As the bracket announcement for the expanded Indiana State Basketball Fair was nearing the end, UCLA assistant coach Michael Lewis got the stink-eye from Mick Cronin, his boss.
“He’s our resident bracketologist,” Cronin said Sunday. “He assured me we were in. The fact that we got in was good for his job security. His credibility was slipping.”
No problem. The Bruins were the fifth Pac-12 team to gain entry to the NCAA field, which tells you about the fallowness of that field, and will play Michigan State in a First Four game sometime on Thursday, somewhere in Lewis’ home state.
The survivor of that battle of 11th seeds will meet Brigham Young in the next round. Both games are winnable for UCLA, just as USC’s game with the Drake-Wichita State winner is winnable, as is a probable matchup with Kansas after that.
Even UC Santa Barbara, the Big West champ with a 22-4 record, doesn’t appear disadvantaged by fifth-seeded Creighton in its first round. CSUN coach Mark Gottfried is among those who think the Gauchos are a live dog.
As Cronin mentioned, everyone is 0-0, even a Gonzaga club that is 26-0. The conference tournaments portend three weeks of NCAA chaos. Oregon State plowed through the Pac-12, and Georgetown, which entered the Big East tournament with a losing record, took advantage of Villanova’s injuries and then beat Connecticut and Creighton.
That could have endangered UCLA, but instead bounced Louisville, whose fans have totally shrugged off the fact that tournament selection committee chairman Mitch Barnhart is the athletic director at Kentucky. Right?
The Bruins got this bid because they won close games, a knack that escaped them at the very end. At one point they were 8-1 in games decided by five or fewer points, which does not count a triple-overtime win over Pepperdine. Only two of their losses in their 0-4 finish were that close, but they had control at Oregon and literally threw it away.
Michigan State conjures up images of muscled-up longshoremen who drop anvils on nearby heads. This MSU team was actually outscored by its opponents. It is true that the Spartans beat Michigan, Illinois and Ohio State in a 13-day span. It’s also true that Michigan State lost by 30 to Iowa and Rutgers, scoring 37 against the Scarlet Knights, and shot 41.2 percent in an opening-round Big 10 tournament loss to Maryland.
If anything, Michigan State’s familiarity with top-shelf Big Ten basketball will be its edge. There’s little question the Spartans, 9-11 in the Big 10, would have contended strongly for a Pac-12 title. But it doesn’t mean UCLA can’t win, particularly if Jules Bernard, Jaime Jaquez and Johnny Juzang can find a way to get hot simultaneously.
Meanwhile, what matchup does USC prefer? Drake won its first 19 games but then lost Roman Penn and Stephen Hemphill to injury, and it saw no one resembling Evan Mobley. Wichita State regrouped after Isaac Brown replaced coach Gregg Marshall, had no bad losses, and defeated Houston.
The Shockers have the ultimate 2020s player in Tyson Etienne, who shoots 39.9 percent from three-point land and 37.9 percent from two. He’s also DeAndre Jordan’s cousin.
UCSB has lost once since Dec. 27 and has JaQuori McLaughlin, the Big West Player of the Year. Creighton is 20-8 and well-respected, but is questionable on two fronts: a defensive field goal percentage of 48.6 and the Bluejays’ clunky 64.2 performance from the foul line.
Ultimately, those who win NCAA games will have to develop a sort of lab-rat obedience. The governing body is leaving few decisions to the coaches or schools.
“They’ve gone all-out,” Cronin said of the NCAA. “Here’s your hotel, here’s your floor, here’s your hallway and elevator. This is where you eat and practice. They’ll have expanded planes and buses to keep the distancing.”
This uncomfortable season might lead to useful procedures in the future, including more league games, and a centralized tournament. In fact, why not play the whole thing in L.A. someday? Certainly Staples Center, the new Clippers’ arena, Pauley Pavilion, Galen Center, Honda Center and Toyota Arena in Ontario could handle it.
There were those who thought the mere idea of a 2021 tournament was madness, and certainly COVID-19 was enormously disruptive. But, as Barnhart said, four of every five scheduled regular-season games were played. If the danger is controlled, the enthusiasm doesn’t have to be.
Besides, the Bruins got a chance to bump knuckles on a day when Duke, Louisville, Cincinnati, Indiana and Kentucky didn’t. When you still have games ahead, on the second Sunday of a pandemic March, you’re ahead of the game.
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