Rush The Court

Another great Thursday night, with the West Region in particular providing loads of excitement with another #1 seed falling by the wayside and arguably the best game of the entire Tournament in the nightcap.

West Region

What.  A.  Game.  #2 Kansas State 101, #6 Xavier 96 (2OT).  With around four minutes remaining in this game and K-State up three points at 64-61, a public service announcement flashed across the jumbotron in the middle of the arena.  Paraphrasing, it stated that the regional final game between Kansas State and Butler would begin at 2 pm on Saturday afternoon.  Read that again: between Kansas State and Butler… with four minutes remaining in a three-point game.  Notwithstanding whether some gun-jumping intern was immediately drawn and quartered by the Energy Solutions Arena staff, the Xavier fans unilaterally roared their disapproval at such a public slight, and within a minute the game was tied again.  Whether this scoreboard mishap actually energized the XU players is up for debate, but there should be no debate about whom the two best players on the floor were tonight.  KSU’s Jacob Pullen (28/4/3 assts including six treys) and Xavier’s Jordan Crawford (32/2/2 assts) played a game of who can top whom in the last few minutes of regulation and through two overtimes before it was finally decided that K-State would meet the unanticipated scoreboard premonition and move on to face Butler on Saturday afternoon.  From the moment mentioned above, the two players combined to score 31 points, including several clutch threes that kept the game alive for longer than anyone imagined possible.  After K-State fouled Terrell Holloway (26/4/6 assts and 4 treys himself) as he dribbled into a long jumper with six seconds remaining and XU down three, the sophomore guard nailed all three to send the game into overtime.  Back and forth each team went and again K-State looked like they were safely in position to win the game with a single stop.  Instead, Jordan Crawford failed to find room near the three-point line, so he dribbled far enough away until there was space at which time he rose and fired from 35 feet to send Gus Johnson on CBS into a fit of apoplexy.

From there it was back and forth again until KSU’s Jacob Pullen decided enough was enough, hitting back to back bombs in the final minute-plus of the second overtime to finally create enough separation to make the fouling game work for Frank Martin’s team.  The Wildcats will move on to face Butler on Saturday after all.  This was only the second double-overtime game in the last thirteen years of Sweet Sixteen action, and the fans who attended the West Region tonight surely got their money’s worth.  It’s not often that Kansas State gets outbattled on the boards, but tonight Xavier was +2 in that category.  This was probably the game of the Tournament so far, and we wonder if the physical battle with a Xavier team that just would not quit will impact the Wildcats in their next game with Butler.  As we saw tonight, Butler isn’t the kind of team you want to get down early to — they know how to play with a lead.

Butler One Win From Home.  #5 Butler 63, #1 Syracuse 59.  We’re now left with two #1 seeds as Kentucky advanced to the Elite Eight in the East Regional and Duke plays for that prize tomorrow night, but Jim Boeheim’s Syracuse Orange will be heading home after an uncharacteristic scoring drought at the end of the game did them in tonight.  With a little more than five minutes remaining in the game, Syracuse looked to have regained control of a low-scoring closely contested battle, 54-50.  Cuse would not score again until there were thirty-four seconds left and Butler had effectively put things away.  It was Willie Veasley’s  “HORSE” style three from the corner that put the Bulldogs in control with 1:50 left as the strong crowd of orange-clad fans stood and watched in amazement.  For Brad Stevens’ team, this is the kind of victory that can define and sustain a high-mid like Butler for a long time.  His recruiting for the next five years is already done — what can a program like Indiana give a player that Butler cannot at this point?  A chance to play in the NCAAs?  A chance to advance?  How about a chance to go to the Final Four?  Because that’s the cusp upon which his team is standing, merely forty more minutes of superb defense away from returning home with games still to play.  And when we say home, we really mean it.  Not like ‘Cornell home’ tonight or ‘Baylor home’ tomorrow night, but really, actually home — the Butler University campus is a mere 5.4 miles in Indianapolis from Lucas Oil Stadium, site of the Final Four.  Talk about Hoosiers on the grandest scale of all.  It’s so ridiculous we can hardly comprehend it.  As for Syracuse, the Orange struggled with unforced turnovers all night long (18 total), and many of those were expended in trying to get the ball inside to Rick Jackson and Kris Joseph.  It’s easy to place the blame for SU’s ‘early’ loss on the injury to Arinze Onuaku and his missing three games in this year’s Tournament, but  we wonder if his offensive production would have helped take some of the pressure off Wes Johnson (17/9) and Andy Rautins (15/5) tonight had he been available.   We also wonder if Boeheim’s team didn’t wear down a little at the end of this year — even prior to Onuaku’s injury in the Big East Tournament, the Orange had dropped two games to rather pedestrian Louisville in previous weeks.  He was only playing seven players substantial minutes, and with Onuaku out of the lineup, he was forced to surrender minutes to unproven and untested DaShonte Riley (0/1 in 5 minutes) tonight, for example.  His six ‘starters’ played every other minute of the game.  Were the Orange players spent during those last five minutes?  You won’t hear Boeheim use that crutch, but it would certainly be a reasonable excuse.

East Region

Country Roads, Indeed.  #2 West Virginia 69, #11 Washington 56.  First order of business: Da’Sean Butler’s hand appears to be fine.  By “fine,” I mean there’s no reason for it to be cut off, because that’s probably the only thing that would keep him from playing Kentucky on Saturday evening.  His Mountaineers earned that right by beating the Huskies, a team that most definitely represented the Pac-10 well and gives us reason to look forward to what they’ll bring next season (prediction: Abdul Gaddy will break out next year and be a totally different man).  The question everyone wanted answered was how Joe Mazzulla would do in place of the injured Darryl Bryant at point guard for the Mountaineers. The answer: he passed.  Casey Mitchell actually started but only played half the minutes as Mazzulla (13 vs 26), and both together equalled Bryant’s average point production of about 9.0 PPG.  Mazzulla got into some early foul trouble, though, picking up two early ones and hitting the pine for longer than Bob Huggins would have preferred.  But 1-8 shooting and three points in 25 minutes simply isn’t going to get it done.  The four assists and three steals are a tad comforting, but he’ll need to be on the floor more and he’ll have to shoot better if he plans on being any kind of contributor against the top-seeded Wildcats.  WVU won this game on the boards tonight, just punishing the Huskies on the glass 41-25, including 19-9 on the offensive boards.  They’ll need that kind of effort — and probably even more — if they’re going to hang with Kentucky. Kevin Jones was by far the most efficient player for the ‘Neers, posting 18 points and 8 boards on a 7-12 shooting night that included 3-4 from behind the 3-point arc.  Devin Ebanks wasn’t far behind with 12/7/5 assts/4 stls.  Washington was paced by Justin Holiday’s 14/8/5 stls, but the effect of all that glasswork started to show with about six minutes gone in the second half.  That was when Washington began to slow down, show fatigue, and the Mountaineer rebounding effort was taking its full toll.  It’s on to Saturday at about 7 PM ET, where Kentucky is waiting.  John Wall vs Casey Mitchell or Joe Mazzulla isn’t really a fair fight, but we trust Higgins will come up with something creative against the Wildcats; there’s no way he’ll let those guys play him straight up.

Sorry to Let You Down, But Did Anyone Actually Believe This Would Happen? #1 Kentucky 62, #12 Cornell 45.  Yeah, this was a home game for Cornell.  Because of its proximity to the Cornell campus, Big Red supporters only had to drive about 66 miles to enjoy this one.  One announcer put it at 80% Cornell and 20% Kentucky.  Cornell was carried by this show of support — for the first four minutes.  After the first media timeout, Calipari got through to his team what needed to happen for the to quell the early run –getting over screens.  For most of the rest of the game, Cornell’s perimeter bombers found themselves with Kentucky players bellying-up to them and getting in their drawers.  The Olbermanns finished 2-11 from three; the three was a big part of the offensive performances the Big Red had turned in against Temple and Wisconsin, and Kentucky took it away with the mere decision to just get over screens and stay close to the Cornell shooters.  The only real run Cornell made was in the first part of the second half when they had whittled the UK lead down to six and put on a total clinic of ball control.  But UK cranked up the defensive intensity one final notch, got a few steals, hit a few layups and that was pretty much it.  DeMarcus Cousins led Kentucky with 16/7/4 stls, and if you can have a quiet game with nine points and 12 rebounds, Patrick Patterson did exactly that  They’ll need a similar effort against West Virginia, as the Mountaineers have  hit their rebounding groove this tournament.  Stupefyingly billed as some kind of “good vs. evil” and “smart vs. dumb” game, let’s just say that Kentucky beat Cornell.  Let’s also take a second to thank Cornell — as college basketball fans, they gave us all a lot of enjoyment this year.