For those who were intelligent enough to avoid watching ESPN's over-hyped love affair of Lebron and Cleveland's mutual hatred and collective stupidity, perhaps saw a great college basketball game between two college basketball powerhouses.
Too bad the refs robbed UCLA and basketball fans everywhere of an rightful overtime period with that inane foul call. So I've decided to just call it a 66-66 tie.
The Good
Honeycutt played the best game of his career finishing with 33 points, including a clutch game-tying NBA 3 pointer with 5.9 seconds left. He shot 5-6 on 3 pointers, even getting fouled twice for 4 point plays, both of which he converted. It was basically his national coming out party as a premier college player. He single-handedly kept us in the game. And the refs robbed everyone of the chance to see how he'd play in OT. By the way, he's leaving for the draft next year.
Joshua Smith also played the best game of his young career, all 6 games of it. Coming off the bench was an ingenious move by Coach Howland and it kept our big frosh out of early foul trouble. In fact, he ended up with only 2 fouls. Though Smith still needs to work on his low post footwork (and FTs) - he seems to have a predisposition to awkwardly turning the wrong way under the basket, he was still able to physically dominate the paint to the tune of 17 points, 13 rebounds including 8 offensive boards. He's getting better.
(By the way Joshua, stop self-consciously pulling on your jersey as if those constant tugs will stretch it out enough so that nobody will notice your weight. This reminds me of the time that the Lakers and Celtics agreed to play a game in throwbacks, complete with short shorts. Except that the Celtics reneged and came out with knee longs. It was the ultimate screw you. The Lakers played embarrassed the entire first half just dying to get into the locker room for a change. They kept tugging at their shorts at every stoppage. Hilarious. Anyway, Josh, go work out harder or ask for a bigger jersey. Speaking of which, why is Adidas messing with tradition? The lettering on the back should be straight across, not curved. They messed up the football unis already but don't touch bball, please. Anyway, in the meantime, instead of feeling so self-conscious, go dunk on somebody.)
The Bad
Malcolm Lee only scored 4 points. On a night where Tyler is on fire, you could understand a slightly subpar scoring production from our leader and starting SG. But 4 points is not enough.
Reeves Nelson has dominated inferior teams with inferior big men, but he was rendered just ordinary vs an elite Kansas frontcourt, at least for one night. Though Kansas isn't overwhelmingly big, they are skilled and Nelson had a difficult time finding enough space to score. He also has a problem with forcing his shot up when he should be passing, which can work vs the Cal States, but not always against the KUs. He finished with only 5 points and 5 rebounds. However, I still haven't forgotten when Nelson outplayed Cole Aldrich vs KU last year. He has what it takes.
The Ugly
With the introduction of the uptempo offense, we all knew that an increased number of turnovers would come with it. I just forgot how frustrating it is to watch. It killed us last week in that maddeningly winnable game vs VCU where we gave up possession 21 times, including in our last 2 real possessions. Argh. Last night, we committed another 19. Alarmingly, our PGs combined for 9 of those (Zeke 4, Jerime 5) while Reeves committed another 4.
The final foul call was preposterous. A tied game. 2 players going for a loose ball. Malcolm hesitated but still got his hand on it first. It was an easy no call. And it was a horrible ending to a great game.
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