Quick Notes

Here’s some quick random notes on various things that I don’t want to wait until Friday to comment on:

1) After catching just a small portion of Knight School, the ESPN reality show about Bobby Knight conducting a walk-on tryout at Texas Tech, I’m pretty sure that this is the greatest television program in history. I’ll save deeper comments for later, since there’s bound to be a lot to comment on.

2) UWM lost to Missouri State in the Bracket Buster this weekend. Two things stuck out to me while sitting at the game. First, UWM really needs Adrian Tigert back. Second, the guy in front of me who was wearing headphones to listen to the broadcast of the game and berating the refs in the final minutes confirmed something I was already pretty sure that I knew: People who listen to broadcasts of games that they are attending are tremendous dorks. (Apologies to anyone reading this who might be offended, but well, how can you not already be aware of this?)

3) High school tournament seeding meetings took place this weekend, and as usual, there are some weird things to note. Most notably, Tosa East got the #1 seed over Milwaukee King in the upper regional of Sectional #8. I’m still scratching my head at how this is possible, as King has been the #1 ranked team in the state by the AP for, if I’m not mistaken, the entire season. If the #1 team in the state can’t get a #1 seed in its own regional, what must one do to merit the #1 seed?

The only possible reasoning for this seeding decision would have to be that though neither team has lost to a Wisconsin opponent, King has three losses to out of state foes, as compared to Tosa East’s one loss. That reasoning doesn’t hold much water with me, though, given that Tosa East’s one loss came in Milwaukee against the only out-of-state opponent that they played all year. King’s losses came on the road against nationally ranked opponents that comprised a good portion of their schedule. And the Generals picked up some huge out of state wins, too.

At the end of the day, I think the make-up of the regional will dictate that the #1 seed isn’t actually a huge advantage over the #2, but I still think King deserved the #1. I may be a Tosa East homer, but even I can see that there’s just something that isn’t quite right about this.

4) Five minutes for Marquette’s Ryan Amoroso against Pitt, following a DNP against Georgetown. I’m sort of conflicted about this development. On one hand, Amoroso, one of Marquette’s more talented frontcourt players can’t seem to get off the bench. Given his current pattern of minutes (he’s not totally relegated to the bench, but is spending most of his time there) and Marquette’s recent history of transfers, the possibility of an Amoroso transfer has to be sitting in the back of your mind. On the other hand, for the past couple of games Tom Crean has finally gone with a consistent rotation of just two big men (Ousmane Barro and Chris Grimm), and judging by the results, it seems to be working splendidly. When Marquette’s knocking off two top-25 teams, how can I knock the rotation (particularly when much of the success is due to giving out consistent minutes to big men, something I’ve been advocating all year long)?

5) I heard that a 5'9" guy won the NBA slam dunk contest, but obviously, I didn’t watch this ridiculous spectacle. But upon hearing this, my first thought was that perhaps that could be Dominic James in a few years.

6) Big congrats to UW-Whitewater for becoming the outright champs of the WIAC, the conference that encompasses all of Wisconsin’s state schools with division three teams. With a Big Ten-like grouping of teams at the top of the conference this year, it’s sort of surprising that one team could win an outright championship, so this is an accomplishment that the Warhawks can be happy about.