Final Fo' Here We Go!!! Grinding? Well Just Gimme Some A Dat Point Guard SH**!!!!!

"...and the man kept coming after you!"

Final Four weekend!

Apologies for the late insert. Stepping back a bit to look at last Sunday’s Elite games first, we gotta talk about Syracuse, or else Terry McKaig is gonna have a Jim Boeheim jacket-throwing connip-fit…..

Cuse stamped their ticket to the Final 4 with a huge 16-point comeback vs. #1 seed Virginia. Calling this a Virginia meltdown is not giving the due credit Syracuse and Jim Boeheim deserve. Down 16 points, Cuse started full court pressing Virginia in what looked like a perfectly timed insert of the press in what may very well have been the very rope-a-dope game Cuse wanted to play.

I don’t think they planned to be down by 16 points, but that well timed press forced the ever efficient, low possession, ball-controlling Cavaliers outta their comfort zone! Virginia has the lowest average amount of possessions in all of the NCAA Div 1 and having to score quick hoops like they had to on this big of a stage was the straw that broke Coach Tony Bennett’s Cavs’ back. As much as it hurts to agree with a Reggie Miller analysis, Virginia looked outta sort having to score under that much pressure.

The key was taking the control outta Virginia’s hands with that amazing Cuse press. Earlier in the season, Virginia was scoring many fast break points pushing the ball so quick off forced turnovers, which was not seen in previous seasons. Those fast break points were off Virginia controlled pressure.

The Cuse press forced Virginia to either get past half just to be under more pressure in the half court set or it forced rushed lay up attempts that then caused some great Syracuse transition points. It which caused these quick points as the Virginia possession-controlled style was not used to playing transition defense at this fast of a pace.

Bottom line a coaching gem from Jimmy Boeheim and a well executed press by the go-go gadget reach of the Cuse forwards, especially freshman, Tyler Lydon.

The other Syracuse froshie, Malachi Richardson was also unconscious scoring 21 of his 23 points in that 2^nd half comeback. He was making shots like Jim Day at a Christmas Party!!!!

So the question is, how does Syracuse react to today’s game vs. #1 overall remaining team North Carolina?

UNC dispensed of Notre Dame last Sunday in a tightly contested game despite the score. They dominated the glass as well as took advantage of a timely defensive rebounding to get many high scoring runs. They did however, have many bouts of trading hoops where Notre Dame drove the ball down the lane and easily scored on Carolina.

If Carolina allows that tonight, then that is right down Syracuse senior, Michael Gbinije’s wheel house! He can possibly go off tonight.

Both Cuse and Carolina has talk lanky forwards but UNC most definitely has the rebounding advantage as they get an offensive rebound on 40 friggin’ percent of their misses!!!! And all this while Syracuse gives up an offensive rebound on 35% of opponent’s misses! This may lead to Cuse’s Cindarella run coming to an end.

Carolina big men, Brice Johnson, Kennedy Meeks and Isaiah Hicks lead a vey very physical front line vs. a talented, lanky but lighter Syracuse front line. This match up and how Syracuse will try to get UNC PG Joel Berry outta his low-turnover, dime dropping Madness tirade will determine the late game!

Onto the early game with Villanova vs. Oklahoma.

Villanova has a deep squad that is peaking with their finest performances during this year’s Madness showing every ounce of potential they had this season as well as previous seasons. Their dismantling of KU last week was an absolute surgical game with a perfect game plan on Perry Ellis and an absolute dominating performance from Nova big man Daniel Ochefu!

Looking at the match ups, both teams have deep front courts and back courts as well as many vets. Looking at how Villanova is peaking, I was initially leaning Villanova.

Villanova’s senior general Ryan Arcidiacono will just flat out find a way on both sides of the ball. Him and the rest of the Nova guards are fantastic defenders and you know Coach Jay Wright will have a bangin’ plan that will most definitely get Oklahoma super duper star Buddy Hield outta sort.

Oklahoma will be keying on Ochefu and if they execute a great defensive plan on him, then Kris Jenkins can use his size to dominate the paint.

But, back to the guard match up. The reason that this will be an absolute heavyweight match up is that Josh Hart is an amazing Kevin Outhet-like defender that will lead that amazing game plan attack on Buddy.

But Oklahoma has Buddy. For those of you that haven’t been watching him all year, Buddy is indeed human. Please please please do not confuse his 3-point barrages with that of Steph Curry, as Steph is an absolute outlier. Buddy is human!

He has faced every opponent’s full-fledged defensive attacks all season with some hot nights and cold nights. He can get hot like he did vs. Oregon to get into the Final Four. If he’s that hot then watch out! Other defensive strategies have stalled Buddy such as in Oklahoma’s loss to Press Virginia in the Big 12 semi-finals.

No matter the game. No matter the night, Buddy will grind!

Grind?

Commish, what the f*** does grind even mean? You say “grind” this and “grind” that! “grind” “grind” “grind”!!!!

Well, it can only be summed up like most life lessons are summed up:

With Rocky quotes!

In Rocky II, Apollo Creed is trying to drum up support from his camp to get a rematch vs. one Rocky Balboa. Apollo’s manager Tony/”Duke” played by screen legend Tony Burton (RIP Mr. Burton) walked up to Apollo to state his reluctance to face Rocky. He says to Apollo he says,:

“He’s all wrong for us baby!...I saw you beat that man, like I saw no man get beat before….and the man keeeeppppppt commmmmmming after you!!!!......We don’t need that kind of man in our life!”

And that Insanity Universe is GRINDING!

Buddy has displayed this all season long with a memory shorter than Dave Adolph remembering an introduced name! Buddy can be missing shots all day, but he don’t care, he’s gonna keep taking them! And you know Villanova will keep pounding Plan A, Plan B and Plan C’s onto Buddy just like Apollo pounded that left eye of Rocky!

Hence the Heavyweight Fight we expect to see! A Heavyweight fight where one fighter pilot, Goose, may be saying to his lead baller……..”D….gimme some a dat PG shit!!!!!”

Expect some D-like haymakers and D-like 3-point daggers from Buddy tonight!

Final Fo’ baby!

Let’s roll!

Yours in Madness,

Commissioner Adolph

Coach K Reaction and half of the Final Fo' is Set!

Hey folks, another great Madness night last night! There was some pure Madness with the Kansas v. Villanova game with 2 great great teams going head to head, but before we get to that, here’s an update on the Mike Sheh-publicity-whore-ski situation.

This is a word for word quote of the Insanity Report exchanges regarding the ongoings. Pretty much, Coach K released a statement apologizing for the comments he made to Dillon Brooks and the statement said this:

“Today, I spoke with Oregon head coach Dana Altman and apologized to him for my remarks to Dillon Brooks following our game. It is not my place to talk to another team’s player and doing so took the focus away from the terrific game that Dillon played. In the postgame press conference, I reacted incorrectly to a reporter’s question about my comment to Dillon. Clearly, the story that night was about Oregon advancing to the Elite Eight, and the outstanding game they played. I sincerely hope I did not create a distraction for Coach Altman and his team at this critical time of the year. Certainly, I have the utmost respect for the Oregon program and their tremendous accomplishments.” –Mike Krzyzewski, Duke University Head Coach and United States National Team Coach”

There is it! Here is the convo by the Insanity Report Staff on the 33^rd floor of the Insanity Tower in Conference Room B:

J-Dawg: “Love how he throws in ‘and Head Coach of USA National Team’. You ‘reacted incorrectly’? Or as everyone else calls it, you lied.”

Paulsen: “I know hey, way to say sorry but not that sorry”

J-Dawg: “You stop being a distraction by stopping press releases about it. We don’t need to hear from you anymore. You aren’t in the tournament.”

Paulsen: “I agree, just let it go K. Talk about being salty.”

J-Dawg: “Oh and Mike, you have won 5 National Championships in 36 years at Duke. Amazing accomplishment. If Roy gets this thing across the finish line this year, he will have won 3 National Championships in 13 years at North Carolina. FU!!

Adolph: (still silent, but enter fist pump)

Tom Williamson: (still silent, but shakes head)

Paulsen: “I sure think UNC has reached another level now. They will be so hard to beat.”

J-Dawg: “You see that Coach K’s way of making sure his name and Duke was mentioned today even though they aren’t playing.”

Paulsen: “Ya, that drives me nuts about Coach K. You wanna call out another teams player publicly, deny saying it, get busted, half apologize, then have everyone in the media kiss your ass for the day?!?!? Stay classy Coach K!”

Insanity Report Staff in Conference Room B (except for Tom Williamson)): They all turn at Paulsen and give him another head nod and fist pump.

T-Smack: “Agree about Coach K, Dana Altman (Oregon Head Coach) deserves the smack down from someone (Bill Self (KU Head Coach) anyone? Coach Self knows how to put idiot players in place. Brooks would be publicly paddled if Self was his Coach). Altman et al. aren’t used to winning enough, so haven’t learned how to behave when doing so. Disappointed in both coaches there.”

Kris Russell: “Truth. If Altman said that garbage to Grayson Allen he would have flipped. Coach your own guys and take the loss.”

Who Dana Altman? Dat who!
(Credit: The Oregonian)

Tom Williamson: “Who the fuck is Dana Altman?”   

T-Smack: “Best comment, right there”

Amazing job Insanity Crew….pretty much sums up the whole topic. Other aspect is Coach was damned if he apologized and damned if he didn’t. Bottom line is that Coach K is a freaking legend. Period. But with sticking his nose in Dillon’s and Oregon face and having a perceived “sorry-not sorry” attention-grabbing press release does nothing for the Duke-elitist stereotype that is out there. It’s fuel for Duke haters, but also Coach K may have felt he had to release this statement to counteract getting caught from his conflicting press conference remarks about the incident. So he covered his ass. Onto the games…

Buddy Ball!!! (Credit: espn.com)

Oklahoma v. Oregon was just another Buddy Show! Buddy was unconscious and Oregon got exposed that they didn’t make any adjustments. From the first 5 minutes where Buddy was some ungodly percentage of 20 for his first 21 shots, Oregon still had a soft switch onto Buddy and never double teamed Buddy. Oregon….Dana Altman…..you have zero defenders who could face guard Buddy and so you don’t double or triple team him nearly as much as you should have? Oregon: exposed!

Also, Dillon Brooks was a different player vs. Oklahoma then he was vs. Duke. Did the whole Coach K situation actually affect him? Only he can answer that question, but he was a different player last night.

Perry Ellis wearing double teams all game!
(Credit: Topeka Capital-Journal cjonline.com)

KU vs. Villanova was just a heavyweight tilt of head to head action…possession by possession battle!!! Villanova won and it was due to their execution of their defensive game plan on KU’s Perry Ellis. Ellis is the heart and soul, as well as main focus offensively for KU. Villanova put 2 defenders on Ellis so fast as he was wearing Nova double teams like a bad tattoo. That happened all game and KU’s Bill Self tried to make adjustment in the 2^nd half, as Ellis grinded and grinded to no avail. Nova forced Ellis to have a Buddy Hield type game, and that has never been Ellis’ M.O in his whole career.

But gaw damn, this was a possession by possession battle! Nova’s Daniel Ochefu had old school post moves reminiscent of a young Chris Foucher! He dominated the paint offensively which even surprised the Insanity Report Staff as we thought that match up was KU’s to win.

Nova freshman PG, Jalen Brunson made some key shots for a froshie. Big ups there.

Guard, Ryan Arcidiacono deserved credit as a solid senior clutch player for Nova but hot damn, his soccer head bobs trying to draw fouls is as bad as Grayson Allen’s but no where nearly as ‘soccer’ as a young Drew Dunfield.

Felling bad for KU and their seniors but Villanova deserved the W and their Final 4 match vs. Oklahoma will be some more heavyweight-fighter type Madness. They will have to game plan on Buddy Hield like they did on Perry Ellis but Buddy WILL get his points. This will be a great match up next Saturday.

Today’s game will finalize the Final Fo! Lets get some more Madness!

Yours in Madness,

Commissioner Adolph

SWEET 16….coming back down to earth and shut the hell up Coach K!

Couple of notes from the recently completed Sweet 16:

Thursday games went all chalk with all the favorites winning and winning by a lot. It had to had happen with all the Madness we’ve been lucky to have injected into our Madness veins from Week 1 there had to be a sugar madness crash of epic proportions.

Lets get to the brass tax of any Smack from Thursday night and that of course is with Duke.

X’s and O’s wise their obvious lack of depth got exposed by a deeper Oregon team who took the cue from many other teams who beat Duke this year and forced Marshall Plumlee to guard up high on the elbows which forced many 2 and 1 opportunities and easy alley-oops for Oregon. Not only was Plumlee exposed on defense, but the rest of Duke’s horrendous defense was exposed with their horrendous foot speed that couldn’t catch up with Oregon’s quicks.

I agree with T-Smack on Oregon though that they still have a lotta hype about them. They have a huge huge test vs. Oklahoma tomorrow.

Okay….Grayson Allen

Tripper Boy who deserves everything that comes to him with his 2 separate instances where he tripped a player during the season. It was complete bush and Coach K decided to handle that in house. If that’s how he wants to handle it, then fine, it’s HIS player.

But if Oregon’s Dillon Brooks wants to act like a jackass at the end of the game then let him Coach Sheh-shoves-his-nose-where-it-doesn’t-belong-ski!!!!!!

Brooks hit a trey late in the shot clock in the last minute of a blow out and celebrated a bit too much. Then he hugs Grayson Allen at the buzzer as Allen walked through it. None of that is nearly as bush league as Grayson’s 2 trips.

Coach K, if you want to handle Grayson’s trip in house then handle your dismay of Brooks’ actions in house. Talk to Oregon Head Coach, Dana Altman or to Brooks…behind closed doors. You freaking know that the cameras are on you and you know that you’re on national TV! So don’t give any non-Duke player any lecture on National TV, because HE’S NOT YOUR PLAYER TO LECTURE!!!!!

If you were going to shut up about YOUR OWN PLAYER’S 1^ST TRIP trip and then shut up about YOUR OWN PLAYER’S  2^nd TRIP then shut the hell up about another teams player!

Eff man, Coach K is the most under-rated biggest sore loser out there! Just take a damn loss! Don’t lecture an opposing player or don’t do some patronizing trip to an opponent’s locker room in front the cameras like you’ve done in past Madness’. Yeah you’re giving credit to the team that beat you, but you’re doing so in a media whore manner that Kim Kardashian would be proud of!

BROOKS IS NOT YOUR PLAYER!!! SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

The rest of Thursday’s games:

Villanova looked real good with Daniel Ochefu dominating Miami’s 7-footer Tonye Jekiri and the Nova guards holding off a great effort by Miami’s guards.

Texas A&M didn’t get lucky with an Oklahoma meltdown this time. Buddy Hield spread the ball around and if the other Sooner’s can chip in on the score sheet like they did on Thursday, then watch out for a hopeful rubber match with KU in the Final 4 who rag dolled Maryland. Once KU decided to guard the Maryland on-ball screens then it was over for the Terps.

Tonight’s games….

We got some mini-Madness with Notre Dame stealing the ball in the last minute down one to steal the game from Wisconsin.

North Carolina may have woken up. Their bigs are scary. Brice Johnson was a man among Hoosier boys today! Jeebus!

Virginia looked their usual efficient surgical self vs. a grinding Iowa State team tonight. All year Steve Prohm was fighting against the ghost of previous coach, Fred “The Mayor” Hoiberg and he did so with grace. He got the Cyclones to play for him as best he could, but damn those players loved Hoiberg. It’ll be exciting to see Prohm mold future Iowa State teams in the same manner as he did his old Murray State teams.

And Gonzaga vs. Syracuse….

Sorry Paulsen! The Zags fought hard. They looked great tonight vs. Syracuse. Their bigs, Sabonis and Wiltjer spread out Syracuse’s 2-3 zone with some early treys and were able to penetrate it with some baseline drives.

Holy moly Sabonis showed some quicks shutting down Syracuse’s swingman senior, Michael Gbinije for most of the 2^nd half to the point where Gbinije was passing the ball off the second Sabonis switched onto him off the high ball screen.

But yes McKaig, Jimmy Boeheim noticed this and called a timeout late in the 2^nd half and made the adjustment. The Zags missed some late shots and had some costly turnovers in what was a great game and an even more devastated Paulsen.

Paulsen was as devastated as Terry McKaig was gloating and that is a lot. Syracuse is in tough vs. Virginia though. Will be a great match up.

March Madness Insanity Pool update:

Huge huge ups to Leader, Derran Watts with picking 7 of the 8 Elite Eight teams! Whoa! He snagged the lead outta 2^nd round leader Diana “D” Lee’s grasp and ran away with it!

As did Pete Vieweg Money Division leader: PETE VIEWEG!!!! He’s in tough with K-Smack in 2^nd Place and Al “Not Stupid Al, No Mo!” Vieweg!  This is the Battle of Proponent and Opponent of the Multiple Bracket! Pete’s Smack Talk is with his bracket…..somewhere in North Van, Pete is heard saying, “Scoreboard!!!”

Oh yeah, somewhere in Salem, Oregon, K-Smack is heard saying, “The Smacketh giveth, and K-Smacketh will taketh away!”

Oh snap!

Brian Van Sickle and Zana Williams aren’t far behind in the Pete Vieweg Money Division.

Well folks, it’s late, we have 2 great games tomorrow with #1 v. #2 matchups with Oklahoma vs. Oregon and Villanova vs. KU

What say U???

Enjoy the weekend games and may the Smack Be With You!

Yours in Madness,

Commissioner Adolph

The College Student-Athlete: The Only Reason For This Year's Madness....and it's no accident.

It took a full week away from the Madness to really grasp it all.

We got spoiled.

We all saw what happened! And since the last Insanity Report, we got another taste and another roller coaster ride last Sunday with another flurry of buzzer beater moments with the meltdown of Northern Iowa to Texas A&M and the Wisconsin buzzer beater in a span of 10 minutes.

How can this be?

How? Why?

This is a rarity and it’s the purest of raritys. Why? How could those 4 days last weekend happen?

Before we move on, please please please watch the video on NCAA.com or on YouTube called, “March Madness Moments: Sights and Sounds of Opening Rounds.” This video shows the main buzzer beater highlights from the opening round, but also it shows WHY we have been so lucky as to watch the best 4 days of hoops in March Madness history.

So why? How?

The college student-athlete! That’s why! That’s how!

After last weekend it seems pretty ironic that the top “one and doner” in Ben Simmons is not in the NCAA Tourney. Say what you will about Ben Simmons and LSU’s season. What it does highlight is that this year’s Madness which was previewed to have lots of parity is mainly filled with teams chalk full of juniors and seniors who have not only taken the long path as an athlete but also as a student.

Look at the many press conference moments in the video of the players describe how they were feeling after the loss they went through. They were emotional, spent and truthful!

What was showcased last weekend was the true plight of the college student-athlete, by it’s very definition. By the true definition it is the difficult and otherwise unfortunate journey taken.

Unfortunate in that, for the student-athlete going through their journey, are many times that it feels like an unfortunate situation during their 4-5 year stay at their school.

It’s not easy.

Many people are aware of the demands and sacrifices of the college student-athlete. Such as the heavy time demands to balance classes, practices, training sessions, travel, etc. Then there is the sacrificed time away for shortened family visits for Christmas and summer time due to training and game schedules. There is also the sacrifice of missing many other fantastic college experiences that non-student-athletes get to partake in. These difficult demands and sacrifices are just a few of many that will test the will of each and every student-athlete at least once in his/her 4-5 years. This can be guaranteed.

There is a lot of physical, mental and emotional pain during these 4-5 years. It is very difficult and again, at many times, it feels like an unfortunate situation.

It takes playing the last game of a college career to realize how fortunate it was to go through every high and low and that the most unfortunate aspect of this journey, is…

…that it’s over.

The journey of countless hours in the gym, weight room and film room is what help defines the career of a college student-athlete. The harder the student-athlete grinded, the deeper he/she can dig.

The meltdown by Northern Iowa was indeed a meltdown vs. Texas A&M, there is no denying that, but what defines Northern Iowa is how they responded to that meltdown. What defines them is the response to losing the 12-point lead in 42 seconds with the 2 overtime periods where they battled back; burning every drop of fuel down to the very last vapor of fumes left in their tank.

The journey involves so much preparation. Such as that of the many times Bronson Koenig practiced his fade away three-pointer from the corner in practice and with Nigel Hayes during many pre-games. That preparation allowed him to know the ball was going to go in as soon as it left his hands.

There has to be a winner and loser during these games. It will be a devastating loss for Northern Iowa or a harrowing win for Wisconsin. Despite the different results, the grinding and difficult journey will always be the same for all sides of that result.

The pain is not in one very rare and painful loss, but rather there is a pain that the 4-5 year journey is over. Just listen to Utah’s Brandon Taylor when he says while crying, “I’m never going to go to war with a guy like Cool’s anymore…I’m not going to go to war with Coach K being my coach.” A journey that Taylor has gone through WITH his teammates and coaches. One that he will never regret, but ask him if he’d repeat it? The answer could be no. It’s just that difficult and not every person can do it.

So to go through that journey, that’s Madness.

These players aren’t one-and-doners that don’t go to class and suck the life out of a scholarship; these players went through the grind of the journey of a student-athlete.

What we saw last weekend were many ballers answering the bell of a challenge that could only have been met from how much they shouldered the incredible demands and sacrifices they chose to make.

It was no accident that they made the choices to go through their journey. It was no accident what we saw with the many buzzer beaters, upsets and shear madness, because what we saw, I am convinced, were the results of the Madness that is the plight of the college student-athlete.

They answered the bell and we reaped the exhilaration of watching it.

We saw 4 amazing years of players such as the amazing duo of Fred Van Vleet and Ron Baker giving us a Final 4 run in their freshman year, an undefeated regular season run in their sophomore season, a Sweet 16 junior season run and their final 2 victory March Madness run in their senior season at Wichita State. We got to see the outcomes of the true journey of the student-athlete that Stephen F. Austin Head Coach, Brad Underwood said “(is) everything that this is about!”

Most years of the Madness are saturated with teams with one-and-done players that are at a program for a one-year pit stop before going off to the NBA draft. That’s fine. It gave us great Madness in a Duke and Kentucky team last year or the Unibrow led Kentucky team in 2012.

Not this year.

We got the saturation of amazing moments that could only have been made possible due to the choice to go through what only a college student-athlete can go through.

Thank you Ron Baker and Freddie Van Vleet! Thank you college student-athlete!

And we have 2 more weekends of Madness?

Madness you spoil us.

Enjoy tonight’s Madness!

Insanely yours,

Commissioner Adolph.