March 25: Madness

Welcome back. I'm exhausted. The Madness bug has bitten me again. Send all complaints to the committees...

So I was thinking about ... nonstop ball

To help in putting together some coherent thoughts here, I decided on Thursday to start a very basic March Madness journal. Basically, whenever something really noteworthy happened the last four days as I watched more than 40 men's and women's games on multiple screens I typed 10 words or wrote something like "Jack" in reference to Oakland's record-setting sharpshooter Jack Gohlke just so I wouldn't forget it, because...

Damn, the stories happen so quickly -- only to be replaced by the next one. One day, one team is The Story. Two days later, they're gone -- their coach headed for greener ($$$) pastures and their players in the portal. It's INSANE. So for posterity's sake, here are just a few moments that stood out to me as I watched one, two, three or four screens at a time beginning Thursday.

Couisnard's 40 piece: Every March, I fall to the same fate - I watch a team during championship week and ride 'em in the tourney. Oftentimes, like with New Mexico this year, they make me look like a fool with a first-round exit. This wasn't the case for Oregon, though, as senior Jermaine Couisnard put up a ridiculous 40-point game in a first-round win over South Carolina. Two nights later, Couisnard and fellow senior N'Faly Dante nearly limped Oregon across the finish line against Creighton only to blow a four-point lead in the final minute and wilt in double OT. Thanks for the run, Ducks.

The comeback: I took a shower Thursday afternoon to, you know, refresh myself before going out for the night games. As I dried off, Dayton went on a 20-2 run to pull a very late, stunning comeback over Nevada. There's just no time to rest this time of year! The Flyers would be eliminated by Arizona less than 48 hours later.

Jack: One of the best parts of the tournament is you learn the names and stories of players you never, ever would've otherwise given the time of day. Enter Gohlke, the marksman for the Oakland Grizzlies (yes, they're in Michigan, not California!), nailing 10 of 20 3s -- with no 2-point attempts! -- in a shocker over Kentucky. Jack would hit another six triples 48 hours later but Oakland's run expired at the hands of N.C. State.

The casual possession: Every March, there's one -- or 13 decisions -- made by a player that make us couch watchers go, "Whaaaaa? Whyyyyy?" On Friday, the FAU Owls -- the darlings of 2023 -- were primed to take down Northwestern but Johnell Davis didn't seem to recognize or care one iota about getting a decent look at the end of regulation, settling for an awful long 3. Northwestern sent the Owls hooting in OT, and -- spoiler for a section below -- Dusty May was off to Michigan with a much heftier paycheck in the Big 10.

THE REVIEWS ARE THE WORST: Saturday, and every day but especially Saturday, brought the reviews and my god, are they awful! First, let me rewind just a second to Thursday night when Samford nearly beat Kansas but ... a clean block couldn't be reviewed but adding 0.2 to the clock or looking at fingernails could. That, of course, made zero sense and cost Samford. OK, now onto Saturday, where I watched parts of three straight games with absurdly long reviews: Arizona-Syracuse, Florida Gulf Coast-Oklahoma, and, dang it, I'm forgetting the third game. It seems that maybe, just maybe, enough momentum is building in media circles to do away with this terrible "anything-should-be-reviewed-in-the-last-two-minutes" rule when refs feel disempowered to stick with any call, players and coaches wag their fingers instinctively, and viewers pay the price. No flow, no momentum, no good. I will die on this hill until the awful rules are changed. Give coaches a challenge like in the NBA and be done with it. Anyway, after all the reviews, at some point Saturday evening, I needed a walk. I should've left my phone at the crib, but I didn't and...

So about those... coaching changes

... maybe four blocks from my house, there was the Woj bomb: Dusty May, who had watched in horror as Davis took that nonsensical shot 30 hours earlier, was Michigan's new head coach. WHOA. As a diehard Michigan hoops head, the news was wonderful. May is a fantastic coach. The news was also crazy.

But judging from the coaching carousel that continued throughout the weekend and into Monday (Danny Sprinkle, who coached Utah State yesterday, is joining Washington today), this is the speed at which the sport moves. Join the circus or get left behind. The transfer portal in both the men's and women's game is already overflowing - with players leaving their teams hours after seasons end - and coaches are making their moves within hours, too. I'm not naive enough to think that conversations aren't happening behind the scenes even as coaches coach and say things like, "I'm only focused on X school," and yet, it's still unbelievable. You think the news cycles moves fast? How about the coach and player cycle.

Anyway ... Dusty May could be great at Michigan! I'm excited for it.

So about those... scheduling decisions

This caught my eye during the weekend: Why in the world were the host teams in the women's tourney playing the initial first-round game at their sites before the second matchups? This isn't rocket science, folks. If you have the home team in the second game, the arena will fill up in anticipation during the first game -- the atmosphere will be good. Instead, I watched several games in emptying arenas because home fans from Iowa and Indiana and Notre Dame, to name just a few, saw their teams play and then bounced. I know that TV rules tournament scheduling so I'm sure it played a (perhaps stiff-armed) role here, but this seemed like a missed opportunity.

But back to the games...

Commentary props: If you watch a ton of hoops, it's not too hard to separate the great announcers from the mediocre ones, and Stan Van Gundy is one of the best. As Marquette and Colorado exchanged haymakers down to the final minute Sunday morning, SVG expertly broke down the game situation and why the Buffs needed to foul quickly because they had so few in the half. You just don't get that kind of commentary with every crew, making me appreciate the SVGs of the world even more.

LSU is wild: You won't find a more entertaining, distracting, polarizing and talented team in the country than LSU. All of that was on display Sunday afternoon. I snuck outside with my laptop to get some sun and watched as the Tigers benched their point guard, fell down nine to an 11 seed, and then stormed back in front of a frenzied crowd to destroy Middle Tennessee Sate - with Angel Reese waving goodbye when the Blue Raiders star fouled out. You want the noise? You GET the noise with LSU. Want entertainment? Hope that the defending champions stay in the tournament, at least until a potential ESPN dream against Caitlin Clark and Iowa in the Elite 8. Just don't ask Kim Mulkey about the Washington Post...

And finally, Houston: Oh, my. I thought I might be able calm down a bit Sunday night and read a book or something. But then the Houston Cougars blew a 12-point lead in the final two minutes against Texas A&M in just a wild series of events -- reminding me why the "never pencil it in" mantra my former coach and basketball mentor taught me always applies. There were three Houston missed FTs, a foul on an A&M 3-pointer attempt, a turnover and a wild final A&M possession that went like this: missed 3, missed tip shot, missed 3, missed 3, jump ball with possession to A&M with one second left ... and then a brilliant low-bounce pass from under the basket to the top of the key for the 3 and the tie! INSANITY. A Houston rebound or a different possession arrow result would've ended it - after all that had already happened!

So then, there was overtime, and it didn't disappoint in madness, either. Certified Bad Dude (in a good way, folks, RELAX!) Jamal Shead completely carried the Cougars, scoring or assisting on all 12 Houston points until he fouled out on a questionable call with 18 seconds left - joining THREE other Cougars starters who were disqualified. Yes, you read that right. That left a walk-on by the name of Ryan Elvin, who had attempted four free throws all year and played three minutes a game in blowouts, as the guy at the free-throw line with Houston nursing a three-point advantage. After back-rimming the first, the senior swished the second to make it a two-possession game.

Minutes later, Houston had survived the madness and Elvin -- like Jack and so many who have come before -- was a household name. If the Cougars win the title, he'll go down in Houston lore. If not, he'll be just another name lost to history because the next game is on and a new story must be written.

And now, I have more games to watch, because the madness continues. Peace!