NCAA Basketball Tournament
Women’s
Per ESPN, South Carolina’s victory over Iowa in the women’s NCAA championship game Sunday had a preliminary audience average of 18.7 million on ABC and ESPN. The only sporting events in the United States to draw a bigger TV audience since 2019 have been football, the World Cup and the Olympics.
The audience numbers are expected to increase when Nielsen releases its final numbers Tuesday. Nielsen said the audience peaked at 24 million. It’s the most-watched basketball game since 2019, when the men’s NCAA title game between Virginia and Texas Tech averaged 19.6 million on CBS.
This is a tribute to the quality of the women’s game. It appeals to the public because it is fun to watch, and it is not played by athletes who are so big they can dunk without effort or can jump and hit their head on the rim. Fundamentals are critical to success.
Caitlin Clark opened the country’s eyes to the quality of women’s basketball. The rest of the women used the opportunity to show that they have “game” and do not need to take a backseat to the men’s game.
Men’s Finals
The Connecticut Huskies won their second straight NCAA Men’s National Basketball Championship. They did it in a manner that I did not think was possible. They have marched through every NCAA tournament opponent, this year and last year, winning 12 straight games by no fewer than 13 points. It is domination like I have not seen since John Wooden led the UCLA Bruins to seven titles in a row. Here are my thoughts on the game.
- The game plan put together by Coach Hurley was genius. He didn’t care how many points Zack Eady scored as long as he could keep the remaining team members under 20. Eady scored 37, the rest of the team 23. See my Quote of the Day
- UConn was efficient on offense but won with their defense. The second leading three-point shooting team in the country was held to less than seven three-point attempts. They made one. This was a tribute to the gameplan and the tremendous defensive effort on the perimeter by Connecticut defenders.
- The matchup between the two 7-footers was fun to watch. Eady with his 7’4” 300 lbs. frame and Clingan with his 7’2” 280 lbs. frame were fighting for every inch of territory in the paint.
- Purdue is at its best when Eady can find open three-point shooters. The gameplan and defensive effort of Connecticut did not allow that to happen.
- Dan Hurley may have taken a back seat to his brother Bobby as a player, but there is no doubt who is the better coach. Hurley will go down as one of the greatest coaches in NCAA history by the time his career ends.
Don’t piss off the judge.
Judge Chery Matthews did not take kindly to a mother and father who tried to run from the law, were blind to their child’s mental health issues, and provided the gun that killed four Oxford High School students and injured three others. Per the Detroit News she threw the book at them and was not buying into their defense.
Two years after their son gunned down four classmates at Oxford High School, an Oakland County judge on Tuesday sentenced James and Jennifer Crumbley to 10 to 15 years in prison, rejecting the idea they were convicted for bad parenting and instead saying they missed repeated opportunities to stop the tragedy.
James and Jennifer Crumbley, who showed little emotion as the sentence was read, were given the maximum sentence allowed by law by Oakland County Circuit Judge Cheryl Matthews for their gross negligence that contributed to the 2021 high school shooting carried out by their son, Ethan. The sentence — for four counts each of involuntary manslaughter — was in line with what prosecutors had sought.
“Opportunity knocked over and over again and was ignored,” said Matthews, who went above the guidelines of 29 to 57 months. “No one answered.”
Putin and the former president appear connected in more ways than we would like to think.
This from Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American.
Clint Watts, the head of Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center, told the Washington Post’s Belton and Menn: “The impact of the Russian program over the last decade…is seen in the U.S. congressional debate over Ukraine aid…. They have had an impact in a strategic aggregate way.”
The Trump loyalists echoing Russia who have taken control of the Republican Party appear to be hardening into a phalanx around the former president. Fiona Hill told the Washington Post reporters that Trump’s team “is thinking…that this is just a Ukraine-Russia thing…rather than one about the whole future of European security and the world order.”
After meeting with Trump last month, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán said Trump told him he would accomplish “peace” by cutting off funds to Ukraine. Trump’s team said Orbán’s comment was false, but it is worth noting that this plan echoes the one acknowledged by Trump’s 2016 campaign director Paul Manafort as the goal of Russian aid to Trump’s campaign.
Trump’s MAGA loyalists in the House of Representatives have held up funding for Ukraine for six months. Although a national security supplemental bill that would fund Ukraine has passed the Senate and would pass the House if it were brought to the floor, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) refuses to bring it to the floor.
This explains everything. It is not me, it was the parks where I played that caused the problems.
When I read the following from the Detroit News today, I had to chuckle. It might explain why so many of us growing up in River Rouge are a little on the “wacky” side.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is removing soil contaminated with lead and cadmium from Belanger Park, a waterfront park with a playground, picnic areas and a boat launch in the city of River Rouge.
The agency will replace the contaminated soil with clean soil and replant in the park along the Detroit River. The work started April 1 and will continue through mid-June, the EPA said in a press release.
The city of River Rouge requested environmental officials take soil samples at Belanger Park, the Great Lakes Athletic Field and John Jakubowski Park after identifying elevated lead levels, an EPA spokesperson said.
As a kid and teenager, I spent countless hours at Great Lakes Athletic Field and Bellanger Park. If I was not at one park I would be at the other. The amount of dirt and dust that went into my body from Great Lakes Athletic Field when I was growing up is hard to imagine. Combine that with the pollution from DTE, Great Lake Steel, Peerless Cement, Whitehead and Kales, the Marathon refinery, FOMOCO, and a whole lot more pollution and it is amazing I have lived as long as I have.
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Quote of the Day. We didn’t care if Zach (Edey) took 25, 28 shots to get 30, 35 points. This whole game plan was no Smith, no Loyer, no Gillis, no Jones. Keep that collective group under 18, 20 points as a group, they had no chance to win no matter how well Zach played.” Connecticut men’s basketball Coach Dan Hurley
Orchid of the Day: Connecticut men’s basketball team. Two national titles in a row, plus beating every NCAA tournament opponent by at least 13 points in the last two years. An amazing accomplishment.
Onion of the Day: James and Jennifer Crumbley.
Question of the Day: Zach Eady has been a great college player. Will he be successful in the NBA, or will he need to take his game to Europe to find success at the pro level?
Video of the Day: Zach Eady is more than just a basketball player
Purdue Boilermakers star Zach Edey on his unlikely path to basketball success (youtube.com)