Two heart-stopping games today to wrap up the Elite Eight.
For the first half of the first game, Creighton and San Diego State, I took a walk on this beautiful spring afternoon and treated myself to a favorite pastime from childhood, listening to basketball on the radio. You can get a good feel for a game on the radio, especially if you know the teams. This was a clash of styles, Creighton’s skill against San Diego State’s grinding physical style. Or, to be more direct, basketball against football. That came through loud and clear over the radio. I also heard two interesting interviews, about which more below.
I don’t mind San Diego State. I respect their effort, athleticism and commitment to a style of play. Their coach, Brian Dutcher, a basketball lifer, seems like a decent guy. I remember his father well as the coach at Minnesota. It is nice to see Dutcher the younger get a shot at being a head coach late in life and succeed. But—and you could tell there is a but coming here—just because I respect them does not mean that I enjoy watching them play. San Diego State plays like a team that spends 80% of practice working on defense and rebounding and the other 20% lifting weights. Nothing against good defense; we certainly enjoyed it when Pitt used to play it. Instead, it is the San Diego State offense which, most of the time, is almost unwatchable.
To a large extent, this game was determined by the referees. Not any particular calls, even the last seconds that were wildly over-litigated at the game (as games so often are these days) and in the broadcast afterward. Rather, the style of refereeing and the amount of contact allowed, which right or wrong, was a lot. In fairness, although Creighton had better basketball players, San Diego State had better athletes and more of them. And, even more surprising, in the final minutes, the Aztecs somehow summoned some actual offensive execution on several key possessions. Add it all up, in a game that could have gone either way, it was just enough and San Diego State is going to the Final Four.
The second game between Miami and Texas was a classic. It was the stylistic opposite of the first, with more free-flowing offense in the first ten minutes than in the entire first game. For most of the game, Miami was shooting 60% and could not get within 10 points. The problem was that Miami could not guard Texas. At all. Texas is a deep and well-rounded offensive basketball team. Miami is athletic, but, except for Omier, they are skinny. For most of the game, Miami simply could not impact the Texas offense.
But Miami is relentless. They kept scoring and scoring and, finally, Texas tightened up. Miami never did. They shot 59% for the game, only 2-8 from three, and a remarkable 28-32 from the foul line. It took 35 minutes but the Canes finally caught up with Texas and once they did they did not look back. Wong and Pack eventually figured out how to deal with Texas taking away the three point line. Omier stayed in the game and on the boards. Wooga Poplar went from a guy with a funny name who hurt Pitt and nobody else to a force in an Elite Eight game.
About those interviews: Before the Creighton-San Diego State game, they asked San Diego State Coach Brian Dutcher about the painful overtime loss to Creighton in last year’s NCAA tournament, a game in which San Diego State fell apart and lost a nine point lead late in regulation. Dutcher said it helped them. First, because they spent the summer working hard on late game press offense and while it is not always pretty it was better. That may be true but they almost lost the game today with a disastrous inbounds pass that was stolen by Creighton for the tying basket before the winning foul shot. But, second, according to Coach Dutcher, because they had to live with the loss all year. I had forgotten that game; San Diego State hadn’t.
The second interview was with Jordan Miller of Miami, an exceptionally articulate and likeable young man. Miller likewise explained how the Elite Eight loss to Kansas last year stayed with him and his teammates and that they did not want to go through that again. While it made me want to root for him, I was inclined to discount this. Unlike San Diego State, which had lost a game it should have won in a devastating fashion to the same team it was playing today, Miami lost handily to Kansas last year and they were playing Texas today. But if I did not take this seriously, Jordan Miller did and he backed it up with one of the great performances of this or any other tournament. 27 points on 7-7 shooting and 13-13 foul shooting including a stone cold eight foul shots in the last four minutes of the game in which the net barely moved.
Miami has had an unusual basketball history. In 1964, led by one of the 50 greatest basketball players of all time, Rick Barry, they came to Pittsburgh to play in the Steel Bowl when that was a big deal. Barry and the Hurricanes won a shootout over Duquesne and Willie Somerset 99-95 in a game I listened to at age 7 on Marbury Road and then handled Pitt with ease. My old friend and partner Bob Lovett told me years later that he held Barry to 37 for the Panthers. Miami came back to the Steel Bowl a few years later, in 1969, again with one of the leading scorers in the country, Don Curnutt, and again beat Pitt before losing 94-88 to a ranked Duquesne team with three future Milwaukee Bucks, Billy Zopf and his cousin Mickey Davis, and Barry Nelson, along with Barry’s twin brother Garry, who was the better college player, and Jarrett Durham, who was the leading scorer.
But then, two years later, Miami dropped basketball for almost 15 years. Who does that? Miami did not play basketball again until 1985 and only got serious after leveraging their football clout to join the Big East in 1991, when they were coached by Leonard Hamilton, who of course is still coaching. They have had their moments from time to time since, especially since the inspired hire a few years ago of another basketball star from my youth, Jim Larranaga of Providence, who I “played against” many times in my driveway in the late 1960s. Now they are in the Final Four.
Finally, a word about Texas. Generally, rooting for Texas is like rooting for Amazon. But this Texas team has been though a lot. They fired their coach in the middle of the season, for good reason, although of course in the world of 2023 it did not prevent Mississippi from hiring him three months later. Chaos like this would finish most teams. This Texas team and their interim coach handled it and they played well all season and again today. They handled the brutal press conference after the game, too, players and coach alike. I am sure they will have their share of what-ifs on this or that play and this or that call. But Miami won that game more than Texas lost it. It takes two teams to make a great basketball game and Texas held up its end today.
So now the Final Four is set. Florida Atlantic-San Diego State followed by UConn-Miami. A 4-seed, two 5-seeds and a 9-seed. Four different conferences, only one of them a Power 5 football conference. After listening for two years about how the ACC is down, it is worth noting that the ACC has had three teams—a 2 seed, a 5 seed and an 8 seed—and three different schools go to the Final Four in these “down” years. The rest of the country, all 335 teams, has had five, and the Big Ten has sent one of its 17 bids to the Sweet 16. Facts are stubborn things.
It also was gratifying to see how good the Miami team was that Pitt beat and, even more impressively, lost to at the buzzer in a road game that Miami urgently needed to win. Miami just beat two of the Top 6 teams in the country to make the Final Four. Pitt was far from a Final Four team this year but they were a real team and at their best they competed at a very high level.
Tip at 6:09 pm EDT on Saturday. Enjoy the games.
For the first half of the first game, Creighton and San Diego State, I took a walk on this beautiful spring afternoon and treated myself to a favorite pastime from childhood, listening to basketball on the radio. You can get a good feel for a game on the radio, especially if you know the teams. This was a clash of styles, Creighton’s skill against San Diego State’s grinding physical style. Or, to be more direct, basketball against football. That came through loud and clear over the radio. I also heard two interesting interviews, about which more below.
I don’t mind San Diego State. I respect their effort, athleticism and commitment to a style of play. Their coach, Brian Dutcher, a basketball lifer, seems like a decent guy. I remember his father well as the coach at Minnesota. It is nice to see Dutcher the younger get a shot at being a head coach late in life and succeed. But—and you could tell there is a but coming here—just because I respect them does not mean that I enjoy watching them play. San Diego State plays like a team that spends 80% of practice working on defense and rebounding and the other 20% lifting weights. Nothing against good defense; we certainly enjoyed it when Pitt used to play it. Instead, it is the San Diego State offense which, most of the time, is almost unwatchable.
To a large extent, this game was determined by the referees. Not any particular calls, even the last seconds that were wildly over-litigated at the game (as games so often are these days) and in the broadcast afterward. Rather, the style of refereeing and the amount of contact allowed, which right or wrong, was a lot. In fairness, although Creighton had better basketball players, San Diego State had better athletes and more of them. And, even more surprising, in the final minutes, the Aztecs somehow summoned some actual offensive execution on several key possessions. Add it all up, in a game that could have gone either way, it was just enough and San Diego State is going to the Final Four.
The second game between Miami and Texas was a classic. It was the stylistic opposite of the first, with more free-flowing offense in the first ten minutes than in the entire first game. For most of the game, Miami was shooting 60% and could not get within 10 points. The problem was that Miami could not guard Texas. At all. Texas is a deep and well-rounded offensive basketball team. Miami is athletic, but, except for Omier, they are skinny. For most of the game, Miami simply could not impact the Texas offense.
But Miami is relentless. They kept scoring and scoring and, finally, Texas tightened up. Miami never did. They shot 59% for the game, only 2-8 from three, and a remarkable 28-32 from the foul line. It took 35 minutes but the Canes finally caught up with Texas and once they did they did not look back. Wong and Pack eventually figured out how to deal with Texas taking away the three point line. Omier stayed in the game and on the boards. Wooga Poplar went from a guy with a funny name who hurt Pitt and nobody else to a force in an Elite Eight game.
About those interviews: Before the Creighton-San Diego State game, they asked San Diego State Coach Brian Dutcher about the painful overtime loss to Creighton in last year’s NCAA tournament, a game in which San Diego State fell apart and lost a nine point lead late in regulation. Dutcher said it helped them. First, because they spent the summer working hard on late game press offense and while it is not always pretty it was better. That may be true but they almost lost the game today with a disastrous inbounds pass that was stolen by Creighton for the tying basket before the winning foul shot. But, second, according to Coach Dutcher, because they had to live with the loss all year. I had forgotten that game; San Diego State hadn’t.
The second interview was with Jordan Miller of Miami, an exceptionally articulate and likeable young man. Miller likewise explained how the Elite Eight loss to Kansas last year stayed with him and his teammates and that they did not want to go through that again. While it made me want to root for him, I was inclined to discount this. Unlike San Diego State, which had lost a game it should have won in a devastating fashion to the same team it was playing today, Miami lost handily to Kansas last year and they were playing Texas today. But if I did not take this seriously, Jordan Miller did and he backed it up with one of the great performances of this or any other tournament. 27 points on 7-7 shooting and 13-13 foul shooting including a stone cold eight foul shots in the last four minutes of the game in which the net barely moved.
Miami has had an unusual basketball history. In 1964, led by one of the 50 greatest basketball players of all time, Rick Barry, they came to Pittsburgh to play in the Steel Bowl when that was a big deal. Barry and the Hurricanes won a shootout over Duquesne and Willie Somerset 99-95 in a game I listened to at age 7 on Marbury Road and then handled Pitt with ease. My old friend and partner Bob Lovett told me years later that he held Barry to 37 for the Panthers. Miami came back to the Steel Bowl a few years later, in 1969, again with one of the leading scorers in the country, Don Curnutt, and again beat Pitt before losing 94-88 to a ranked Duquesne team with three future Milwaukee Bucks, Billy Zopf and his cousin Mickey Davis, and Barry Nelson, along with Barry’s twin brother Garry, who was the better college player, and Jarrett Durham, who was the leading scorer.
But then, two years later, Miami dropped basketball for almost 15 years. Who does that? Miami did not play basketball again until 1985 and only got serious after leveraging their football clout to join the Big East in 1991, when they were coached by Leonard Hamilton, who of course is still coaching. They have had their moments from time to time since, especially since the inspired hire a few years ago of another basketball star from my youth, Jim Larranaga of Providence, who I “played against” many times in my driveway in the late 1960s. Now they are in the Final Four.
Finally, a word about Texas. Generally, rooting for Texas is like rooting for Amazon. But this Texas team has been though a lot. They fired their coach in the middle of the season, for good reason, although of course in the world of 2023 it did not prevent Mississippi from hiring him three months later. Chaos like this would finish most teams. This Texas team and their interim coach handled it and they played well all season and again today. They handled the brutal press conference after the game, too, players and coach alike. I am sure they will have their share of what-ifs on this or that play and this or that call. But Miami won that game more than Texas lost it. It takes two teams to make a great basketball game and Texas held up its end today.
So now the Final Four is set. Florida Atlantic-San Diego State followed by UConn-Miami. A 4-seed, two 5-seeds and a 9-seed. Four different conferences, only one of them a Power 5 football conference. After listening for two years about how the ACC is down, it is worth noting that the ACC has had three teams—a 2 seed, a 5 seed and an 8 seed—and three different schools go to the Final Four in these “down” years. The rest of the country, all 335 teams, has had five, and the Big Ten has sent one of its 17 bids to the Sweet 16. Facts are stubborn things.
It also was gratifying to see how good the Miami team was that Pitt beat and, even more impressively, lost to at the buzzer in a road game that Miami urgently needed to win. Miami just beat two of the Top 6 teams in the country to make the Final Four. Pitt was far from a Final Four team this year but they were a real team and at their best they competed at a very high level.
Tip at 6:09 pm EDT on Saturday. Enjoy the games.
