Final Four Game Thread
- Thread starter InstaFace
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They need one more to break the record for most threes in a final four game.
Be crazy if they did it in a half.
Be crazy if they did it in a half.
I could only follow Loyola v Michigan by phone randomly. What happened for Michgan to make such a huge turnaround?
Loyola ran out of gas and Mich really turned up the defense.
And Wagner was awesome.
From the little I’ve seen; Wagner strikes me as an excellent player. He isn’t the playmaker that Jokic is; but reminds me a lot of him.
Michigan shot terribly on the perimeter in the first half. Some folks upthread thought the dome was in their head. In the second half, though, Michigan’s shots were falling.
And as @BigSoxFan said, Loyola wore down — it must be incredibly hard to play 40 minutes of championship-intensity basketball against a team that’s much more athletic than yours.
Anyone having problems with the March madness app? Worked for the first game but I can’t get it to work on fire or roku now.
Unlikely given that their big man can’t run the floor for more than two minutes at a time.
Even if they play great defense, they need 30-35 points in 14 minutes. Tough ask.
Michigan needs to play lights out defense against the three. If Nova shoots like that, no one beats them. The common thread in 3 of the 4 Nova losses is poor shooting from 3.
The one thing that has been consistent in the second half of the year for Michigan is that they play lights out defense. So I don't see the championship as the kind of mismatch we saw today. (Kansas seemed befuddled out there on defense.)
That said, if Nova shoots like that in the final, no one is beating them. That was quite the performance.
Equally important, they get back and prevent transition points with the best of them.
That being said, if either team shoots like Nova did yesterday, that team will win. Michigan needs their offense to not stall like it has in the past 2 games. The defense will keep them in it until the end, but have to think they'll at least need to break 70 to have a chance.
Couldn't ask for three more exciting games from the women this weekend. Would be nice if their counterparts delivered a close one tomorrow night.
I understand that it's not a dunk fest, but if you enjoy actual basketball, the women's tourney has been incredible - these last three games especially.
I agree, that tweet and the replies that followed seem to indicate he had offered her before she narrowed down her final 5. So yeah, that is uncalled for.
Things seem to be working out for Arike. I love the fact that she hit those shots, but the sheer joy on her face and reaction when both went in are the reason sports are so cool. Just an unbelievable set of shots and a pure emotional reaction. So glad I watched that game.
I've been following women's basketball since the Diana Taurasi days, and my heuristic / belief over the years has been that there are only about ~8 legit teams in the country in any given year, who get all the top recruits and have legitimate chances at upsetting the big guns / winning it all. Some of those names change year to year, some of them stay the same, but the early tournament games seem to much more typically resemble UConn's 140-52 first-round blowout than the quality we've seen. Whereas, I think the men's field is a lot deeper, and the quality margin between the very top teams and the next tier or two being a lot smaller. So I only really watch the Women's tournament once it gets to the Elite 8, with not much more than a passing interest the first 3 rounds. But once you get down to those 8 teams, man, they can really fuckin play, and they give up nothing to the men in terms of mental toughness or teamwork. And you also don't have the one-and-done NBA dynamic that makes top men's teams more of a franken-team, where you hardly know some of the key players and they feel almost like stand-ins with no personal story attached.
edit: My impression is that in the 80s and 90s, that list of legit contending teams may have been even smaller, so frankly, 8 is pretty good. The effectiveness of Geno's machine has waxed and waned since then, but in the years when UConn isn't a total hegemon, I think the list of schools who are in the mix has grown a bit. Which is good for the game, of course.
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I'm aware. I was typing quickly--I simply meant straight up in that I don't want to give any points.
If someone wants to wager, I'm sure we could come to acceptable terms on the monetary issue. I think I'd be okay offering 2:1.