Maddux Sports Blog

What a strange game Kentucky won last night. They scored 102 points to beat Sam Houston State, but they let the Bearkats score 92 points. That’s a bit disturbing, but it’s hardly the strangest part of this game. Kentucky used just four bench players in the game, and those players spent a total of just 35 minutes on the court – less than nine minutes a piece. The strange part, though, is that none of those four players scored a single point. Yes – the five starters scored all 102 points. John Calipari doesn’t always strive for a balanced offense, but that’s ridiculous. I don’t even know how it is possible. On the plus side, this total lack of balance meant that we got to see that all five of the starters can score – Darius Miller was the least productive, and he still had 15 points. The lack of bench production has to be a real concern for the team. So does the fact that the Bearkats sunk 15 three pointers on just 26 attempts – a 58 percent rate. That’s scary. This team has obvious talent, but they are not yet playing like the fifth best team in the country.

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What a great day of college basketball we enjoyed last night. There was a lot to feast on and digest. Here’s a look at the five most interesting games played:

Kansas and Memphis – Kansas got the win, but it was surprising difficult against a scrappy Memphis team. The Tigers get a lot of credit for their play, but the real lesson from this is that Kansas has some work to do. There is no reason that this team should have had to barely squeak out a win. They turned the ball over 21 times, and were far, far too sloppy. It was also the first time in two years that Kansas has scored less than 60 and still won. The game also showed how long it can take for even the best freshmen to find their stride consistently. Xavier Henry wasn’t terrible, but some things were better than others. He had 11 points after potting 27 last time around, and he turned it over four times. He did have six rebounds and three steals so there were bright spots, but it seems like it will take a while for him to settle in and become the steady beast we know he will.

Michigan State and Gonzaga – The Bulldogs aren’t supposed to be quite the team that they were in recent years, but they still almost managed a big upset at Michigan State. It was a gritty, hard fought game that came right down to the end. There was a lot of good play, but one player in particular stood out on each side. Raymar Morgan showed just how incredibly tough he is. He entered the game while recovering from a sprained left ankle, and then he tweaked his right ankle as well. Despite that, he came off the bench and provided 16 points. That kind of attitude is what is going to make this team so dangerous. On the other side, Gonzaga’s freshman forward Elias Harris was a revelation – he tied for the team lead with 17 points, and added nine boards for good measure. Harris came over from Germany, so it wasn’t certain how quickly he would fit in. The other top scorer for Gonzaga was also a good sign – seven foot sophomore center had 17 points in just 19 minutes. Michigan State got a character win, but Gonzaga earned a lot of respect in my eyes with the win.

Duke and Charlotte – after a rocky offseason and some discipline issues, no one needed a bigger start than point guard Nolan Smith. He has the potential to be a real star, but only if he can keep his mind on the game and stay out of trouble. He got off to a big start – 24 points, 5 assists, 5 rebounds, and 2 steals. It came against a very outmatched opponent, but it was still a good sign. Smith probably isn’t the most talented player on the team, but he may be the most important.

UConn and Hofstra – If UConn senior guard Jerome Dyson plays like he did for the first 25 minutes of the game then the Huskies could be in trouble. If he plays like he did in the last 7:11 – 15 consecutive points – then this team can do some real damage.

Oklahoma and Louisiana-Monroe – Willie Warren needs to be the man in Oklahoma, and he played like he knows it tonight. He had 24 points and four assists and was the best player on the court for much of the game. Despite that, and despite the win, coach Jeff Capel was not a happy man. The team needs to rely heavily on their freshman class, and they mostly played lousy this time around. They combined for 64 points in their first game but came back with just 20 the second time around. They need more consistency if they want to be a serious contender in March. This is the deepest recruiting class they have ever had at Oklahoma, so they need to take care of business.

Wow, Cleveland is bad. So, so, so bad. Brady Quinn isn’t the answer. Is there an answer?

It was interesting watching the debut of John Wall in Kentucky tonight. It was pretty obvious why people are so excited about him – there is a lot of talent there. He turned it over too much, and he and fellow super-frosh Eric Bledsoe are going to have to learn to share the back court better, but he played well, and he scored the winning basket at the end of the game. He’s going to be a good one. That being said, that was one scary game from Kentucky. Miami of Ohio is a decent team with a very nice incoming freshman class, but they clearly aren’t of the caliber of Kentucky, and they were 17.5 point underdogs. Despite that, they were the better team for much of the game, and could very easily have pulled it out. Miami led for more of the game, and for much of the game they seemed to want it more. Kentucky simply needs to be much, much better to play with the big boys. They have a few easy game to work out the kinks, but a deadly four day stretch at the beginning of December in which they play UNC and UConn looms. They need to be much better than they were tonight if they want to survive that duo of potential disaster.

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I’m always intrigued by how teams respond to losing a star player. There have been so many injuries to stars in the NHL this year that there are lots of interesting examples. For one, Vancouver has played their last four games without all-World goalie Roberto Luongo. Their backup is Andrew Raycroft, a guy who has bounced around and was chased out of Toronto despite their goalie struggles because he was playing so poorly. You’d expect a fall in performance then, but that just isn’t the case – they were just 6-6 with Luongo, but they are 3-1 with Raycroft. Even more surprising, Raycroft has allowed just two goals in those three wins. Atlanta is another interesting case. Ilya Kovalchuk is by far their best player, and he was off to a good start, but now he’s out of action for several weeks. The team lost the last three games with Kovalchuk in the lineup. They lost the first one he was out for as well, but then bounced back and have won two in a row. The natural reaction would be that a team built around one star would struggle without that star, but the Thrashers won a high scoring game in Montreal tonight. Interesting stuff, even if it is anecdotal.

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It is not a good time to be a referee. Or at least a bad referee. We have seen bad calls happen at at least the same rate as usual, but league’s are doing something about it. First, the SEC announced this week that  they have suspended the crew that made the bone-headed mystery calls against Arkansas in the Florida game. Now, MLB has changed their policy for selecting the World Series umpire crew. Typically they include at least one ump making his World Series debut so that they can add to the total of experienced World Series umps in the league. The large number of very poor calls in the playoffs so far, though, has forced them to get nervous about the situation and attempt to ensure the best refereeing they can get. To do that they are reportedly going to establish a crew made up mostly of crew chiefs, and entirely of veteran, experienced umpires. That won’t mean that there won’t be problems, but it is nice to see the league take things seriously and try to do something about it – at least until they can get a workable instant replay system in place.

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It is not a good time to be a referee. Or at least a bad referee. We have seen bad calls happen at at least the same rate as usual, but league’s are doing something about it. First, the SEC announced this week that  they have suspended the crew that made the bone-headed mystery calls against Arkansas in the Florida game. Now, MLB has changed their policy for selecting the World Series umpire crew. Typically they include at least one ump making his World Series debut so that they can add to the total of experienced World Series umps in the league. The large number of very poor calls in the playoffs so far, though, has forced them to get nervous about the situation and attempt to ensure the best refereeing they can get. To do that they are reportedly going to establish a crew made up mostly of crew chiefs, and entirely of veteran, experienced umpires. That won’t mean that there won’t be problems, but it is nice to see the league take things seriously and try to do something about it – at least until they can get a workable instant replay system in place.

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The sports world is always good at producing news that makes you go ‘huh?!?’. There is lots to choose from that fits into that category today:

- Jay Cutler has spent a fairly long interview finding all sorts of ways to tell the world how much be respects Josh McDaniel. Among the head scratching quotes: “Just the brief amount of time I was able to spend with him, he’s impressive. He knows a lot about offenses, he knows a lot about getting guys open and scoring points, as everyone’s seen when he was in New England”. Remind me again why Cutler fought so hard and like such a baby to get away from the team? By the sounds of that quote t sounds like the right thing to do would have been to suck it up and be a part of things there. It’s not like he landed in a significantly better place offensively in Chicago. Bizarre.

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The NCAA is ridiculous. Yet again, they have chosen to punish a school in a way that does nothing to actually deter schools from doing things wrong. I’m talking, of course, about Memphis’ moronic punishment that was handed down yesterday. If you missed it, the school has been forced to vacate all 38 wins from two years ago – the year they lost in the championship game to Kansas by blowing the last couple of minutes of the game then tripping up badly in overtime. They will also be on probation for three years, though they lose no scholarships or postseason eligibility during that time. There are a couple of violations at issue, but the main one is that Derrick Rose likely wasn’t eligible for the season.

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This US Open may never end. It’s reasonably entertaining, but it is so inconsistent and the weather is such a factor that there will be an asterisk the size of my head beside the name of whoever wins this one. At this rate Monday golf seems like a lock, and Tuesday could even be a possibility if things don’t change. I golfed on Friday with a woman whose boss paid a ridiculous amount of money to golf with Tiger Woods at a charity event. On Tuesday. It would be crushing to miss out of something like that. Of course, Tiger might not be in much of a mood to golf on Tuesday given how he has played so far, so maybe missing out would be a lucky thing.

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Cal State Fullerton picked a very, very bad time to hit the skids. Not only were they the second seed in the College World Series, but they had a relatively easy draw as well – Arkansas is red hot, but they slumped badly heading into the postseason, and Virginia had never been in the CWS before. Two bad games, though, and it’s back to Fullerton for them. They lost a wild one to Arkansas for their first lost in the double elimination tourney, then waited too long to wake up and mount a comeback against Virginia today. They were heavy -280 favorites today, so people who could find a reason to back Virginia are happy campers right now. A best-of-one tournament like this is very hard to handicap, but it is brilliant to watch and it deserves more coverage and respect than it gets (though the coverage has improved infinitely recently).

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