1. Today I barricaded myself in the Vizio room to watch men's college basketball. Today was the third and last day of the Phil Knight Invitational/Phil Knight Legacy tournament, featuring men's and women's games in three venues in Portland.
The first game I watched featured Purdue, the best team I saw all weekend. Today, Purdue dispatched Duke, 75-56.
In the end, much like Gonzaga on Friday, Duke was hardly a match for Purdue. Yes, Purdue's versatile and mobile 7' 4"center, Zach Eden, presented Duke with all kinds of problems, Not only is he agile in the paint, capable of creating high percentage shots for himself with a combination of deft footwork and a soft shooting tough, he's also an intelligent passer out of the low post, eager, I'd say, to find open teammates and those teammates of his are superb marksmen.
In addition, Purdue plays intelligent and physical team defense, making it difficult for their opponents to find open shots. Furthermore, Purdue is deep, able to substitute in fresh players who play superbly off the bench.
If for a minute, I thought Gonzaga's loss to Purdue was because Gonzaga didn't play up to its abilities, watching Purdue dismantle Duke led me to believe that Purdue is the superior team to both Duke and Gonzaga, at least at this early stage of the season.
2. The Purdue game featured the Boilermakers' surgical dissecting of Duke, but it wasn't a very exciting game.
But two games this afternoon had a ton of drama.
First of all, the tilt between Alabama and North Carolina remained undecided until the end of a fourth overtime. Both teams pushed and pushed themselves to conquer the other, answering each other blow by blow, until finally, in the fourth OT, Alabama managed to eek out a 103-101 win.
Although Michigan State and the Univ of Portland did not go into overtime to decide their game, Portland ended regulation with a miraculous comeback. The Pilots outscored Sparty 13-2 in the game's last three minutes -- in fact, the Pilots scored 8 points in one 30 second stretch and had possession of the ball for a last second shot near the rim that rolled off the tin, allowing the Spartans to escape with a 78-77 victory.
3. Gonzaga played a very good Xavier team for third place in the Phil Knight Legacy tournament.
Gonzaga was a house on fire in the game's opening minutes and rushed to a 17-4 lead.
I remember thinking early in this game, as I had thought early in the Purdue game, that I wanted to see Gonzaga put the hammer down and stretch this lead.
But the Zags didn't.
In fact, late in the first half, Xavier cut the Zags' lead to three points. Thanks to a Gregg three with six seconds to go, Gonzaga led by six at half time.
I thought, once again tonight, Gonzaga made a lot of careless ball handling errors, turned the ball over too much, and -- I'm not sure I'm reading this correctly -- the Zags seem almost casual in their play rather than playing with urgency.
Sure enough all of this caught up to Gonzaga in the second half and Xavier crept ahead, holding an eight point lead with six minutes left in the game.
Gonzaga, then, suddenly got hot. Rashir Bolton hit a three. So did Nolan Hickman. Before long, Julian Strawther scored two three point shots in the clutch and Gonzaga regained, it seemed, control of this game.
But, the Zags missed the front end of a couple of one and one free throw opportunities. Anton Watson committed a most unnecessary foul on a Xavier drive. to the tin.
Gonazaga could have sealed this victory in the last couple of minutes, but kept opening the door a crack for Xavier before finally salting away this win, 88-84.
For basketball fans who think the Zags are overrated year after year, my guess is that when the next polls come out, the Zags will drop out of the top 10.
The ESPN commentators were quick to say, all tournament long, that Gonzaga is a work in progress, that they are in the process of finding themselves, that they had some huge gaps to fill on this team with the departure of Chet Holmgren and Andrew Nembhard.
Fair enough.
What do I hope this work will result in?
I'd like to see the Zags stand around less on offense, especially when Drew Timme has the ball down low. Maybe, though, given the room he needs to operate and amount of time it takes him to generate his next move, this isn't possible. Along these lines, I'd like to see Zag players cut hard to the basket more often and pick up more points driving downhill to the tin. Yes, it was great that Gonzaga came back and beat Xavier, but that comeback depended on several three point shots and relying too much on the trey can be risky.
I'd like to see the players express a bit of emotion while playing. Again, maybe it's not possible with these particular players, but it's the players' impassive faces that lead me to say they aren't playing with a lot of urgency.
I'd like to sense a stronger sense of collective identity on this team. This might very well come with time. The experts on tv say teams with a strong collective identity are connected to each other on offense and defense. Maybe Gonzaga is more connected than I think they are, but I'd like to see clearer evidence that are bonding as a group.
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