March Madness Day 6, Part 1

Louisville 77, Oregon 69
This game should serve as a warning shot to the rest of the NCAA tournament teams. Oregon didn't play badly in this game. They started slowly (while Louisville started hot), but you cannot point to anything the Ducks did to bring this loss on themselves. They had fewer turnovers than the Cardinal (by 1, but that's a win going against Louisville's pressure defense), rebounds were even, neither team shot free throws or three-pointers well, and Oregon had 5 starters who scored 10+ points.

This game came down to two things: 1) Oregon didn't do anything especially well either (35.7% from behind the arc, 58.8% from the free throw line), and 2) Oregon couldn't handle Louisville's Russ Smith, who erupted for 31 points in this game. But back to my initial point, Oregon played pretty well, and while they were never out of this game, they never really threatened Louisville either. Louisville isn't the dominant team Kentucky was last year, but right now they look like a true #1 overall seed in this tournament.

Michigan 87, Kansas 85 (OT)
Wow. What. A. Game.

Kansas was up about double digits for most of this game right up until there were 3 minutes left in the second half. Unlike every other game in this tournament, this time Bill Self's team didn't take a full half to get going. They came out ready, and even held Michigan's Trey Burke scoreless for the entire first half.

Michigan was up 8 with 3:45 to play, then proceeded to turn the ball over on 3 of their next 4 possessions, which helped Michigan get within 6. Then Trey Burke took over for Michigan. He scored 8 of their last 10 points, culminating in a 30+ foot (seriously) three-point shot to tie the game with 4 seconds left after Kansas had missed the front end of a one-and-one. Kansas missed a decent look at a three, and we went to overtime.

In OT the teams went back and forth, trading 1-point leads until Michigan got a put-back to go up 3 with 1:02 left. Kansas immediately ran Bill Self's favorite offensive play down the stretch: the turnover. Michigan went up 5 with 2 free throws, then Kansas cut the lead to 2 points on a three-pointer with 47 seconds left.

Michigan called timeout to set up a play to ice the game. After the timeout, Bill Self sent 6 players onto the court. Luckily, he caught the mistake before the officials did, otherwise it would have been a technical foul (2 shots for Michigan AND the ball) which would have iced the game.

Kansas then forced a shot-clock violation, which should have given them the ball out of bounds with ~8 seconds left. Instead the officials called a time out to check the clock. This gave Kansas a time out that they did not have, allowing them to set up a play, something that happened in the closing seconds of the Arizona-Ohio State game last night too.

On the final play (remember, Kansas is down 2 points), the Kansas player drove towards the rim, and kicked the ball back out to a teammate that he had to corral and launch an off-balance three-point attempt, which missed. That's right, instead of a player who had beaten his man attempting a shot at the rim, he (wildly) chucked it back out for an off-balance three-point attempt. Now, I like to rag on Bill Self for not having his team prepared to play, and underachieving almost every year in the tournament, but this had to be player error.

But that doesn't absolve Self for watching his team clench up for the game's final 3-4 minutes, blowing a 10-point lead in the process. or almost blowing the game by sending 6 players onto the floor with ~20 seconds to go in overtime. Once again, Kansas fans and pool-backers everywhere got Self'd.