🏀 2018 NCAA Tournament: Villanova wins National Championship

Kentucky's John Calipari: 'No disrespect' for lack of handshakes

ATLANTA -- Kansas State players said they were upset that after beating Kentucky in the NCAA tournament Thursday night, its players and coaches left the court before taking part in a postgame handshake.

Kentucky coach John Calipari said there was no disrespect meant by his team.

"They didn't shake our hands," Kansas State junior guard Amaad Wainrightsaid after his team's 61-58 Sweet 16 victory. "It's sorry. ... They know what they did."

Wainright said he wasn't sure why Kentucky's players and coaches didn't stick around. He said he wanted to shake Calipari's hand, in particular, but couldn't.

"On that situation, it's all about respect," Wainright said. "That's what it should have been -- all about respect."

Calipari said that wasn't the case at all. Rather, he said, he tried to go shake hands, only to see Kansas State's players busy on the court celebrating.

"They were turned and celebrating, so I walked off," he explained. "There was no disrespect for anything. It's just that they were celebrating, and I was happy for them."

He added: "My team's not like that. There's no disrespect in any way. They beat us. They deserved to win the game."

Nonetheless, Kansas State forward Levi Stockard III said that Kentucky leaving the court felt intentional.

"That's not the sportsmanship you like to see, but that's them," Stockard said. "They just walked off the court. I don't know what it was. I don't know."

No. 9 seed Kansas State advances to the Elite Eight, where it will face No. 11 seed Loyola-Chicago on Saturday night in Atlanta.

No. 5 Kentucky was ultimately undone by sloppy play on offense. Kansas State had 24 points off of turnovers, compared with Kentucky's seven points.

Afterward, Calipari said he was "proud" of his team for what it accomplished this season, reaching the regional semifinal.

Calipari said on Wednesday that he warned his team not to drink the "poison" of those saying that Kentucky was a sure thing to reach the Final Four. Even after losing, Calipari said he felt his team handled the situation well, ignoring the outside noise.

"It was a physical game and it got us a little out of rhythm," Calipari said. "We had our chances."

Calipari, who has said this was one of the most difficult coaching jobs of his career with so many freshmen on the team, remained upbeat in the postgame news conference.

"Both individually and collectively, this was a rewarding team for me," he said. "I just wish it could have ended in another week."

KSU players irked by no Kentucky handshakes
 
'Is this really happening?' Why yes, it is

ATLANTA -- This was supposed to be Kentucky's region. With No. 1 Virginia, No. 2 Cincinnati, No. 3 Tennessee and No. 4 Arizona all knocked out during the first weekend of play, it felt like the carpet was laid out for Big Blue to make it to the Final Four.

The notion that No. 5 Kentucky had the easiest path to San Antonio was inescapable. Someone even labeled Atlanta the "Kentucky Invitational" -- a fact that Loyola-Chicago coach Porter Moser said he thought about while he fumed during his team's late arrival Wednesday due to a police escort that never showed and a bus driver who got lost navigating the city.

No. 11 Loyola's 15 minutes were supposed to be up. So who cared if they didn't make it to the arena on time? Center Cameron Krutwig said he heard all about Kentucky's supposed "cake walk" and refused to "fall into that trap."

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No. 9 Kansas State felt the disrespect, too. As junior guard Kamau Stokes explained, "We heard it a lot. Not just from [Kentucky] fans, but players, too."

"That motivated us," Stokes said. "They thought they were going to have it easy, and they didn't."

No, they did not.

In fact, none of the higher seeds had it easy in Atlanta as Cinderella traded in its glass slipper for a steel-toe boot on Thursday, kicking No. 5 Kentucky and No. 7 Nevada to the curb in pressure-packed games that came down to the final possessions.

The favorites folded, the underdogs played with poise and now we have an Elite Eight matchup that no one predicted. No. 9 Kansas State vs. No. 11 Loyola might feel strange to say out loud, but no one is going to say they didn't deserve to advance.

Loyola-Chicago players celebrate after another victory in their unlikely tournament run. Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
With the clock winding down below 30 seconds and the game tied at 58-58, Kansas State guard Barry Brown Jr. dribbled and dribbled and dribbled, and looked as if he was going nowhere. That is, until the junior from St. Petersburg, Florida, decided to take the game into his hands.

When Brown put his head down, it was over. He got his defender on his heels, drove into the paint and parted a sea of Kentucky big men to lay in the game-winning basket with 19 seconds left.

During the postgame celebration, Brown went into the stands on one side of the court. Stokes faced the crowd on the other and put his index finger to his lips. Hush, haters.

Even with All-Big 12 big man Dean Wade able to play only eight minutes, Kansas State advanced to the Elite Eight.

"I'm hurt," Wade said, "but our team is still there. Players are stepping up everywhere. They're not missing a beat."

He added later: "We've been doubted -- literally the whole season, doubted. We just play with a chip on our shoulder every game."

But now the question becomes how that chip holds up against Loyola?

There can't be two teams of destiny in the same tournament, right?

Loyola surely isn't ready for its fairy tale to end. Krutwig said he told friends after beating Nevada, "Is this real? Is this really happening?"

It was real, and it is happening.

Krutwig's so-called "small school from Chicago" is making some noise.

The tournament has tipped off. Your picks are locked in. It's time to find out how your bracket is holding up. Check your brackets

"We're not just here for show," Krutwig said. "We're here to win some games."

Said freshman Lucas Williamson: "We knew, definitely -- we knew we had it in us."

All anyone needed to do to understand Loyola's belief was to take one look around its locker room. To a team of veterans, including two seniors and two fourth-year juniors in the starting lineup. To a coach who had steadily built a program during his seven seasons in Chicago. To a coaching staff that voraciously scouted opponents.

On dozens of posters taped on every wall of Loyola's locker room were diagrams of all of Nevada's plays. There was the "Weave down" and "Dribble Panther" and so many others all spelled out. Krutwig said it's like that every game: "It's just something that breeds confidence for us -- preparation breeds confidence."

And it's that confidence that has created a new normal for Loyola. After three wins over higher seeds -- first against No. 6 Miami, then No. 3 Tennessee and finally No. 7 Nevada -- the Ramblers are looking more comfortable with the big stage. Its chaplain, Sister Jean, has become a bona fide celebrity.

"It's all coming together," Williamson said, "and it's really special."

Maybe its special season will continue with a trip to the Final Four.

Or maybe Kansas State will continue its special season instead.

Either way, two teams no one expected will battle for the right to move on to San Antonio on Saturday while Kentucky will be home with all the other supposed favorites wondering what happened.

'Is this really happening?' Why yes, it is
 
ESPN predictions for the Final Four: Who will play for the title?

The road to get here has been interesting. There have been upsets and chalk, giving this tournament a personality of its own.

But now, it is time for the Final Four, for the games. Who will win? Who will advance to Monday's national title game?

Our experts were mixed on the first semifinal between Loyola-Chicago and Michigan. They were less divided when it came to Villanova and Kansas.

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ESPN predictions for the Final Four: Who will play for the title?
 
Kansas Is The Only Final Four Team Playing Modern Basketball

Across the years, Kansas men’s basketball head coach Bill Self has fashioned an unmistakable brand of play. The Kansas Jayhawks, playing Villanova on Saturday in the Final Four, feature a high-low motion offense — inside-out basketball that moves the ball and values polished big men who can score at the rim and make decisions on the perimeter. That insistence didn’t leave much room for Kansas to adopt the ongoing 3-point revolution in basketball. Kansas stuck with its high-low system even as the very premises of the game were shifting underfoot.

“When highly successful coaches adapt and succeed, like win a championship, we say they adapted to their players,” ESPN’s John Gasaway told reporter Matt Giles for FiveThirtyEight in 2016. “Self does not adapt to his players.”

The lights flickered on briefly in that 2015-16 season, as observers wonderedwhether Kansas was finally adopting a modern rate of 3-point shooting. It didn’t last. Kansas’s rate of 3-point attempts fell off late in the season, and the team finished ranked 238th in the country in the share of its field goal attempts that were 3-pointers, according to KenPom.com. The Jayhawks were eliminated in the Elite Eight that season by a Villanova team that lived on the 3-point shot but didn’t shoot well in the quarterfinal. Self’s team took away Nova’s range, limiting it to 4 of 18 shooting from three, and the Wildcats won anyway. Perhaps this shook something loose in Self.

In 2016-17, the Jayhawks threatened to be the first KU team under Self to breach the Division I average for 3-pointers attempted per field goal attempt. They weren’t a team of gunners, exactly, but their 35.9 percent 3-point attempt rate was a large step up for Kansas. This season, the Jayhawks have climbed even higher, reaching 41.4 percent — easily clearing the D-I average of 37.5 percent. That’s a quantum leap for the program given its recent history and a shocking development given Self’s stated opinions on shot selection.

“Based on our history and the success that we’ve had with our shot selection over the years,” Self told the Kansas City Star in 2015, “I think 30 percent is a pretty good number for us.”

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Why the team had to change this season isn’t much of a mystery. The high-low offense frequently puts the key decisions of a possession in the hands of the team’s big men, either after receiving a pass at the top of the key (the “sweet spot” that allows a player to shoot, pass or get back on defense) or down in the low post. This allows the offense to get its big men open through screens and ball reversals and for the bigs to find cutters for easy buckets. It requires bigs who can execute a moving, developing offense. But the Jayhawks’ frontcourt exploded just before the season, leaving the team without that crucial component.

Five-star freshman Billy Preston never played a game for the Jayhawks after coming under investigation by the NCAA; he would eventually sign with a Bosnian professional team. Jack Whitman, a transfer from William & Mary, left Kansas abruptly in the summer of 2017 just a few months after committing to the school. Self had expected Whitman to contribute heavily along the front line: “We were thin up front,” Self said at the time, “and looking to add somebody that would be eligible immediately and was experienced. … He’s a great fit for what we need because we’re going to be so young up front and he’ll add some experience.”

That left Kansas with sophomores Udoka Azubuike and Mitch Lightfoot, as well as late-arriving freshman Silvio De Sousa. Azubuike has been excellent — his 77.2 field goal percentage is the best in Kansas history — and De Sousa has emerged as a reliable backup. But this is not the polished frontcourt of your standard contending Kansas team. So Self has empowered his perimeter players to carry the team instead. Devonte’ Graham, Malik Newman and Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk each are shooting more than five threes per game this season and hitting better than 40 percent. LaGerald Vick is shooting four per game and making 37.8 percent.

By contrast, party-crashing Loyola of Chicago takes only 35.8 percent of its shots from three, below the average — though still above Self’s preferred waypoint. That’s unusual for an upset-minded team — those teams often take advantage of the short college 3-point line to achieve short-term scoring parity. Loyola instead relies on skill and strategy to win, along with new inefficiencies in the modern game ripe to be exploited by the right team.

While Kansas does not attempt threes at quite the same rate as Villanova or Michigan, it has gotten off a similar number of attempts thanks to another modern facet of the squad: Kansas plays at a relatively fast tempo, while the other three semifinalists play at a glacial pace.

Despite taking an enormous 47.1 percent of their shots from beyond the arc, Villanova has not pushed tempo: The Wildcats rank 225th in the country in average length of offensive possession, at 17.8 seconds, according to KenPom.com. Michigan ranks 311th at 18.7 seconds. And Loyola comes in 285th at 18.4. It makes sense for Loyola to slow pace, since underdog teams are best served by minimizing possessions and leaning on variance to carry them over more talented opponents. But a team like Villanova, more talented than nearly all of its opponents, would be better off maximizing the number of shots taken by both its own players and its opponents. Talent wins out over time.

Kansas has maintained a standard brisk tempo over the past several seasons, ranking in the top 100 and often the top 50 in the nation since 2013 by KenPom.com’s average offensive possession length. (The Jayhawks rank lower on overall tempo because their defense typically forces opponents late into the shot clock, which is a good thing for a defense to do.) This season, Kansas is at 16.5 seconds per offensive possession, 76th in the country and miles ahead of its Final Four competition, making it the only program remaining that’s playing by the modern guidelines for overdogs: Push pace and shoot threes.

This seems to be the season that Bill Self finally, fully, adapted to his players — and the times and, OK, the catastrophe surrounding his preseason frontcourt. This concession has allowed the Jayhawks to reach the Final Four, playing Saturday in what sure seems like the de facto championship game. Villanova will be the favorite. But Kansas, for once, will not have its own ideologies holding it back.

Kansas Is The Only Final Four Team Playing Modern Basketball
 
SuperNova lived up to their billing. They were a 3-ball machine that never took their foot off the gas. They were Loyola with superior talent. Everyone has their own version of how the longball looks but the shooters and skill players in this tourney have rendered the athletic IsoJoe, inside out game as obsolete. Right, Kansas? Michigan vs SuperNova, may the 3-ball reign supreme.
 
TUSKstuff said:
may the 3-ball reign supreme.
Click to expand...
I can't say the elimination of the arc would disappoint me. We'd certainly go back to some old-school hoops. But, since that's out of the realm of possibilities...I'm in favor of this. All the "live by the three" teams remind me more and more of the football termed "basketball on grass."

 
TerryP said:
I can't say the elimination of the arc would disappoint me. We'd certainly go back to some old-school hoops. But, since that's out of the realm of possibilities...I'm in favor of this. All the "live by the three" teams remind me more and more of the football termed "basketball on grass."

Click to expand...



The hurry-up spread and the 3 point line. I guess sports just keeps reinventing itself. Used to tick me off, now we just need to beat them at their own game.
 
TUSKstuff said:
The hurry-up spread and the 3 point line. I guess sports just keeps reinventing itself. Used to tick me off, now we just need to beat them at their own game.
Click to expand...
It doesn't tick me off. It does turn me off to the point of changing games/channels much of the time.

What can I say? I'm still a bit old school. Hell, we were at the range the other day and I'm still not a fan of using a scope...and I'll swear, others didn't shoot any better.
 
TerryP said:
It doesn't tick me off. It does turn me off to the point of changing games/channels much of the time.

What can I say? I'm still a bit old school. Hell, we were at the range the other day and I'm still not a fan of using a scope...and I'll swear, others didn't shoot any better.
Click to expand...


The spread concepts and the 40-second clock made me hate college football for a while. I'm still not fond of what we've inherited. But I do know I definitely don't like losing to folks who embrace the advantage. I guess if Saban can do it so can I.
 
TUSKstuff said:
I'm still not fond of what we've inherited. But I do know I definitely don't like losing to folks who embrace the advantage. I guess if Saban can do it so can I.
Click to expand...
A good thing is that hasn't happened often. And, when it has, there's always been external factors in play that put Bama at a disadvantage. IE: Utah when the left side of the line was out.
 


Fresh off a decisive 95-79 victory over the Kansas Jayhawks in Final Four action, the Villanova Wildcats look toward Monday’s national championship clash with the Michigan Wolverines as 7-point favorites on the 2018 March Madness championship odds.

Villanova shooters found the groove in Saturday’s rout of the Jayhawks as 5-point chalk, connecting on a Final Four-record 18 three-pointers to extend the team’s streak of wins by double-digit margins to nine going into Monday night’s matchup at the Alamodome.

The Wildcats have run up the score with regularity, averaging 84.8 points per game at this year’s tournament, and have topped 90 points on four occasions over their past nine overall. However, those numbers have not yielded consistent results in totals betting, with the OVER failing to prevail in consecutive outings during a 3-3-0 run.

Villanova has been a steady bet otherwise, tallying against the spread wins in all five outings at this year’s NCAA Tournament. That has fueled an 11-2-0 ATS run in its past 13 March Madness outings, including a 77-74 victory over North Carolina as 2-point underdogs in the 2016 national championship game.

The Wildcats’ strong play at this year’s tournament has also bolstered their position on the March Madness National Championship odds. After closing out the regular season trailing Virginia at No.2 in the AP Top 25 rankings, Villanova entered March Madness alongside the Cavaliers as a +600 co-favorite to claim this year’s tournament crown, and is perched as a -300 favorite to raise the hardware on Monday night.



Michigan Rides Long SU Winning Streak into Monday
The Wolverines punched their ticket to their first national championship game appearance in five years by disposing of the Loyola-Chicago Ramblers with a 69-57 victory as 5.5-point favorites, and ride an impressive 14-game straight-up win streak into their clash with Villanova.

Michigan made limited gains after opening the tournament at +1000 on the 2018 NCAAB National Championship odds, climbing to +800 following dominating opening-weekend wins over Radford and Alabama. A lopsided 99-72 win over Texas A&M as 2.5-point chalk in Elite Eight action subsequently gave the third-seeded Wolverines a lift to the +265 odds they sport entering Monday’s matchup.

The Wolverines have also enjoyed recent success as betting underdogs, claiming the outright victory in four of five outings when tagged with positive odds, capped by an impressive 75-66 win over Purdue as 4-point underdogs in this year’s Big Ten Tournament championship game. The OVER has also regularly paid out when Michigan takes the court as an underdog, going 4-0-1 in its past five.

However, the Wolverines will need to buck a number of historical trends to take home their first national championship victory since 1989. No.3 seeds have struggled in tournament matchups with top seeds in recent years, going 2-9 SU in 11 meetings since 2007, including the Texas Tech Red Raiders, who fell 71-59 to Villanova last weekend as 6-point underdogs.

Three-seeds are also winless SU in two national championship game meetings with top seeds since 1985, with the most recent No.1 versus No.3 clash taking place in 1991 when No.1 Duke knocked off No.3 Kansas by a 72-65 score.

Conversely, top seeds are 14-5 SU in 19 national championship matchups with lower-seeded opponents since 1985.
 
PhillyGirl said:
Boooooo Nova. Wannabe Philly school full of rich snobs. Hoping the Wolverines pull off the win.
Click to expand...
A PhillyGirl talking smack about a Philly school? :-)

I've had enough exposure to Michigan fans to last several lifetimes. Those experiences were enough to root against Michigan. The addition of Harbaugh and his antics? The only thing they'll get from me is an occasional "I hope they don't lose" and ONLY if it has a direct bearing on the Tide.
 

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