Basketball from a fan’s perspective

A mammoth game

Victor Wembanyama led the Spurs to victory in an OT win over the Nets 122-115. I tend to use the same expression continuously when a player has an outstanding game and that was the case Sunday. “He filled up the box score” and it certainly was true in the case of the Sunday evening game. Usually on those occasions you read of a triple-double OT you figure “Ya, he got it because the game went into OT.”  That was not the case in this game, Wemby’s triple-double occurred before the extra session.

He just added numbers to those existing earlier. Check this Sunday evening game Wemby contributed to the Spurs victory, 33 points, 16 rebounds along with 7 assists and 7 steals. For the game Wemby shot 53.8% from the floor, his 3-point shot and free throw shooting were the only negatives for his outstanding game. The Spurs continued to display their youth at times which has been evident in most of the losses I’ve been able to see. What confused me to a degree was the unusual offense interim coach Kevin Ollie used, 6-1 Dennis Schroeder was often guarding the 7-4 Wemby. I did notice a couple of instances when the guard forced the taller Wemby into a turnover.

March Madness

We refer to it as March Madness…NCAA Tournament Time. For those among you who work in offices don’t expect a great deal of labor output over the next week or so. It’s that time of year, 68 college teams will have earned an invite and placed in brackets according to the experts. Your duty is to figure out which team becomes the 2024 NCAA Champion. You might have a case similar to this, team A has a better record but fails to have as many quad 1 wins as team B.

Many of us on Sunday evening began working on our bracket. The portion that’s always peaked my curiosity, do you pick your alma mater out of loyalty or the fact they might be the better team. How about the upsets, annually there is always a lower seeded team beating one ranked above them. Just for your information a 9 seed beating an 8 seed is not an upset in my book. The question, how do you choose an upset? As a reminder the top four seeds are Houston, UConn, Purdue and North Carolina, will it be one of them or some other team?

What in the world?

After returning home from my weekend retreat I didn’t have the time nor inclination to watch an NBA double-header. Based on the NBA TV schedule the earlier game (Nets at Spurs) would be the choice. Believing the Clippers to be healthy and at home plus no Trae Young for the Hawks…slam dunk. That’s what I believed ahead of time, the slam dunk turned out to be the other guys. This account is not complete, because I failed to see all of the game. My first WOW, checking my phone and discovering the Hawks held a 61 to 44 lead at half time, that can’t be right can it, only it was? As for the second half of the game it didn’t get much better for the Clippers, the final score read Hawks 110 Clippers 93.

Checking the box score this is what I discovered, as a team the Clippers shot a collective 37.8% from the floor. Tell me friends, you have a team comprised of Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and James Harden plus reserves and you can’t shoot any better than 37%. As for the Hawks it was their 3-point shot that dropped all evening long, they managed a sizzling 50% from the 3 line. This is from ESPN.com’s NBA page: “Clips, after losing 4 of 5, say they need identity”, tell me what is that saying? The NBA season is winding down the playoffs will begin next month and there is locker room talk of that type. This Clipper team is confusing to me, every time it appears they are primed for a deep playoff run they arrive at a stretch of play similar to this. I intend in the future to adopt a wait and see attitude with this team because Tyronn Lue and I have no idea which team shows up.

Bits n Pieces 

On more than one occasion I’ve mentioned the 100-point scoring game Wilt Chamberlain had for the Philadelphia Warriors in 1962. Did you know there was another player scoring the same total? Unlike the NBA record this one is for the most part is little mentioned. On February 13, 1954, Frank Selvy playing for Furman University located in Greenville, South Carolina scored 100 points against Newberry College located in Newberry South Carolina. Why so little mention of the Selvy reason it was this reason alone. Furman is a Division I program however Newberry was a Division II program in 1954 as it is today. Selvy would have a 10-year NBA career playing for a number of teams, Selvy is still living at 91 years of age.

I tuned into the Spurs-Nets game about 3-4 minutes after it started. I saw “Frost Bank” on the floor and guessed the game was played in San Antonio, that was not the case. Monday morning I discovered the game was played on the campus at the University of Texas in Austin. Moody Center opened in 2022 and seats over 16,000 for basketball. I also found out Austin is about 80 miles from San Antonio and this game being played there had an additional purpose. This might be an example of the effort to increase the number of fans to a planned new San Antonio arena.

How about this description of a prospects potential? I’ve mentioned in the past player you are familiar with aids us in discovering the caliber of the athlete. The following are just a few examples, one 2024 prospect is described as a “Bigger Mike Miller,” while another becomes “less bouncy TMac” (whatever that entails). There are others, “SGA lite” (Shai Gilgeous Alexander) along with “Bouncy Stephon Marbury.” Another prospect is referred to as “a rich man’s Dragic,” again requiring an explanation. This particular website places the names in parenthesis behind a number of their prospects.

I conducted a bit of research on this one, the year was 1977 check this out. A Chevy Impala/Caprice fresh off the assembly line would set you back $4,900.65, $1.00 back then is equivalent to $5.27 today. The top pop tune that year was Tonight’s the Night by Rod Stewart, on the R&B chart it was Serpentine Fire by Earth, Wind and Fire. At the movie theatre it was released as Star Wars, since then it’s become Episode IV- A New Hope. What’s the deal with the fixation on 1977, I’m pleased you asked the question? Duquesne University’s made the field of 68 for the NCAA Tournament, this will be the school’s first appearance in the tourney since 1977 exactly 47 years ago.