Seedy K’s Tourney Takeaways

Basketball

(Hey!) Over, under, sideways, down/ (Hey!) I bounce a ball that’s square and round/ (Hey!) Over, under, sideways, down/ (Hey!) I bounce a ball that’s square and round/ When will it end? (When will it end?)/ When will it end? (When will it end?)

So, yeah, is this the most cockamamie Final Four ever?

In the era of seeding, and 64, uh make that 68 teams, one has to assume it to be so.

But back in the day, like in ’70 when there were this conglomeration. Behemoth UCLA, and Jacksonville, New Mexico State and St. Bonaventure. The trio of servants were all indies, when that was a thing in college hoops.

The whole affair was pretty much geographic in makeup. And there were byes. And schools got to play sometime on their homecourt in early rounds. Like the mighty mighty Bruins did often.

But in the Era of One Shining Moment? Continue reading Seedy K’s Tourney Takeaways →

Seedy K’s Takeaways: Iowa

Basketball, ,

Louisville 83, Iowa 97.

There are times when there is simply nothing you can do.

When a team runs into a foe led by a transcendent star who is executing a not-to-be-denied dominant performance.

Ask peacock Kim Mulkey and Britney Griner about Shoni.

We’ve heard oh so much about Caitlin Clark.

Too much? Actually, frankly, no not really.

She was described before the game as a cross between Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi.

Who am I to disagree?

On the season, she’s hitting 58% from 25 feet and beyond from the hoop.

That’s absurd.

Sunday night, Clark historically went for 41 points, 10 rebounds, 12 assists.

She was not going to lose this game. Continue reading Seedy K’s Takeaways: Iowa →

Seedy K’s GameCap: Ole Miss

Basketball, ,

“Hotty Totty! Gosh A Mighty! Who in the hell are we? Rim! Ram! Flim! Flam! Ole Miss, by Damn!”

Well, as you Rebs head back to Oxford Town, Hotty Totty This . . .

. . . Louisville 72, Mississippi 62.

Thus, with this disparate crew that took time to jell, Jeff Walz in his 16th season has the Louisville Cardinals headed to the Elite Eight for the fifth straight time and eighth time in school history.

Hawkeyes ahead. By damn.

 * * * * *

Hailey Van Lith got the full World Wide Leader superstar treatment on the TV pregame.

Then she scored the Cardinals’ first five points, and led the squad with 21. Also 5 boards, 4 assists.

And, when Ole Miss cut the lead to five in the 4th at 58-53, Van Lith shut the door, when she tallied in the paint for a 7 point advantage.

But, let’s be clear, there is only one choice for Player of Game. In this corner anyway.

Mykasa Robinson, come on down. Continue reading Seedy K’s GameCap: Ole Miss →

Seedy K’s Game Cap: Texas

Basketball,

Hook that on your home court, ye Horns.

Inside Austin City Limits, the final tally in the Round of 32 read: Louisville 73, Texas  51.

It wasn’t that close.

Top Ten early on, Jeff Walz’s Cards dropped out of the Top 25 early in the campaign.

Now, they stand among the Sweet Sixteen. Familiar territory.

Ole Miss, upset victor over Stanford, awaits surging U of L in the Seattle Regional.

 * * * * *

As is often the case during Walz’s reign, Louisville rushed out to a 7-0 advantage from the tip.

The Longhorns steadied. 16-16 after the 1st.

Then the hammer came down. The game turned. Continue reading Seedy K’s Game Cap: Texas →

First Weekend Musings: Hoopaholic’s Gazette

Basketball,

Now there are three.

Clear contenders, that is, for the biggest college hoops upset ever.

Some remain in the Chaminade over UVa corner. 1982. it was so long ago.

When reporting the score on ESPN, after confirming it was not a mistake, Chris Berman said, “We can’t tell you what happened, but the No. 1 team in college basketball has lost to—we don’t even know who they are.”

Others, more inclined toward recency bias: UMBC, a 16 seed over top line Virginia. Oh that school again. By 20 no less as a twenty point dog.

The new entry in the hopper? Fairleigh Dickinson over Purdue.

While huge, this opinionated dude is going to discount that first one by the Silver Swords. Not that it wasn’t monumental, it was. Ralph Sampson was a Wahoo. But it was in Hawai’i, after a long trip. On Chaminade’s court. And in the middle of the night back here on the mainland.

Not on TV. Nor are there videos that I’m aware of. So, did it really happen?

Yes, but you catch my drift.

The Retrievers from the Land o’ The Wire essentially broke UVa, thereby perpetuating the dialog at the time that Tony Bennett’s deliberate style of play could never prevail in the Dance. Which debunked train of thinking again sprang forth after the Cavaliers lost to Furman this weekend.

So UMBC’s W has to be hugely considered.

But, Fairleigh Dickinson over Purdue, pour moi, is clearly the most surprising, improbable and dumbfounding. Continue reading First Weekend Musings: Hoopaholic’s Gazette →

Hoopaholics Gazette: The First Window

Basketball,

They sentenced me to eight decades of hoopdom . . .

Respects to Leonard Cohen.

Unlike many fans whose team like mine has an empty dance card, I’m a hoopaholic.

I’m locked in.

Though, in a sign of maturity, or so I would crow, I missed the opening half of Huggy Bear vs. Terrapins, while keeping a lunch engagement made a month ago.

I did not linger.

This is one of my favorite days of the year, every year.

Some random musings follow. Continue reading Hoopaholics Gazette: The First Window →

Time Machine: Cards on 3/11

Basketball,

     Your everlasting summer and you can see it fading fast/ So you grab a piece of something that you think is gonna last/ Well, you wouldn’t even know a diamond if you held it in your hand/ The things you think are precious I can’t understand/ Are you reelin’ in the years?/ Stowin’ away the time

So we have arrived at Championship Week 2023, Championship Day, Part Uno.

New batteries in the remote.

Plenty of Vernor’s on ice.

21 games of interest, more or less, for those of us hoopaholics.

Before getting started, I thought it would be interesting to check how my Louisville Cardinals have fared on this date, starting with the beginning of the Denny Crum Era.

5-2, thank you very much. Including two memorable tilts, one a Top 5 of All Time, the other, one of the, uh, most disheartening.

Oh what a night it was such a night at Vandy’s Memorial Gymnasium on 3/11/72. Continue reading Time Machine: Cards on 3/11 →

Louisville CardFile: Boston College

Uncategorized

This shall be blissfully brief.

A proverbial quick read.

Tuesday evening at 6:36, this historically horrible season for the University of Louisville Men’s Basketball team ended in an appropriately ignominious manner.

Such that I simply am not going to print out the final score.

Nor offer insight or explanation.

I considered various and sundry ways of expressing how I feel right now. And giving one guy’s take of an overall perspective of what happened over the course of the campaign.

At this time, I demur.

Perhaps I will in the future.

Perhaps not.

It’s time to take a break and just kick back from this.

As a hoops junkie, I’m locked into the rest of the season. I love March Madness.

I understand that many are not. We each make our choices.

Go Cards!

c d k

 

Louisville CardFile: Virginia

Basketball,

As woefully different as this sad season has been than any other in the storied history of Louisville basketball, there’s one thing that just is the same as it ever was.

Tony Bennett turns whoever is sitting first chair on the Cardinal bench into a pupil.

Whether it’s Mike Pegues, or Chris Mack, or David Padgett. Even the HoFer Rick Pitino.

School was in session Saturday in Charlottesville.

The victorious Cavaliers had 25 assists on 29 made FGs.

Obviously, some of these resulted from matadorian lack of D by the hapless Cards, but Bennett’s teams have done this year in and year out to even the more stalwart of U of L outfits.

Sixteen year senior Kihei Clark netted a trey nineteen seconds into the tilt on the Wahoo’s opening possession.

The Cardinals were never close the rest of the way. Continue reading Louisville CardFile: Virginia →

Louisville CardFile: Virginia Tech

Basketball,

Señor, señor, do you know where we’re headin’?/ A Road to Hope or Armageddon?/ Seems we’ve never been down this way before/ Is there any truth in that, señor?                                                                                                                              — After Bob Dylan

A Senior Night quite unlike any other.

Oh for the nights we would have stood and clapped forever.

For Wes.

For Grif.

For Russ.

But distant memories now, from long ago, far away.

But a home game too much like most all the others this campaign.

Cards fall behind.

Lulls in the game when the gap could be closed but isn’t. Continue reading Louisville CardFile: Virginia Tech →