Sadly, there are only 3 more basketball games left of the madness.\u00a0\u00a0 But there is still over 2 days until we get back to watching the National Semifinals.\u00a0\u00a0 So, the Lunatic is restless – he wants basketball to rant about – he needs basketball to rant about.\u00a0\u00a0 And time is running out.\u00a0\u00a0 So here is an extremely random rant.<\/p>\n
There is still basketball being played – but to be honest I haven’t been as interested in it.\u00a0\u00a0 But these teams do deserve a lot of honor for what they have accomplished in March.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So – here is their brief moment.<\/p>\n
I noticed on ESPN’s site, that Mississippi State’s women’s team – who beat Baylor in overtime to make it to the Women’s Final Four have a cool tidbit.\u00a0\u00a0 They will boast the first ever father – daughter combo at the Final Four – as coach Vic Shaefer will lead the Bulldogs, including his daughter Blair.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There reward is unfortunately a date with Connecticut – so they have the daunting task of trying to do what 111 teams prior to them have not been able to do – beat the Huskies.<\/p>\n
South Carolina’s men’s team is not the only team still dancing – the Gamecocks are sending both their men’s and women’s team to the Final Four.\u00a0\u00a0 And while the men’s might have been a little bit of a surprise, the women’s definitely was not as they were their region’s #1 seed.\u00a0\u00a0 They will go against #2 Stanford to see if they can get the right to lose in the championship to UConn.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This is nothing against them – they are a great team.\u00a0\u00a0 But the Huskies are so dominant right now, it is hard to imagine them losing at this point.<\/p>\n
Back to the NIT for a second – how much does this say about the bubble teams that missed the tournament.\u00a0\u00a0 They were given home field advantage to make it to the semi-finals in New York – and none of them could get there. \u00a0 Cal lost their first round game to CSU-Bakersfield, Syracuse lost their second round game to Ole Miss, Iowa lost their second round game to TCU, and Illinois State lost their second round game to UCF. \u00a0 Just another reminder of the fact that the Selection Committee got it right. \u00a0 While I understand that it has to be heartbreaking to just miss the tournament, and some teams were dealing with injuries, it is hard to believe these bubble teams would have gone far if they couldn’t win three home games against other teams who just missed the tournament.<\/p>\n
Have to give my quick reaction \/ comments to the insanity of LaVar Ball – many have been commenting about how it is ridiculous about how much pressure he is putting on his sons.\u00a0\u00a0 I even heard on the radio today that they think more parents should be like this and push their children hard to be winners.\u00a0\u00a0 But he has crossed the line with his comments.\u00a0 Lonzo Ball might be a great NBA player – but saying that he will be better than Steph Curry is just ludicrous – if he is that good, why wasn’t he able to lead UCLA to the Final Four (heck, even the Elite 8 – Kentucky knocked them out in the Sweet 16).\u00a0\u00a0 Then saying he is looking to get a $1 billion dollar shoe deal over 10 years for his sons – to put into perspective, LeBron’s deal is worth $1 billion for a lifetime.\u00a0\u00a0 Two of his sons are not even out of high school yet.\u00a0\u00a0 But then he talked about how his kids are riding around in $100K BMWs since he saved so much money on not having to pay tuition.\u00a0\u00a0 It is one thing to think your child will be great – it is another to be saying he deserves to be compared to Steph Curry and LeBron James.\u00a0\u00a0 You have to earn your accolades – so far, Ball couldn’t even lead his team out of the Final Four or get player of the year honors.\u00a0\u00a0 But then to ask for money for your high school sons and talk about how your kids are rolling around in BMWs is above stupid.\u00a0\u00a0 So are you saying that UCLA has paid Lonzo Ball to play this season, and that they will pay for the younger brothers when it is their turn.\u00a0\u00a0 He is basically asking the NCAA to investigate them for improper benefits – which isn’t smart.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I love being supportive of your child, but lets stay in reality.<\/p>\n
Many of you might have heard that Indiana has hired Dayton’s Archie Miller as their new coach.\u00a0\u00a0 To be honest, all things considered, I think this is maybe the best possible hire that they could have done.\u00a0\u00a0 While they might have thought they could, they were never going to get Steve Alford (UCLA), Scott Drew (Baylor), Chris Mack (Xavier) or Chris Holtmann (Butler) to leave their programs from other Power 6 conferences to take the Hoosiers’ job.\u00a0 So, you had to figure it would come down to Miller – who is an excellent young coach, or Wichita State’s Gregg Marshall (who probably would have been harder to convince with all the talent Marshall has coming back next season for the Shockers).\u00a0\u00a0 So, you have to consider that a success for the Hoosiers.\u00a0\u00a0 But as good of a coach that Miller is, he has not had to get the level of recruits at Dayton that he will need to meet Indiana’s requirements.\u00a0\u00a0 So, you are counting on the Hoosier’s brand.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In an article on ESPN, they talked about how Miller will focus recruiting from an “inside-out” approach, making sure they get the best talent from Indiana.\u00a0\u00a0 So, lets look at the recruiting rankings.\u00a0 This year, getting the top Indiana seniors would be pretty awesome, as you could get Kris Wilkes (13th), Jaren Jackson (16th), Paul Scruggs (28th) and Malik Williams (29th).\u00a0\u00a0 But unfortunately, all of them have already done early commitments.\u00a0 So, we have to go to 2018 – there is Romeo Lankford, the 3rd ranked junior in ESPN’s Top 60.\u00a0\u00a0 Well, Miller better get him – because if his focus is on the top Indiana talent and he loses Lankford, there are no more Indiana players in the top 60 – you are not likely going to win National Championships without top 60 players.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So, now you see what the expectations of Archie Miller are – I hope he is able to succeed where Tom Crean did not, but as talented as Miller is, the odds are not in his favor when his success might lie on a recruit that is likely to get offers from Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Louisville and UCLA.<\/p>\n
OK – enough ranting for tonight.\u00a0\u00a0 The Final Four is almost here…..<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sadly, there are only 3 more basketball games left of the madness.\u00a0\u00a0 But there is still over 2 days until we get back to watching the National Semifinals.\u00a0\u00a0 So, the Lunatic is restless – he wants basketball to rant about – he needs basketball to rant about.\u00a0\u00a0 And time is running out.\u00a0\u00a0 So here is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1124,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1123\/revisions\/1124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tehodgson.com\/stompthelunatic\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}