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December 23, 2004
Couch Musings - December 23rd
Last night was the kind of evening when you are glad you have the ESPN Full Court cable television package. Without it, I only could have seen the Illinois-Missouri game, and you probably would have had a recap on it here. But through the wonders of modern television, I was able to attempt to watch 3 games at one time. Flipping between the UW-Milwaukee-Kansas game, the Illinois-Missouri game, and the second half of the UNC-Charlotte-Indiana game, meant that I couldn't cover one game in full but rather will just have to give my impressions on each.
- If any piece of any game so far this season has made the money investment worth it for the cable sports package, it was the ending of the Charlotte-Indiana game. While the rest of the game was a sloppy mess with the most airballs I had ever seen in a college game, the final 4 seconds were well worth tuning into. With the game tied, Indiana had an inbounds pass on the side which went in right to a shooter. The shot was missed but Patrick Ewing came unblocked to tip the miss back into the basket to give Indiana the lead with 0.7 seconds remaining. After a Charlotte timeout, the inbounds pass by the 49ers went to half court, into the hands of Brendan Plavich. Plavich had struggled shooting the ball until that point took one dribble and heaved from the time line. The ball sailed through the air as the Indiana players celebrated, believing that the shot was called off. When the ball swished through the net, all celebration in the arena stopped. The referees did a great job of controlling the players and fans while they examined the replay. Clearly, the television showed that Plavich got the shot away with 0.1 seconds remaining on the clock, counting the 3 and giving Charlotte the win. All told, that was an amazing finish to what was a pretty horrible game.
- Without Wayne Simien, Kansas should still be able to win, as they showed last night against Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Unfortunately, the Panthers, while a very good mid-major team, are not up to the level of competition that Kansas will see when the Big XII season begins in a week. While Kansas should easily beat the teams in the middle and bottom half of the conference, without Simien, they will struggle against the top tier of teams in Oklahoma, Texas, and Oklahoma State. While they should beat the other competition, they will have one problem and that is finishing power. With Simien in the game, he gives Kansas a very strong inside presence which can allow them to put games away early. Case in point is the game against the Panthers last night. While Kansas led comfortably for most of the game thanks to early poor shooting by UW-Milwaukee, they were never able to seal the game away and ride into the comfortable win. The lead would get to 13 points, but then drop back to 5. Back to 13, back down to 7. Each time the lead swung in this manner, the Panther team got more confident. A Big XII opponent will not let the momentum swing go to waste and Kansas will need to be very careful on the road when the crowd will be come a factor, unlike last night in friendly Kemper Arena. Hopefully for the Jayhawks, the Freshmen backups will be able to gain enough confidence in the first two weeks of Simien's absence to make a difference when the time comes.
- Luckily for Illinois, Roger Powell was able to make a difference inside last night against Missouri. With James Augustine in perpetual foul trouble last night, Illinois was heavily relying on the play of its guards around the outside. Luther Head was definitely clutch, getting late baskets when the Illini needed it most. As I have said before, the Illini will not be able to count on Nick Smith as a great inside presence like Augustine has been for them over the first weeks of the season. With Augustine on the bench, Linas Kleiza was able to take advantage and increase his scoring, something that was key throughout the game for Missouri. When Kleiza got the ball in his hands, something good tended to happen for the Tigers, even if he wasn't the one scoring. Illinois will need to do something to address this deficiency sometime before they pay again. When you have a team as good as they are, and without any obvious flaws, they should have no problem fixing this one.
- Texas A&M Corpus Christi lost to Alabama last night, ending their Cinderella-like run through their season so far. They should still continue to be looked at as the favorite in most of their remaining games this year. In addition, they can take heart in the fact that they were very able to play with Alabama until late in the second half when the Tide pulled away. The Islanders have another chance to pull the shocker when they play Oklahoma State on January 3rd.
- Sorry, but I have to say it one more time. "WOW!" to the shot and ending of the Charlotte-Indiana game.
Posted by bmiraski at December 23, 2004 1:07 PM
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