Wednesday’s 2023 NCAA Tournament Notes
As the Sweet Sixteen approaches
As you all know, March is Madness because of the tournament but also because of the stuff that happens off the court.
Already we’ve seen Rick Pitino jump to St. John’s, Ed Cooley go to Georgetown, Paul Mills leave Oral Roberts for Wichita State, Tobin Anderson to Iona and Mike Brey to...TV.
It was reported Monday that Brey had taken the South Florida job but apparently not: he says he’s going to do TV instead. Why not? Everybody loves the guy. He’s loose. Should be great.
Closer to home, Brad Brownell and Earl Grant both got extensions.
In this article from our colleague Ryan Cantor over at Shakin’ The Southland, he wonders if Brownell got an extension because Clemson is better or the ACC is worse.
It’s not a bad question but it kind of misses a couple of points. First, the ACC is in transition and second, so is the entire collegiate sports enterprise.
There is more uncertainty for everyone right now, but we can see some good things too.
First, Adrian Autrey is off to a solid start at Syracuse and the Orange will likely be better next year. We’ll have to wait to see how far he can take things, but it should be an improvement.
Grant has definitely been an improvement. He just finished his second year and you can say this about the Eagles: that team fights. It’s taking on his personality and it’s great to see.
No one can say for sure about Damon Stoudamire at Georgia Tech yet but we think he’s got a shot at being really good. Time will tell.
Jon Scheyer quickly proved that he is up to the job at Duke and he’ll only get better. By the way, here’s Coach K on his radio show talking about how Duke’s season ended. You’ll want to see this.
Apparently Notre Dame is locked in on Penn State’s Micah Shrewsbury now and that’s a good move if the Irish can pull it off.
And we’ve said more than once that Brownell is the best basketball coach Clemson has ever had. You could argue that it’s Rick Barnes, but Barnes gave up on Clemson, complaining that it was too hard to recruit there.
Brownell’s been there for 13 years and clearly wants to be there. So: Brownell 1, Barnes 0.
Recruiting at Clemson has always been tough, but Brownell has also shown immense skill in player development. He’s a great fit and we’re thrilled he got an extension.
In general, we think that coaching is the biggest factor and these guys will all help.
In other news, we kind of put this off but Antoine Davis is complaining that he “feels cheated” that he didn't get to the CBI to break Pete Maravich’s record. We can’t find it, but Brett Friedlander tweeted, basically asking if two more years than Maravich and the three point shot weren’t enough?
Fair point. If Maravich had had five years and the three point line, he might have finished with 7-8,000. Think about it.
If you want to see a good Twitter fight, check out the spat between Jeff Goodman and Dave Portnoy.