March Madness RP Style

[zephyr]

Watching Creighton v. Gonzaga and the ball movement and unselfish play of these teams. UL seems to start most games playing like this then reverts to the isolation type game in the second half and wonder why we lose key games. That last 20 second isolation by Creighton that resulted by in an airball shot just before halftime is a perfect illustration of UL basketball. And we wonder why we can't even win the weakass SBC. Why Marlin let's the team resort to this just about every game is a mystery. We can beat inferior teams with it, but better teams prevail. Never changes with Marlin. Sucks to watch.

I noted this earlier when the tournament started, particularly watching Loyola and Ohio playing. These are teams with yearly recruiting rankings very similar or worse than ours and play in somewhat similar conferences in terms of strength. Loyola's Porter Moser was making less than Bob Marlin until a recent raise that they don't disclose the amount, however, he has been to a final four and sweet 16. His team plays unselfish ball and their offense is predicated on ball and player movement with curl cuts and back cuts. Ohio did similar things and they looked like they could play with most teams in the tournament. But where we really fail is in overall handling of the ball. Turnovers are killers in the tournament where efficiency now becomes more important and every possession is crucial. We turn the ball over so much we would have gotten run out the gym. I like the core of talent we have in our program and next year can be interesting if just about all come back but what I'm curious about is do we have "winners" on that team that will demand high performance from their teammates and be able to play at a high level in the postseason?

[HoustonCajun]

I noted this earlier when the tournament started, particularly watching Loyola and Ohio playing. These are teams with yearly recruiting rankings very similar or worse than ours and play in somewhat similar conferences in terms of strength. Loyola's Porter Moser was making less than Bob Marlin until a recent raise that they don't disclose the amount, however, he has been to a final four and sweet 16. His team plays unselfish ball and their offense is predicated on ball and player movement with curl cuts and back cuts. Ohio did similar things and they looked like they could play with most teams in the tournament. But where we really fail is in overall handling of the ball. Turnovers are killers in the tournament where efficiency now becomes more important and every possession is crucial. We turn the ball over so much we would have gotten run out the gym. I like the core of talent we have in our program and next year can be interesting if just about all come back but what I'm curious about is do we have "winners" on that team that will demand high performance from their teammates and be able to play at a high level in the postseason?

Watching Baylor v Arkansas. Baylor plays a beautiful game. Are you watching Coach Marlin?

[RaginDave]

I said it from day 1 of the tournament Gonzaga vs Baylor for the Championship. To me they are by far the best two teams in the country and both could have realistically gone undefeated.

Gonzaga is undefeated and Baylor has 2 losses, both to Top 25 teams.

[CajunNation]

Just making the rounds and asking if anyone is interested in fantasy baseball this year. We have 2 spots left and the draft is tonight at 7.

Leave an e-mail address or send it to me at reagancajun@reagan.com.

[Cajunsmike]

Watching Baylor v Arkansas. Baylor plays a beautiful game. Are you watching Coach Marlin?

According to his Twitter feed, he is watching every tournament game. Pretty familiar with Baylor as that was our first opponent this year. Now, can he take anything those teams do and applying it to our squad is a different question. As someone said earlier, reducing our turnovers is the key to improvement next season.

[axg8750]

I am very tired of getting excited for basketball season “hoping” that Marlin turns thing around.

After each season there seems to be a list a mile long that MUST fall into place for the Cajuns to have a shot at a successful season.

[ZoomZoom]

Congrats MDM!

[Million$Mullet]

Congrats MDM!

Thanks! Baylor had a different feel to them this year. I think if they don’t have to take that extended break for covid they may have ran the table. Fun tournament. Wish the championship wasn’t a blowout

[zephyr]

Baylor had a fantastic team this year and they deserved to win the title. They won arguably the toughest conference in the country this year with consistent play especially at the guard position and they had leaders such as Vital who deserve to leave college with some gold. He was the ultimate glue guy and did a little bit of everything for them. Their guards were the best collection of guards in the country and they showed why guard play is so critical in March. I'm just glad we got to see them play Gonzaga for the title so there would be no questions for whoever would win it.

[Cajunsmike]

Baylor had a fantastic team this year and they deserved to win the title. They won arguably the toughest conference in the country this year with consistent play especially at the guard position and they had leaders such as Vital who deserve to leave college with some gold. He was the ultimate glue guy and did a little bit of everything for them. Their guards were the best collection of guards in the country and they showed why guard play is so critical in March. I'm just glad we got to see them play Gonzaga for the title so there would be no questions for whoever would win it.

No doubt they had the best collection of guards in the country. After our first game this year, some of our coaches said they were the best set they had ever coached against. No way to know at that time they would win it all. Their big men were also unselfish as they did the dirty work such as rebounding and setting hard screens. Without the pandemic, Bears may have won 2 in a row.