It was a pretty exciting weekend of basketball and if I were to say there were plenty of fireworks that would be a gross understatement. While I was out with my wife enjoying a little bit of a date day, there was plenty of action happening on several different courts.
First, let me talk about my nieces because clearly family is more important than whatever else might be happening in the conferences.
My nieces played their first game of the playoff season this past weekend. My wife and I didn't think we were going to be able to see it since streaming rules are different during the playoffs, but by some stroke of lucky the ended up streaming the game.
It honestly wasn't much of a game, but there were some key things that I want to focus on. My nieces team was up by something like 20 points after the first period. In fact the opposing team didn't score a single bucket in the second period. They entered halftime with a whole six points on the scoreboard.
Given that fact, the coach decided to play most of the bench during the second half of the game. What that means is that my niece who is a freshman got quite a bit of playtime on the varsity team. In case you aren't familiar with how big of a deal that is, just trust me when I say it is. Unless you are a immensely talented freshman, or the game is a blowout like this one, it is pretty rare that you get much play time on the varsity squad. Sure, someone might get hurt and you might get to go in, but those occurences are rare.
What's even more awesome is the fact that my niece finally scored her first points on the varsity team. She put up a whopping 8 points and she got to be on the floor with her older sister who is a senior for some of the game. I actually think they both put up 8 points. So cool!
Obviously, they went on to win the game by a margin of something like 40 points. Some other teams came to "scout" my nieces team in the second half. Jokes on them, the players they were scouting were the bench players.
There were sixteen top 25 games played on Saturday. As I mentioned last week, there were no games on the schedule for Friday night.
Let's talk about Michigan State now, just to get it out of the way. At #19, they lost to #12 Illinois. It was a fairly close game with them only losing by about 5 points. I still don't know how to feel about Sparty. I am hoping this is just some kind of slump and they can turn things around come tournament time.
Turnovers and sloppy play in general seem to be a consistent problem with them. That has been the case for the past five seasons. I feel like a lot of that has to be taken care of at the coaching level. I hate being critical of Izzo since he is such a figurehead with a great track record, but I am afraid if things doing turn around soon, he is going to be leaving Michigan State and not on his own terms. That would be a sad end to a fantastic career.
I expect MSU will drop a couple of places from this loss, but they should still stay in the top 25 since Illinios was ranked higher than them.
Auburn seems to have run out of steam a bit as they fell against unranked Florida on Saturday. That number two spot they were holding will be a thing of the past come the new rankings this week.
Unranked Iowa took out #18 Ohio State. I feel like that should drop them down below Michigan State in the rankings, but who knows what will really happen.
#23 Arkansas beat #16 Tennessee in a ten point victory. It seems like none of my favorite teams are doing that great right now.
That was the extent of the upsets on Saturday. Gonzaga beat Santa Clara, so they should hold onto the #1 spot going into this week.
Event though there were only five games on Sunday, there was so much action that it honesty made Saturday look like a snooze fest.
Unranked Butler took #8 Providence into overtime and only lost by a single point. Then, unrakned Wichita State took #14 Houston into two overtimes and ended up falling short by only two points. Those could have been two really big upsets right there. Unranked Washington State also took #17 USC down to the wire and fell short of the upset by three points.
Finally, the big news from the weekend has to be the Michigan/Wisconsin game. Unranked Michigan came into #15 Wisconsin looking for a win to try and turn their season around. It was pretty much a one sided game with Wisconsin dominating. Despite that fact, Michigan decided to full court press right until the end of the game even though they were down by so much and it was pretty much over.
By all rights that should have made the Wisconsin coaching staff and players pretty upset, but it didn't. Instead, what set off this powderkeg was Wisconsin calling a time out with not much time left on the clock. Apparently, that incensed Michigan coach Juan Howard.
I honestly feel full court pressing versus taking a timeout is the bigger grievence here, but it is well known I am not a Michigan fan, so let's just keep moving.
In the handshake line, the coach from Wisconsin stopped Howard to explain to him why he took the timeout. Yes, he grabbed Howards arm, he probably shouldn't have done that, but Howard was ignoring him and walking away. He was trying to get his attention. Either way you look at it. Howard went ballistic. He started screaming an shouting. I am sure words were exchanged on both sides, but then Michigan coach Howard threw a punch at one of the Wisconsin assistant coaches.
Classeless
Pure trash. These actions by the Michigan coach warrent suspension, and perhaps even termination. I know that won't happen though. Michigan pulls in too much money for the Big 10 and NCAA. They will probably just give him a slap on the wrist becuase they are worried about losing revenue.
I never had much respect for Juan Howard anyway, but I have to say any shred I did have is gone after this manchild tantrum on Sunday.
I look forward to following this story and seeing what kind of punishements get handed down (if any). As someone who is supposed to be molding and shaping these young mens lives, they absolutely deserve better.
