SMC: Sweet 16!

Congrats to St. Mary's for knocking off 'Nova and advancing to the Sweet 16! The WCC is now 3-0 with the Zags vs. the Cuse tomorrow.

PilotNut wrote:Congrats to St. Mary's for knocking off 'Nova and advancing to the Sweet 16! The WCC is now 3-0 with the Zags vs. the Cuse tomorrow.

well, all streaks end eventually. I'll not that anther team that beat us is pounding #3 seed New Mexico.

Congrats to the Fuskies.. (ouch).

Purplegeezer wrote:Congrats to the Fuskies.. (ouch).

Yeah, hurts to say it. Especially when I have the Lobos sneaking into the E8...

PilotNut wrote:

Purplegeezer wrote:Congrats to the Fuskies.. (ouch).

Yeah, hurts to say it. Especially when I have the Lobos sneaking into the E8...

Ditto. But now I am rooting for regional success: go Zags, go Bears. Hang on Fuskies. Let's see 4 Sweet 16 teams from the Left Coast.

Hahaha, sucks for UW and SMC both posting impressive upsets, and yet they won't even be the headline story of the day... (although you gotta love a combined 6-0 between the Pac-10 and WCC, someone better queue up Rodney Dangerfield....)

Queued up

Yep, Obama's bracket among others is officially wacked with Kansas and Villanova in his Final 4 and Kansas the eventual champion. Mine is pretty wacked too, but, I'm enjoying the games...

DaTruRochin wrote:Hahaha, sucks for UW and SMC both posting impressive upsets, and yet they won't even be the headline story of the day... (although you gotta love a combined 6-0 between the Pac-10 and WCC, someone better queue up Rodney Dangerfield....)

Looks pretty nice for our little conference, doesn't it? As for the PAC....that came outta nowhere!

All sorts of ESPN goods from/about Moraga today:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/tournament/2010/news/story?id=5021334

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/tournament/2010/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=5020760

And apparently Andy Katz is interviewing Omar later... Can you feel the Zag angst?

DaTruRochin wrote:All sorts of ESPN goods from/about Moraga today:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/tournament/2010/news/story?id=5021334

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/tournament/2010/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=5020760

And apparently Andy Katz is interviewing Omar later... Can you feel the Zag angst?

GU fans are going through their if only mantras right now:

If only...we'd won the WCC tourney...
Wait...if only the WCC tourney didn't exist since we'd wrapped up the conference anyway...
If only we'd been seeded higher...
If only we landed a home game in Spokane...
If only we didn't have to face the dang 'Cuse zone D...

DaTruRochin wrote:All sorts of ESPN goods from/about Moraga today:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/tournament/2010/news/story?id=5021334

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/tournament/2010/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=5020760

And apparently Andy Katz is interviewing Omar later... Can you feel the Zag angst?

I liked this quote:

Winner: West Coast basketball. By seeding and public acclamation, none of the schools in the Pacific-10 and West Coast conferences was expected to still be dancing -- yet one is from each league, Washington and Saint Mary's. Those two leagues are a combined 6-2 so far.

I think we already said the same thing.

Mid-Majority has a essay about St. Mary's (LINK). Lots of interesting thoughts in it, although it gets a little think with SMC love sometimes. I was struck by this assertion, however:

Randy Bennett has done very well with its Aussie shooters, hanging with Gonzaga at the top of the West Coast Conference for the last few years. But it's the extra layer of American-style post play that has made these recent versions great. The hybrid. Last year, Samhan and Diamon Simpson combined to create the best frontcourt tandem in mid-majordom. But that 2008-09 team never clicked on all its available cylinders. We never wish to speak ill of absent friends, especially ones who were so kind to us, but the star-driven media had this one wrong. You can't have the Beautiful Game when one guy is taking 16 shots a game, jacking eight three attempts every time out, shooting just 39 percent, and turning in a raft of games with flat assist-to-turnover ratios. Nobody else is going to say it out loud, but this team is better without Patty Mills.

Addition by subtraction. Agree or disagree?

Well, the results may speak for themselves....

Disagree. STRONGLY. Sorry, but this is completely ridiculous.

Saint Mary's was 18-1 when Mills broke his wrist last year.

Not only that, but they were about to be 19-1 with a win over a very good Gonzaga team in Spokane.

After Mills' injury, they lost four of their next five games.

They did bounce back after that to win six in a row (including two over Portlant), but got hammered by GU in the WCC tournament final with a clearly not-ready-yet Mills trying to come back.

But after Mills had nearly two extra weeks to heal, SMC ended up making the quarterfinals of the NIT, beating a good Washington team, a Stephen Curry-led Davidson team, and barely losing on the road to a very strong San Diego State squad.

So... with a healthy Mills, SMC was 21-2 last season. Without a healthy Mills, they were 7-5.

BS they are better without Mills. Total revisionist history.

I'm with Stoney on this one. nobody could handle St Mary's last year before Mills got hurt.

What have these guys been smokin'?

Speaking of Smoking, I think Baylor is on fire, the St Mary's game is way out of hand. Wow, I thought our West Virginia game was painful this year but the game today is embarassing.......I feel bad for the Gaels who have been doing excellent this year.

Oh well nice season Gaels, way to represent up until the end!!!



MesaPilot1

Yeah, too bad. Mickey was air balling, Omar was two steps further out then he's used to, Ben Allen disapeared on the offensive and defensive boards, Delavedova's game is gone.

They were just outmatched.

Great run, though. Congrats on a great season.

Man, total buzzkill of a game, but yeah a game like this if Omar isn't getting his, the 3s have to fall, or you need a big game out of Allen, haha looks like Baylor managed to figure out how to quell all 3...

Either, fantastic run and fantastic season by the Gaels, they did the WCC proud!

(although I suppose I probably shouldn't me making statements like this before the game is even over, but, haha I'll be away from my computer for the rest of the eve...)

Kyle Whelliston, the guy who runs the Mid-Majority by himself, mentioned his take on Mills in passing last week and I found it odd. I really think they were going to go on and beat Gonzaga before Mills went down in that game.

That aside, the Mid-Majority became my new favorite blog this year. Kyle has been doing an essay on each of the midmajors left this week.

Make of this what you will, but don't think too hard about it: http://twitpic.com/1bmxaz