Bear Down Wildcats

Crazy. Never though it would end like that.

Before the meltdown and the gloaters in waiting crawl out from the woodwork, just want to say it's been a helluva season. Got bit by the season long bugaboo of slow starts: 10-2 first half, 11-1 second half.

Didn't want that first half to end, because we were cooking on both ends and were the aggressor. Was worried the halftime break would end it, and it did.

Feel bad for the guys, most of whom are leaving. Hat's off to T.J. The exodus in the coming days will bring more goodbyes.

Great season, incomprehensible ending. Take a break, coach. Don't read the nonsense here.

Bear Down.

Can't believe it.. AGAINST THIS D?

gumby wrote:Crazy. Never though it would end like that.

Before the meltdown and the gloaters in waiting crawl out from the woodwork, just want to say it's been a helluva season. Got bit by the season long bugaboo of slow starts: 10-2 first half, 11-1 second half.

Didn't want that first half to end, because we were cooking on both ends and were the aggressor. Was worried the halftime break would end it, and it did.

Feel bad for the guys, most of whom are leaving. Hat's off to T.J. The exodus in the coming days will bring more goodbyes.

Great season, incomprehensible ending. Take a break, coach. Don't read the nonsense here.

Bear Down.

Good post. Was fun watching this team but now back to the real world for a little while.

If you told me they would hit 10-12 threes including that one Dekker grazed the scoreboard with, I wouldn't have believed you. What next?

If you told me Dekker-Kam would score more than the entire Wisconsin team last year (in reg), I would've laughed. Wisconsin scored more in second half than in 40 minutes last year. In. Comp. Re. Hens. Ible.

55-45 in the second half. WTF? So much strangeness, from their three pointers to our free throws.

You can't stop 6'9 and 7'0 guys going nuts from 3, there is literally no defense created for that. You can't zone it, you can't man it, you can't do anything about it. Wisconsin made shots and there is nobody to blame.

We had them off balance in the first half. Despite the foul situation I only wish we would have ratcheted up the physical play. That would have been the only answer to getting them out of shooting rhythm. An impressive display for sure.

Proud of the team, I think they fought until the end.

Me, too. Despite the rain of threes, the team stayed in contact. If Arizona coverts off the Johnson steal, one possession game.

Sometimes you just get beat.

That's what happened. I can live with it. Certainly sucks, but last year we had the game won, gave it away, won it back, and had it robbed from our grasp.

This year, from the clawing back at 47-46, it was never truly in doubt. They hit open shots, they hit contested shots, they hit shots they had no business hitting.

We got beat.

Maybe this maybe that, but so long as they are rising up over the top and hitting at 60% or better, there's not a thing anybody can do short of matching the insane percentage, which is so flukish my guess is that team has never shot 10-12 in a half prior, nor will they ever again.

Been thinking a bunch about this game. Been trying to recall a more impressive burst of offense to close out a tourney game.

Reminds me a bit of 2011. A 5 seed going up against the 1 seed in the S16. The 5 getting beat convincingly at half but only down 6. The 5 then explodes for 60% shooting out of nowhere and also scores 55pts second half points en route to a blowout against the 9.5pt favorite 1 seed. I remember being in awe of the performance. The 1 seed was ranked 21st in defensive efficiency to boot, which isn't shabby.

That 5 seed, your Wildcats dismantling Duke. Prior to Saturday, the most impressive and improbable offensive display in the later rounds of the tourney that I can remember. And to consider that Wisky hung 55 on 74% shooting in the second half against the number 2 ranked defense, basically makes our performance that year look like child's play. It's hard to fathom.

Good comparison. Such a "where did that come from?" moment, after squeaking by Memphis and Texas. At the time, it was attributed to the game being in SoCal. Now ... not sure that mattered, given what Wisky did.

threenumberones wrote:Been thinking a bunch about this game. Been trying to recall a more impressive burst of offense to close out a tourney game.

Reminds me a bit of 2011. A 5 seed going up against the 1 seed in the S16. The 5 getting beat convincingly at half but only down 6. The 5 then explodes for 60% shooting out of nowhere and also scores 55pts second half points en route to a blowout against the 9.5pt favorite 1 seed. I remember being in awe of the performance. The 1 seed was ranked 21st in defensive efficiency to boot, which isn't shabby.

That 5 seed, your Wildcats dismantling Duke. Prior to Saturday, the most impressive and improbable offensive display in the later rounds of the tourney that I can remember. And to consider that Wisky hung 55 on 74% shooting in the second half against the number 2 ranked defense, basically makes our performance that year look like child's play. It's hard to fathom.

That is a great comparison that only makes me feel minutely better.

The very design of Miller's packline defense is to invite your opponent to shoot contested perimeter jumpers. UA was beaten in that very way, Wisconsin having to attempt and make a very high percentage of perimeter shots in the 2nd half. Wisconsin took UA's dare, and won in a manner that most teams can not and would not execute.

Been thinking about this since Saturday night, even suggested it on another board, but the only performance I can ever remember in the history of college basketball that exceeds what Wisconsin did from a shooting perspective - that I've seen - is the 1985 Villanova team that shot 79% from the field for the game against Georgetown. 22-28 from the field, 22-27 from the FT line, won by 2.

I can't remember anyone shooting 10-12 from three for a half. I can't remember a team staying that hot from 3, consistently for an entire half of basketball - it's not like they had a hot stretch and made 5 threes in 7 minutes, they were evenly spread out, and made by 5 different players. Wisconsin as a team shot 15-19 from the field in the 2nd half. Which happens to be approximately 79%, a familiar figure.

That, is the effort it took to beat UA on Saturday. A UA team that shot 55.8% from the field, 93.3% from the line on 30 FTA, outrebounded their opponent and forced the best team in the country at avoiding fouls to commit a season high 21 of them. I think as we get some distance from this game, the perspective that most will have is that UA was beaten by one of the all-time great shooting performances in NCAA Tournament history.

Nova was also the year before the shot clock was introduced and two before the 3 pointer. The shot clock let you work for better shots and the 3 gives incentive to take lower percentage shots. It's not crazy to think we saw the best shooting half of NCAA tourney basketball ever.