By Stan Caldwell
stanmansportsfan.com
So, we’re back with the next two rounds of Stan’s 2020 Mock NCAA Tournament.
But, first, let’s talk about the coronavirus, the reason we’re all sitting at home wishing we were watching college basketball.
Let’s be honest. Not having the NCAA Tournament sucks. No NBA or NHL, no MLB season blows. No college baseball, around here? Stinks. No high school ball, no track and field, no golf? No Olympics? A punch to the gut.
But. You know what else sucks? Watching your loved ones die, or, more likely, hearing about your friends and family dying, and you can’t even go to their funeral.
I’m not a medical person, but I’m married to a retired RN and two of my children are also in medical professions. My daughter works in the lab at Hattiesburg Clinic, so she’s close enough to the virus to not want to come around because she’s afraid she’s carrying it home from work.
This is serious business, people. This is real for me, and it should be for you. I turn 65 next month, and I’ve had heart surgery; my wife is 63 and has some underlying health issues as well. But we’re still relatively healthy for our age, and I’d like to keep it that way.
What I would consider an important report on the coronavirus response was published Sunday morning by the American Enterprise Institute, under the primary authorship of Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
Dr. Gottlieb outlines four phases that the nation must pass through in order to fully throttle COVID-19, and from the looks of the timeline, how long it takes to get to Phase 4, Readiness for the Next Pandemic, will depend on how long it takes to get a viable vaccine through the testing process and into widescale usage. I’m guessing that’s next year sometime.
Currently we are in Phase 1, which is slowing the spread of the disease across the country, something that isn’t happening in most places. The goal there is simply to save lives today, right now.
And the way to accomplish that right now is to shut down and avoid any places where crowds of people gather. Simple as that. Close all non-essential businesses and activities until we can not be losing as many lives as we did the day before.
In the mind of Dr. Gottlieb and his associates, to get to Phase 2, which is Reopening, State-by-State, states must show a sustained reduction in new cases for at least 14 days; its hospitals are safely able to treat all patients requiring hospitalization without resorting to triage; is able to test the entire population with coronavirus symptoms and is able to conduct active monitoring of confirmed cases and their contacts.
Since the rate of positive cases is multiplying in every state in the country every day, we are at least two weeks of sustained self-isolation from even beginning to meet the threshold for reopening non-essential businesses.
My personal guess, based on Sunday’s report, is we’re going to be (or should be) in lockdown in this country until May 1 at the earliest.
It is my studied opinion that any politician who insists on reopening the country for business as usual before the end of April does not have the country’s – does not have my nor your – best interests at heart.
I understand the hardship sustained closing is doing to the economy – to small businesses all over the country, including right here at home. But it’s something that must be done, and it’s not something that can be rushed.
OK. Now, let’s play basketball.
When we left the Caldwell Mock Tournament a week or so ago, we were ready for the Sweet Sixteen/Elite Eight to send four teams to Atlanta for the Final Four next Saturday and the following Monday night.
The bracket held close to form through the first two rounds. Of the Sweet Sixteen, 13 were among the top four seeds in each region.
The outliers: No. 5 Auburn and 6-seed West Virginia in the East, and upstart Houston, the eighth-seeded team in the West that knocked off No. 1 Gonzaga in the second round at Sacramento, California.
Let’s go through each regional and see how it might have played out, based on my interpretation of each team’s resume.
SWEET SIXTEEN
MIDWEST REGION
Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis
Kansas (30-2) vs. Kentucky (27-6)
The Jayhawks, the top overall seed in the tournament, bring the Big XII Player of the Year Udoke Azubuike, plus a first-team All-America in Marcus Garrett.
And KU is deep; seven different players led them in scoring this season, a testament to head coach Bill Self’s ability to get maximum effort out of his entire roster.
As usual, John Calipari put a young team on the floor this season – nine freshmen or sophomores – but the Wildcats’ key player was 6-11 junior Nick Richards, who averaged 14 points and 8 rebounds.
If Richards excels against Azubuike, Kentucky’s got a chance, and the ‘Cats were 4-0 in their last four games decided by five points or less. But not on this night. Jayhawks prevail behind another strong game from Azubuike.
Duke (27-6) vs. Creighton (26-7)
The Blue Jays of the Big East very quietly had a spectacular season, winning seven of their last eight games. Creighton had an up-tempo team that averaged 78 points a game.
Among those wins were a 22-point drubbing of Butler and a 17-point whipping of Seton Hall in their last game.
But the one they lost in the late season may offer a clue on how the Jays get ushered out of the NCAA Tournament. That was an inexplicable 20-point loss to St. John’s at Madison Square Garden in which the Red Storm hit 14 shots from 3-point range.
That would look awfully inviting for a Duke team that can run up and down the floor with the best of them and converted 35 percent out of more than 600 attempts from beyond the arc.
The Blue Devils win a shootout – Las Vegas put the over/under at 157 – hitting a dozen treys in a big victory.
EAST REGIONAL
Madison Square Garden, New York
Dayton (31-2) vs. Auburn (27-6)
One of the big disappointments of the cancellation of the tournament was that the country didn’t really get a chance to see the Cinderella Dayton Flyers.
With only average expectations coming into the season, Dayton coalesced into one of the best teams in the country behind Associated Press Player of the Year Obi Toppin and Coach of the Year Anthony Grant.
Toppin, a 6-9 sophomore forward, averaged 20 points and 7.5 rebounds for the Flyers, and he had plenty of help.
Coming off the high of reaching the Final Four for the first time in school history, Auburn won its first 15 games this season before finishing a more modest 10-6 over the second half of the season.
The wily Bruce Pearl used several elements from last season’s team to build another contender in the SEC. But in my view, I like the consistency of the Flyers over the up-and-down fortunes of the Tigers in this one.
West Virginia (23-10) vs. Villanova (26-7)
If anyone ever doubted the ability of Bob Huggins as a basketball coach, they should have been silenced with the way he approached the worst season of his career last year, coming back with another tough, aggressive West Virginia team.
A three-game losing streak (TCU, Texas and Oklahoma) probably dropped WVU to the 6-line in the East, but as we saw in the last round, they were tough enough to get past Michigan State.
But Villanova, a Big East blueblood, was having another championship-caliber season under the direction of coach Jay Wright.
The Wildcats played a ton of close games against ranked opponents, including a home win over Kansas, and they would have a big crowd behind them at the Garden. The Mountaineers put up a tough fight, but ‘Nova wins it.
WEST REGIONAL
Staples Center, Los Angeles
Houston (25-8) vs. Oregon (26-7)
We have a blueprint for how this game might have gone, as the Cougars traveled to Eugene to face the Ducks on Nov. 22.
You can’t always extrapolate how a result in November would affect a March matchup, nevertheless, it is noted that Oregon won this one 78-66, behind a strong 3-point shooting game (10 of 20 from downtown).
Houston was also 4-8 in games decided by six points or less, and with a veteran squad, that is enough to put the Ducks into the Elite Eight.
Seton Hall (23-9) vs. San Diego State (32-2)
The Aztecs were the last Division I team to lose a game, going 26-0 before dropping a 66-63 home decision to UNLV on Feb. 22. SDSU also lost in the Mountain West Tournament championship to Utah State on March 7.
Still, the Aztecs were poised for greatness, once they shook off the rust of a long layover between their game at the MWC Tournament and the beginning of the NCAA Tournament.
Seton Hall, which would have flown cross-country to play in the Sweet 16, was a hard team to handicap. The Pirates were ranked 16th in the country in the final polls, but they were only 3-4 in their last seven games, all against demanding opposition.
With San Diego only an hour or so down the freeway from Staples Center, SDSU would have had a big home-court advantage, enough to eliminate the team from New Jersey.
SOUTH REGION
NRG Stadium, Houston
Baylor (28-4) vs. Butler (24-9)
Any team that could go into Allen Fieldhouse on a Saturday afternoon and whip Kansas by a dozen deserves some props as a championship contender. The fact that KU came back to win the rematch at Waco mattered little.
The Bears did it with defense, holding opponents to 60.1 points per game, and they were big and physical.
Butler was on a nice little roll at the end of the season, after losing four of five in mid-February, but I don’t think Baylor would have been a good matchup for the Bulldogs, and I like the Bears, playing in their home state of Texas, to advance.
Maryland (26-7) vs. Florida State (28-5)
After losing three of four games in late February/first week of March, Maryland righted itself at the right moment, whipping Michigan by 13 to finish in a tie for first place in the Big Ten standings, and the Terrapins would have been the No. 1 seed in the Big Ten Tournament.
But their non-conference schedule was a little suspect, and Maryland would have come up against the very athletic Florida State Seminoles, a familiar foe from the days when both teams were in the ACC.
The Seminoles were deep, and they won some big games en route to the No. 1 seed in the ACC Tournament. Among their strengths was 3-point shooting – FSU was 35.1 percent from 3-point range, and that’s enough to get them past the Terps.
ELITE EIGHT
MIDWEST REGION
Kansas is not a team anyone would have wanted to play twice in a season, and this would have been a rematch of the season opener from November, a two-point win for the Blue Devils.
KU’s front line would have been a matchup nightmare for Duke, and in recent seasons, Self has seemed to have the knack for outcoaching Mike Krzyzewski in the Big Dance. It takes overtime, but the Jayhawks get the first of their redemption victories and move on to the Final Four.
EAST REGION
The clock strikes midnight for the Flyers, as Dayton is unable to get past Villanova in a thriller at Madison Square Garden.
The Wildcats get a pair of free throws to take a lead with seconds to play, then get a defensive stop, a blocked 3-point shot at the buzzer to hang on for a two-point victory.
WEST REGION
The advantages of playing close to home are evident in the House that Kobe Bryant Built, as San Diego State fans ride up I-5 to watch their Aztecs take a smashing victory over Oregon.
SDSU gets Ducks’ star Anthony Mathis in early foul trouble, build a big first-half lead, weather a fierce comeback in the first 10 minutes of the second half, then win going away to reach the Final Four for the first time.
SOUTH REGION
If you watched Kansas defeat Baylor in late February, you saw the formula for beating the Bears, attack the rim. And Florida State has waves of big kids who attack the rim with a vengeance.
Spurred on by the home crowd, Baylor battles the Seminoles hard for 35 minutes. But in the last five, it’s FSU that prevails, imposing its will on the blocks and getting to the Final Four for the first time since 1972.
So, as we head for the finish, then, it’s Kansas against Florida State in one semifinal, with Villanova and San Diego State in the other. Check back next week for the Final Four and National Championship Game.
Stan Caldwell is a 35-year veteran sports writer in the Hattiesburg area, and most recently served as sports information director at Pearl River Community College in Mississippi.
Ok, I like it…no second guesses on my part!