Hello again, friends and people reading their phone to avoid eye contact, and welcome to another Shot Takers Mailbag.
We are hurtling toward Selection Sunday. Let us rejoice and be glad that February is the shortest month of the year.
You have questions. Dana O’Neil and I have answers, like them or not. Now is the time we mail!
Give me two teams who were in the initial seed rankings by the committee who will not make the Sweet 16, and two who were not on the list who will. – Steve K.
Brian: I’ll go first, primarily to steal teams before Dana gets a chance to answer.
Wisconsin’s tailspin here over the last month — heading into Tuesday’s home game against Maryland, it was five losses in six games, and just a few missed Minnesota free throws away from six in eight — is concerning. But even viewing the season with a wider scope isn’t overly encouraging. Marquette is the best win, and it was at home in early December. The Badgers are one of the worst teams in the country, statistically, in defending the 3-point line, and they’re not adept at forcing turnovers either. And then I’ll take a flyer on San Diego State. The Aztecs’ offensive limitations leave them vulnerable to close games and nutty things happening late. Also, when you ride the good vibes to a surprise Final Four appearance one year, the cynic in me wonders about the universe balancing the scales the next spring.
It’s then probably counterintuitive to peg Saint Mary’s as a Sweet 16 team, since the Gaels are similarly brutish defensively and similarly ho-hum offensively. But this is my mailbag and I do what I want. The combination of the physicality and the numbingly slow tempo can be jarring, and Randy Bennett has a guard (Aidan Mahaney) who is capable of scoring like a first-team All-American. And Creighton is sitting right there. Going into Tuesday, the Bluejays were a top-15 team per KenPom and Evan Miyakawa. All the losses in Big East play have been close, save for the first matchup with UConn, and now that favor has been returned in Omaha. There are pros in the lineup that’s also the eighth-most experienced in Division I, per KenPom. It’s not exactly brave to play the odds with this pick, but I’m not the one who disregarded a power-conference team with a top-20 offense and a top-25 defense.
Dana: I would, had Hamilton not thieved the choice, gone with the Badgers. The slide is alarming, but the lack of real meat on this top-16 bone is concerning. But since he jumped the line, I’ll pivot. I’ll start with Baylor. I like the Bears, and there is nothing astronomically wrong with their numbers. They defend. They score. Still, I can’t help but wonder (insert Carrie Bradshaw here) if their success is not, in large part, due to the inflation of the Big 12. Baylor’s league wins are against just one team (Iowa State) in the top tier of the conference, and that was at home. That’s probably too simplistic, but that’s me.
And since no one said we can’t agree, I’m siding with Brian here on San Diego State. The offensive limitations are real, but I really don’t believe in lightning striking twice.
As for the teams on the outside, the pickings are slim. If — and this a ridiculously large if — Kentucky can defend like it did against Auburn, the Wildcats are onto something. Is there reason to believe that they can? Not really. But even without it, their offense is so sublime that it could overcome a first-weekend slide. And when all else fails, there is Reed Sheppard. I can make a similar — slightly flimsy and offense-oriented — argument for BYU.
GO DEEPER
John Calipari and Kentucky flex with big win at Auburn
But it’s Creighton. Especially after stomping UConn, it’s Creighton.
Rick Pitino’s postgame diatribe after the Seton Hall game was jaw-dropping. Was that supposed to be motivating? Is he hoping to get fired? In this day and age of helicopter parenting and an overactive transfer portal, what chance does he have to bring in a decent team next year? – Brigid S.
Dana: As I wrote, this is vintage Pitino. Does that make it a good thing? No. Does it work? Usually. I understand the argument that people won’t want to play for him, but frankly the people that can’t stomach him honestly should not, in fact, play for him. He said in public what he no doubt shares even less politely in practice.
GO DEEPER
Rick Pitino’s latest rant is just another episode in the coach’s long-running show
He handpicked this team, but he picked it in a hurry. It is not how he generally does business. Pitino develops talent; he doesn’t go out and get it. My guess is he gets back to his way of doing business, and this is a kerfuffle that passes.
Brian: While I understand that Rick Pitino is gonna Rick Pitino, it’s a little bit old-man-yells-at-cloud to me for a couple reasons. One is that it’s his first year on the job, and as Brigid suggests … I don’t know, maybe chill? So you don’t run the risk of turning off potential recruits and transfer targets before you start winning a bunch? But mostly it’s hilarious that he ran down his talent when it is talent he chose. Pitino cleared out the leftover morsels of locker room poison from the Mike Anderson regime. He wasn’t left with someone else’s problems. He picked these guys to play for him. Whatever it looks like, Pitino actually doesn’t have anyone to blame but himself. For now.
Does USC true freshman Isaiah Collier leave for the NBA after a rough first season? Projected among the top picks but has shown poor outside shot with a lot of out-of-control turnovers. And does Bronny James stay or go? – Don N.
Brian: Without a direct line into the Collier camp, I’d describe the chances of Collier returning to USC for the 2024-25 season thusly:
The Trojans are one of the biggest disappointments in the country. Collier is a top-15 pick in The Athletic’s latest NBA mock draft, released just this week. If he doesn’t turn pro, which he almost certainly will, he’s not going to be running it back in the same situation.
Bronny James, meanwhile, should stay. Of course he should stay. He’s nowhere near ready to be a pro. But if Dad wants to play with him before he’s done, and a team is willing to use a roster spot for Bronny as an enticement, anything is possible.
GO DEEPER
Marks: The Bronny James experience at USC raises more questions than it answers
Dana: I would say the odds of Collier returning to USC are about as good as Andy Enfield’s. Which is to say, not good. Your points about his play are not inaccurate, but the NBA drafts on potential and upside as much as — if not more than — actual play on the court. Whatever limitations Collier has won’t prevent him from being a first-round pick, which means there is no need to return.
As for Bronny, what he should do and what he will do always has been the point of inflection. I think almost everyone who has watched Bronny play this year, who understands his delayed start with the heart issue, would agree that staying in college is the smart choice. But the but. If his father is brokering a deal with NBA teams to take Bronny and ensure his services as well, then what should be done is wildly irrelevant.
RE: the coaching carousel, how likely is it that UConn has the same staff next season? – Evan P.
Dana: I have grown incredibly weary of the recycled coach carousel, and frankly, athletic directors should, too.
The demands of the profession have changed exponentially, and schools need new blood — and young(er) blood — in my opinion. Coaches like Luke Murray and Kimani Young who not only understand how to X-and-O but how to manage NIL, carefully navigate the portal and handle all of the front-facing duties of head coaching should be popular calls.
I am certain they will be smart and patient in their selection. The jump at the first job offered era also is over, even for assistants, but the sport could use a breath of fresh air. Both would be refreshing.
Brian: Agree. Increasingly, I wonder if assistant coaches at powerhouse programs might be inclined to get pickier and pickier. Life is pretty good at UConn, what with the winning and the basketball-first league and two more four-star prospects coming in next season. Meanwhile, at a school in the market for a new head coach, there likely will be all sorts of problems. And fewer resources available to solve them. And quite possibly a smaller paycheck, or at least one that’s not overwhelmingly larger. If the Huskies make another Final Four, yes, I’d anticipate coaches like Young and Murray guessing their stock is as high as it possibly can be and figuring it’s simply the right time to go. But I bet they think hard about what they’d be leaving behind, too.
What are some mid-major teams that could win a game if they get in from one-bid leagues? – Michael M.
Brian: I’m old enough to remember when James Madison was a top-25 team and we were talking about an undefeated regular season, but that’s an easy one. How about Grand Canyon? Turns out Bryce Drew can coach a little, and maybe the Vanderbilt demise was a product of bad injury luck as much as anything. The Lopes get to the free-throw line a ton and don’t make it easy to make shots on the other end — 30th nationally in effective field-goal percentage defense, as of Tuesday — so they might benefit from sheer frustration of higher-seeded foes. Of course, the Lopes aren’t overly tested; they’ve played one Quad 1 opponent all season. (San Diego State, and they did win that one.) But the entire premise is looking at longer shots. Grand Canyon shapes up pretty well that way.
It didn’t take long for Will Wade to build a winner at McNeese State. (Rick Osentoski / USA Today)
Dana: I will hold my nose as I type this, but why not McNeese State from the Southland? No one ever said Will Wade couldn’t coach, only that he couldn’t color in the lines. He has proven his coaching acumen in year one, with the Cowboys a stout 12-1 in conference.
The recipe for a grand upset of this scale generally includes 3-point shooting, and McNeese hits an eye-popping 40 percent from the arc. Yet the Cowboys can also defend — a respectable 85th per KenPom — and don’t turn the ball over hardly at all. Admittedly they have played no one — unless you can’t Michigan, and who does? But Wade is no stranger to March, having been there both with VCU and LSU, and he’s operated as an underdog, too. In 2016, the 10th-seeded Rams upset Oregon State in the first round
What’s your take on why the wheels have fallen off at Arkansas this season? Is this just a result of relying so heavily on transfers or is it more than that? – William H.
Dana: Something surely isn’t right in Fayetteville. The Muss bus is heading to a bust of a season. Davonte Davis’ sudden departure — and return — from the team seems emblematic of the bigger issue. There’s no continuity or connection on the court, and apparently not in the locker room.
This is, yes, in part due to loading up on transfers and hoping they all get along like a bunch of kids around a campfire. Whatever magic pixie dust Eric Musselman had has apparently run dry.
Statistically, the Razorbacks are a disaster — bad overall shooting and even worse from the arc. They don’t rebound terribly well and aren’t causing the chaos with turnovers like normal.
It reads like a lost season, and the big question is: Is it merely a one-off?
Brian: As ever, we get a mailbag question about a burgeoning disaster, and the team we’re writing about goes ahead and wins a game, as Arkansas did at Texas A&M on Tuesday. But that’s one game. The almost across-the-board regression — save for Tramon Mark, who has career-best numbers offensively and therefore individually appears to have gotten what he came to Fayetteville for — suggests a bad combination of players totally unhappy or uncomfortable with their roles. That’s certainly a risk you run patching holes in the portal year after year. Usually, Musselman and his staff get it right. It’s not right in 2023-24.
Trevon Brazile’s knee has betrayed him on the road back from an ACL tear. Khalif Battle hasn’t come close to matching his production at Temple. Same thing with El Ellis. Davis’ shooting has plunged, to say nothing of instability of his availability, as Dana noted. In short? Most of the players Arkansas needed to be good haven’t been good, for whatever reason.
This is just the view from the outside, but unhappy players can become malcontents. And that can turn a locker room into a dumpster fire. Seasons get torpedoed. Musselman isn’t exactly known for taking failure well; I still remember him looking furious to the point of being completely checked out late in a Sweet 16 blowout loss to UConn last spring. Cooler heads have to prevail. But they can’t when everyone’s hair is on fire.
(Top photo of Baylor Scheierman and Trey Alexander: Rebecca S. Gratz / AP)
