is still a middle finger to the NCAA. It could rally LSU as they play Maryland in the 2nd round for a possible Sweet 16 berth.
The next game had New Mexico State give us our first possible taste of Madness with a chance to tie the game at the end of the game. New Mexico State guard, AJ Harris had a wide open lay-up to tie the game, but passed it up to pass to an open Terrell Brown for a game winning three. Then there was a comedy of errors with Brown getting fouled on his attempted game winner. He only made 1 out of the 3 free throws, but the rebound was bobbled off of Auburn out of bounds. New Mexico State then had an open three pointer to win the game, but missed. The Insanity Report staff can not get over Harris passing up a tie. I mean, the layup Harris had was wide open!.....so open!!! A pet peeve is the whole argument that these are still young 18-22 year olds. They’ve played in the limelight long enough to be able to accept this pressure and bottom line, it was a bonehead play. Gonna judge, and Harris ya just plain blew it!
Florida State was in control for most of their game to weather a solid game from the Vermont Catamounts winning 76-69. FSU’s leading scorer, Mfiondu Kabengele showed his dominance in the low post when he was surrounded by a solid triple team, only to split it for a killer emotional dunk! That. Was. Impressive!!!
Watch out for the Florida State Seminoles folks. They have alllllll the ingredients for another long run in the madness: Two bigs, including Kabengele, who comes off the bench by the way! Ya’ll saw Kabengele’s dunk, well my boy can shoot the trey too! They have a solid two point guard line up with 2 hustling 6-5ish vets in Terance Mann and Phil Cofer. Head Coach, Leonard Hamilton always runs a suffocating defense. The Seminoles are ready to role!
The next game had Tom Izzo and his Michigan State Spartans weather a slow start that is becoming common place for them in Madness 1st Round games to beat 15th seeded Bradley76-65.
A big story out of this game was an obvious display of frustration Izzo had toward freshman, Aaron Henry. Izzo has been known to get fired up, but folks he was irate at Henry. He was visibly angry at Henry coming into a timeout enough for Cassius Winston having to step in to break them up. Then in the timeout Izzo had another fit of fury where Matt McQuaid stepped in with Winston to cool the waters.
What angered the Insanity Report Staff was that there were articles following this game saying that Izzo wouldn’t apologize for this outburst. Apologize??? Firstly, who is saying he has to apologize!?!?!? And secondly, this is Tom Izzo! He’s a Michigan State legend where he has been known to be fiery but also the biggest supporter of his players. His own players and alumni love him and most importantly they trust him! He’s earned this respect by being a coach that holds his players accountable at times when he feels they need to be accountable. Izzo, cares for the success of every player and by being a winning D1 Head Coach for over 25 years now, he will be competitive.
Izzo defended himself after the game by saying, “ I did get after him. He did respond. He did make a couple of big buckets. He did make some big free throws but that’s not good enough. It’s one and done time. The ‘my-bads’ are out the window.” Izzo was also mentioning more on why he was angry with Henry by concluding, “they were effort related.” Izzo was also heard in a George Costanza like voice saying, “You can stuff you’re my-bads in a sock mister!!!”
Again, Izzo has earned this level of confrontation with his players. He is trusted to have the best interest of his players and his team in the high stakes one and done games of the Madness! This plea for an apology had Izzo lawyer, Jackie Chiles yell, “This is outrageous!!! Egregious!!! Appalling!!!” Here here Jackie, here here!
11th seed Belmont had a tie game in the last minutes of the game to come short losing to #6 Maryland. There was hint of buzzer beating Madness once again, to no avail. This was an offensive battle with Maryland’s front court size taking the stage.
Next, the disappointing 4th seeded Kansas Jayhawks showed #13 Northeastern who was boss with a 87-53 shellacking. Insanity Report Board Member, Terri “T-Smack” McCarrell was heard saying, “looks like KU pulled their collective juco heads out of asses” Nuff said.
Next was the Ja Morant show as we got our 12 seed win over a 5 seed (this is no longer considered an upset) as Murray State and Morant walloped Markus Howard and Marquette 83-64. Morant has a Larry Bird dominant game with a nutty triple double of 19 points, 12 boards and 16 crazy assists. All of this was off only 10 shots!!! Back in the day Larry could dominate every facet of the game, while taking a low amount of shots. You could say that Ja, in fact, RULED the game?? Aidez moi, aidez moi!!!
In the battle of the season long disappointing teams, the 10th seeded Florida Gators showed a glimpse of the solid performance they are capable of from their PK80 tournament run well over a year ago by defeating the 7th seeded Nevada Wolfpack, 70-61. Nevada concluded their mediocre season by showing that their Elite Eight run in last year’s Madness was a one off.
We didn’t see one second of Kentucky’s 79-44 shellacking of Abilene Christian as Insanity Report Gonzaga Correspondent, Marc Paulsen and I had the Gonzaga game on the whole time. There’s no flipping back and forth between games when the Zags are playing!
Gonzaga fired on all cylinders with a gem of a 87-49 win over Fairleigh Dickinson. Zags were the Zags and they had the walk-ons playing as early as 6 minutes left in the game. Shear dominance from a NCAA Tournament Champ favourite!!
Fellow West Coast Conference team, Saint Mary’s just couldn’t get over the hump to beat Villanova as they lost 61-57. This was a complete rebuilding year for Saint Mary’s due to players they lost last year to graduation but also in losing a projected starter right before the season started. Coach Randy Bennett squeezed every drop he could outta this season. Look for Saint Mary’s to be a regular Top 25 team again next year.
Then there was the Fletcher Magee show for Wofford in their 84-68 win over Seton Hall. Magee made 7 treys on his way to break the career NCAA mark as well! Suck it Steph! (Oakland shooter, Travis Bader had the career record, but it just sounds better to stick it to Steph then Bader….so Steph, you can stuff that record in a sock mister!.....Jerry was heard saying, “I still don’t get that”)
2nd seeded Michigan Wolverines and coach John Beilien walloped Montana in the 2nd half led in part by Canadian froshie, Iggy Brazdeikis. Iggy had some dunks and some swagger. Awkward swagger, but swagger nonetheless.
Syracuse’s 2-3 zone just looked flat as nameless Baylor outlasted the Cuse 78-69 to Cuse backer, Terry McKaig’s disappointment.
The last game of the night had an uneventful shellacking with Purdue putting a 61-48 beatdown on Old Dominion.
Not much Madness yesterday?
The Law of Madness and Law of Gus dictate that one day of the 2-day First Round of March Madness will always be chalk city where the other will be bracket busting, Madness anarchy. Tighten up those straight jacket straps for today folks!!!
In the March Madness Insanity Pool standings, Jason “J-Paq” Paquette and Russell “Our Resident A-hole” Bock are tied with an impressive 15 points out of a possible 16 points from the first day of the Madness. Once again, look for their brackets and many other being busted with the likely anarchy today!
In the 4th Annual Pete Vieweg Division standing, Russ is in the lead of this one! J-Paq has chosen to maintain his amateur status for this year and is contemplating going pro for next year.
Madness ensues today!
Enjoy!
Yours in Madness,
Commissioner Adolph
