It would have been nice if the Quakers had at least taken their faint hopes of winning the Gehrig Division crown back to Meiklejohn Stadium for Sunday’s doubleheader. But according to this scoreboard, they dropped the first of their four-game set with Columbia, 5-4, which clinches the Division title outright for the Lions. Penn needed to win all four to stay in the hunt. Now they have three more games to go, all of them somewhat moot.
Job-seeking coaches, be wary. Tim Floyd called Indiana’s athletic director recently (to get a leg up on the job, or merely to schedule a game, we’ll never know) but apparently had the wrong number. Presto, chango — public relations disaster!
So, Craig Robinson, if you want to talk to Providence about that job, take a bit more care beforehand and don’t end up like this poor guy.
Raise your hand if you had four No. 1 seeds in your Final Four. I did, actually — two years ago. But I was promptly ridiculed by my friends for having a cheap bracket, and I haven’t done the same thing since. Shows what I know.
Obviously, I was less surprised by Kansas’s win over tenth-seeded Davidson than by Memphis’s over second-seeded Texas. (I’m still of the mindset that free-throw shooting matters, but the Tigers reminded me that it doesn’t matter if the game isn’t close.) In the grand scheme of all things basketball, though, Davidson’s loss was far more important. Every year’s Tournament is a testing ground to see how the rest are holding up to the best in college basketball, whether all this parity we keep hearing about is a reality. In that sense, Stephen Curry’s sudden transformation back into mortal man was far more jarring, because what might have become a great Tournament for midmajors turned into a banner Final Four for the elite of Division I.
We had a midmajor in the Elite Eight and had Western Kentucky, whose success came at the expense of another midmajor, Drake, in the Sweet Sixteen. That’s better than last year, when Butler was the only midmajor to win two games (I don’t count Southern Illinois and UNLV) but not the sea change that enthusiastic promoters of the game want us to believe.
So yes, San Diego and Siena won games. And yes, Davidson almost became the next George Mason. But this March has been by no means a step up for midmajors. Four No. 1’s in the Final Four is an insult to the injured. It’s hard to be a fan of the little guy right now and celebrate.
You know the drill. Here’s your dose of pregame reading before the ‘Cats and the Jayhawks tip off in about five hours. Enjoy the game.
PS: I apologize that these links aren’t opening up in new windows. Josh Wheeling and I thought we had this one figured out, but lately the links have started opening in the same window anyway. We’ll try to fix it soon.
Can’t win ‘em all.
Greg Echenique, the highly regarded 6-9 center out of St. Benedict’s Prep, decided on Rutgers today, Adam Zagoria of the Herald News reported. Echenique’s parents had visited Penn over the final weekend of spring break, and he had said publicly that Penn was in the picture until the end. Other schools in the mix for Echenique’s services had included Duke, Maryland, Villanova, Notre Dame and Miami.
The New Brunswick Home News Tribune and the Newark Star-Ledger also have articles, here and here.
Tipoff is at 7:10 tonight. Here’s your dose of previews:
Tipoff for (12)Villanova vs. (5)Clemson is at 9:50 tomorrow. Here are preview articles galore:
(11)St. Joe’s vs. (6)Oklahoma is at 7:40, and I’ll have links for that game up later.
To summarize the Cornell game, Cornell got crushed. The box score is here and a recap is here. As a Penn fan, I want to see Ivy League teams get better seeds in the future, so I was disheartened to see such a blowout. Here the Times wraps things up and looks at what Stanford can expect in its next game, against Marquette.
Scratch that last remark. It is as bad as it could be, because it couldn’t be much worse than being down 38-17 at halftime. Cornell missed three key shots in the last minute and a half, and Stanford pounced to stretch their lead from around 14 to 21 in a matter of moments.
Steve Donahue’s club has problems. Cornell shot just 5-for-32 from the field, compared with 16-for-32 for Stanford. The Big Red were supposed to have the advantage from deep, but they’ve only hit 2 of 14 three-point shots. Louis Dale, who was on a hot streak coming into this game, has been playing out of control and has had trouble finishing over the Cardinal’s big men. He hasn’t scored yet after 8 shot attempts. Jeff Foote has 3 fouls, and Adam Gore hasn’t gotten open enough to take quality shots.
Cornell is on pace to break the Tournament record for lowest shooting percentage in the shot-clock era. They’re at 15.6 percent right now; the lowest ever was when Prarie View A&M shot 23 percent against Kansas.
Things aren’t looking good for Cornell either, although only being down 12 with three minutes to go isn’t nearly as bad as it could be, considering how awfully they have shot the ball. Also, who is the kid running the point for Cornell, and what did he do with Louis Dale?
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