Sunday, January 5, 2020

Three Beautiful Things 02/04/20: Home Cookin' in the Big East, Ducks Win, Beware the Underdog

1. Playing at home against Marquette on Wednesday, Creighton's three sharp shooters, Ty-Shon Alexander, Marcus Zegarowski, and Matt Ballock went wild, hitting shots on aggressive drives and shooting treys from miles away. Creighton was as potent shooting the ball Wednesday as any team I've watched this year.

Today, they played on the road at Butler in the venerable Hinkle Fieldhouse. While watching this game in Hinkle, fond memories and warm feelings rose up in me connected to Mac Court at the U of O and I thought of the rousing conclusion of the movie, Hoosiers.

When I returned to the present moment, I saw a different Creighton squad. Defensively, Butler disrupted Creighton, frustrated those sharp shooting guards. Shots that arced beautifully off their fingers and splashed beautifully on Wednesday were clankers today. Marcus Zegarowski was visibly frustrated. Matt Ballock only scored six points, after lighting up Marquette for 24 just three days ago. Butler complemented their raw-boned defense with a consistent effort on offense, led by Sean McDermott in the first half and a twenty point explosion by Kamar Baldwin in the second half.

Butler turned Wednesday's joyous boys from Omaha into a demoralized side on Saturday and won going away, 71-57.

Next up, in the Big East Conference, I watched another team flip. Marquette looked shell-shocked and discombobulated on Wednesday on the road against Creighton. Today, at home in Milwaukee, against the Big East's most highly ranked team, Villanova, Marquette looked fresh and energetic, full of fight. Marquette's superb scoring guard Markus Howard more than made up for his pedestrian performance against Creighton on Jan. 1st by immediately scoring fifteen points in the game's first ten minutes. He and his teammates put Villanova back on their heels -- a rare sight --, established a huge seventeen lead at half time and kept Villanova at bay in the second stanza to beat the Wildcats, 71-60. Marquette's Koby McEwen was especially fond of home cooking and had a breakout game, scoring 22 points to complement Howard's 29.

After watching Marquette's desultory effort on Wednesday against Creighton, I was afraid, as I tuned into today's contest, that Villanova would flatten them. But, being at home combined with Markus Howard's blistering performance in the early stages of the first half, energized the Golden Eagles. Watching them come to life and defeat Villanova was really fun -- and I really like Villanova a lot.

2. Conference games on the road are tough. The Oregon Ducks learned that Thursday night when they fell to Colorado. This afternoon, the Ducks visited the Utah Utes and, once again, faced a difficult challenge. The Ducks prevailed today, 69-64. My assessment? The Ducks (whom I think are still improving) have a bunch of players who can score. Tonight they combined deft interior passing to inside players resulting in easy scores, some dead-eye outside shooting, and several aggressive drives to the basket, especially by Payton Pritchard and Will Richardson, to prevail over a stubborn Utah team, 69-64.

3.  Last month, or maybe in November, Byrdman told me to look out for Pepperdine. He was very impressed with them.

Byrdman was right.

Look out for Pepperdine.

My thoughts:

I'm not inside the Gonzaga locker room nor in their sessions in the film room.

I don't know what Gonzaga's basketball team might have learned from their opening games and, by the way, opening victories, as the West Coast Conference's schedule got underway the past few days.

I know two things I learned.

First, the underdog Portland Pilots and Pepperdine Waves did not fear the mighty top-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs.

Second, underdogs can be very dangerous opponents.

Regarding the danger of underdogs: it's not always true. I've seen plenty of underdog teams roll over and barely compete against heavily favored teams.

But, often, underdogs play with almost desperate energy. The underdog isn't protecting a high ranking, not protecting a reputation, and doesn't necessarily have the respect of the favored team.

Underdogs often elevate their level of play against a heavily favored team.

Portland did it Thursday night.

Pepperdine did it tonight.

Both teams played with hunger, fearlessness, aggression. I thought they played as if they had little to lose and a lot to gain by letting it rip and giving Gonzaga everything they had.

I don't know how a team like Gonzaga, who has a ton to lose (and little to gain) against underdog teams matches an underdog's intensity.

Tonight, Pepperdine's best players, especially Kolbey Ross, played superbly and when Gonzaga put runs together and opened up a few leads and looked like they might stretch those leads, the Waves fought back (the Zags made errors - turnovers, bad passes, missed shots at close range [all strongly contested]), and kept this game close throughout.

Former Zag Dan Dickau was the television analyst for tonight's ESPN broadcast. Repeatedly, he said, "Give Pepperdine monster credit. They are playing a great game tonight."

I agreed with him. They mixed up their defenses, confusing Gonzaga. They matched, and sometimes exceeded, Gonzaga's interior strength with muscular play near the basket. They hustled. They hit shots at key moments. As the game closed, their best player appeared to be open for a three point attempt and, stunningly, Killian Tillie made a champion's play and popped out to not only challenge Kolbey Ross's shot, but he blocked it, preserving Gonzaga's lead and their eventual 75-70 win.

I know there are those who, after watching a game like tonight's, will say Gonzaga played down to their opponent's level. I don't see it that way. For much of this game, I thought Pepperdine, inspired as underdogs by the challenge of playing Gonzaga, elevated their level of play.

My guess is that Gonzaga will experience this same kind of thing regularly over the next two months of conference games. They will face well-prepared, heavily motivated, fearless and inferior conference opponents, who will be inspired by Gonzaga's prowess to elevate their play and give the Zags some very difficult games.

Case in point: the once dreadful Pacific Tigers hosted and defeated the mighty St. Mary's Gaels tonight, 107-99, in four overtimes. Pacific also defeated Pepperdine Thursday night.

Buckle up.

Things might get whacky in the West Coast Conference.

Why not?

It's been a whacky season everywhere else in college basketball so far!





No comments: