Updates on the Jazz, the NCAA Tournament and, you know, life
Well, the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament is over, and as has been the norm for the last 7 years, the tournament will end with at least some degree of disappointment on my end, since none of my three favorite men's b-ball teams will be hoisting the championship trophy. Not that I really held out much hope--my three teams were: 1) One of the most overrated 2-seeds in recent memory (Duke); 2) a 10-seed that hasn't played up to its potential at any point during the past two seasons (Arizona); and 3) a thoroughly mediocre team that didn't even qualify for the NCAA tournament (Utah). They didn't even qualify for the NIT, which is where the teams that are too sucky to go to the NCAAs go. Not only were they relegated to the CBI (which I believe stands for College Basketball Invitational), but they weren't even good enough to have homecourt in their opening round game. They did manage to win their first game, but then folded in their second one. So, they're about the 7th best team among the third tier of the college basketball world. That's some awesome stuff. But I take some comfort in the fact that they won more national tournament games than BYU did this year. Obviously, I'm trying REALLY hard to look at the glass half full here. The reality of the situation is that the Utes suck, Duke sucks (did they really think they were going to get anywhere in the tournament with no regular rotation player taller than 6'8''?), and Arizona is the biggest bunch of underachievers I've ever seen (a team with Bayless and Budinger can't manage to go .500 in the PAC-10 and can't even manage one tournament win? Seriously?)

On to "happier" things, such as the Jazz getting completely humiliated by the Lakers, on our homecourt, and on national television. Sad that that qualifies as "happier." There were only two marginally good things about that game:

1. Since my mom was out of town and since my dad hates basketball, I sold my extra ticket online for more than 7 times what we paid for it initially. If you're gonna watch your team suck, you might as well make a profit from it, right?

2. There was a particularly obnoxious Lakers fan sitting courtside with his bright yellow sweatshirt and a sign that most likely said something derogatory about the Jazz (actually, given the imagination and intelligence of the average Lakers fan, it probably just said something generic like "Kobe for MVP." Like we've never seen a sign like that before). At first, this guy really pissed me off, because I could tell he was a douchebag even from my seat way up in the nosebleed section. But during one of the timeouts, after a particularly hideous stretch of basketball that left the fans restless, they ran the traditional warning about not throwing things onto the court up on the Jumbotron. Right after this reminder, the Jazz Bear came out and started throwing t-shirts into the crowd, trying to inject some life back into the place. Somehow, the aforementioned obnoxious Lakers caught one of the shirts, and, in a feeble attempt to be clever, tossed it back out onto the court towards the Bear. Apparently, he didn't catch the warning about not throwing things on the floor, and about three security guys immediately surrounded him, escorted him off the court, and ejected him from the arena. Now, courtside Jazz tickets certainly aren't as expensive as they are for other franchises, but they do run in the thousands per game, and there's nothing the upper bowl loves more than seeing a spoiled fan of the opposing team booted out of his luxurious courtside seat. It was pretty awesome. Immediately after that moment of entertainment passed, I went back to wishing I had never gone to the game in the first place, though. 

But other than that loss, I can't complain too much about how the Jazz have played of late. Even though they let the Raptors, Sonics, and Bobcats hang around longer than they should have, they pulled it together when they had to, and can wrap up this 5-game homestand with a 4-1 record if they take care of the Clippers on Friday. If the playoffs started right now, however, I would recommence the complaining, since we'd be matched up with the Spurs in the first round. But the way things are headed, it's possible that things could shake out somewhat favorably for the Jazz. As of today, the playoff matchups would look like this:

(1) New Orleans Hornets vs. (8) Golden State Warriors
(2) L.A. Lakers vs. (7) Dallas Mavericks
(3) Houston Rockets vs. (6) Phoenix Suns
(4) Utah Jazz vs. (5) San Antonio Spurs (the Spurs would have homecourt advantage)

Of those other seven playoff teams (eight, if we throw in the Nuggets, just in case they squeak in), I believe that the Jazz would stand a fairly good chance of winning a series against all of them except the Lakers and Spurs. They're 3-0 against the Warriors, 2-1 against the Hornets, Suns, Mavs, and Nuggets, and 1-1 against the Rockets (but given the direction the Rockets are headed nowadays, the fact that they don't have Yao Ming, and the fact that the Jazz beat them last year, I'd give Utah the edge in a series between the two right now). They are 1-1 against the Spurs, but since they are incapable of winning a game in San Antonio, it's a lost cause if they don't have homecourt (and even if they did get homecourt, if a single one of their home games is officiated by Steve Javie, it's over). And Jazz are a pitiful 1-3 against the Lakers. They basically got blown out both times they played in L.A., and also got blown out last Thursday by a short-handed Lakers team on our own home floor. Their one win against the Lakers was truly spectacular, but I feel comfortable saying it was pretty much a one-time deal. No way Andrei Kirilenko plays that well again, and it's also highly unlikely that Deron Williams will thoroughly outplay Kobe Bryant again. It's even more unlikely that both of those things will happen on the same night, and even with Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur out there on the floor, I still don't like their chances. Once Bynum and Gasol come back, that will be the scariest front line in the league. Okur shows the occasional flash of brilliance on the defensive end, as does Boozer, but most of the time, they are terrible interior defenders, which is exactly what you'd want against a team like the Lakers. Odom is too strong for Kirilenko to handle. Ronnie Brewer is the best perimeter defender the Jazz have, but he's no Bruce Bowen or Raja Bell, so Kobe is fully capable of tearing him up. And thanks to his season in a Jazz uniform, Derek Fisher knows Deron Williams' tendencies inside and out. So just go zone on the defensive end, you say. Okay, except then the Lakers will unleash their three-point shooters on you. Fisher can knock them down, Kobe's deadly from everywhere inside halfcourt, Radmanovic has a nice stroke, Vujacic can hit them, and Farmer isn't half bad at the long-ball either. And if, for some reason, their offense stalls, they still have tremendous hustle guys like Turiaf and Walton that can create shots for their teammates and for themselves. It makes me sick just thinking about how insanely loaded this team will be once everyone is healthy. 

But consider this situation, which is at least possible, though nowhere near probable: the Spurs pull things together and sneak back up into the 3 spot. The Rockets fall off a little and land at 5. The Hornets hold on to their lead and secure the 1 seed. Phoenix stays where they are at 6. In this situation, the Jazz would play the Rockets in the first round, a series they are fully capable of winning. On the Suns end, the team continues to improve, and the addition of Shaq proves to be the key to finally beating the Spurs. The Hornets dispatch the Warriors, and the Lakers take care of the Mavs. Our second round matchups would then be Hornets-Jazz and Lakers-Suns. In this pipe dream of a scenario, Raja locks down Kobe, Steve Nash goes nuts, Amare dominates Gasol, and Shaq teaches Bynum a little something about being a big-time NBA center. On Utah's end, Deron Williams goes into overdrive against Chris Paul, Boozer dominates David West, Okur starts hitting threes from everywhere, and Ronnie Brewer reminds Jazz fans that we're lucky Morris Peterson signed with New Orleans instead of us, and the Jazz advance to the Western Conference Finals, where the Suns are waiting for them. The Jazz avoid ever facing their two Achilles Heels, since the Suns took both of them out. Ideally, then, Shaq's tank would be on empty and the Jazz would cruise through to the Finals (though I wouldn't have a huge problem with the Suns winning either. God knows they deserve a title too.), where they would meet either Boston or Detroit. They are 1-1 against Boston and 2-0 against Detroit. Oddly enough, they beat Boston in Boston, but lost to them in Salt Lake. However, their victory was by 18, while their loss was only by about 6, and came during their horrible December, before Kyle Korver ever donned a Jazz uniform, so their chances against Boston may be better than some people would think. In Detroit's case, the Jazz have swept the season series with the Pistons in each of the last three seasons, so they match up with Detroit pretty well too. Again, this situation is extremely unlikely, but maybe with a little divine intervention or something, it could happen. My hopes aren't high, though. I'd be satisfied with a division title and a trip to the Western Conference Semis, thrilled with another trip to the WCF, and absolutely ecstatic about a trip to the Finals. And I think you can probably imagine how I would feel about a championship...

The Magic Number for clinching the division currently stands at 8. 

And I feel the need to vent about referees again, but this time my target is the two morons who "officiated" my rec league game tonight. Let me preface this by saying that, before tonight, by career high for fouls in a game was two, and that has only ever happened once. Tonight, though, I almost freaking fouled out. As my career high for fouls indicates, I DON'T FOUL. I'm generally a pretty passive defender--I don't really go for steals or blocks or anything like that, and I don't play physical defense. I just stick to the basics--keep my man in front of me and keep my arms straight up when someone tries to shoot. Even though it sounds like a lame and ineffective type of defense, it actually works very well against typical rec league talent. But these refs apparently hated me, because they called a foul every chance they got, including twice when I honestly hit absolutely nothing but the ball. So I picked up my 4th foul with 8 minutes left in the game, and as luck would have it, we didn't have any subs. If I had fouled out, we would have had to forfeit the game. So for the last 8 minutes of the game, I basically stayed in one spot on defense. With the quality of these refs, I was afraid to even breathe within 3 feet of one of the opposing players, cause they'd probably call a foul for that too. But it wasn't like they were generally calling any kind of contact--on one of my layups, I got hit pretty damn hard, but no call. In the end, it worked out okay--we won by 10, and I finished with 13 points and a career high 4 fouls. Still, can all basketball officials really be so bad? From rec leagues to high school to college to the NBA, they all suck. Is this really the best they can do? I'd pay another $20 to play in a league that actually had good refs, if that's what it takes.

And the Utah women's basketball team ended up losing their first round game to Purdue. Still, they deserved much better than the selection committee gave them. They finished with 5 losses on the season, compared to 27 wins (including 22 straight at one point, I think). 3 of those losses were to tournament teams (counting Purdue), including a double overtime loss early in the year to Stanford, a 2-seed in the tournament. They went undefeatd in Mountain West Conference play (16-0). "So, it's just the Mountain West Conference," you say. "Anyone can run the table in the Mountain West." Except that the Mountain West is probably the toughest conference in women's basketball outside of the "Big Six" conferences (the equivalent of the BCS conferences in football). The MWC sent three teams to the Big Dance, and had another one on the bubble. Overall, the Utes finished with 7 wins over teams that made the tournament, beating Minnesota, Fresno State, New Mexico, and Wyoming on the road and topping Nebraska, New Mexico, and Wyoming at home. It also should be noted that they won their two games over archrival BYU by an average of 34 points per game, and since in rivalry games, even the inferior team has a good shot at winning, this is not an insignificant fact. Obviously, losing to 3-27 Colorado State in the opening round of the Mountain West Conference tournament hurt them (as it should have), but when you're playing a team for the third time this season, they know your tendencies, your strengths and weaknesses, and thus stand a much better chance of beating you that third time around. Even after that loss to CSU, ESPN's Bracketologist had them as a 4 seed (they were previously assigned a 3 seed). But when the bracket was announced, the Utes were given an 8-seed. Not only that, but it was undoubtedly the most difficult 8-seed imaginable. They were pitted against a Purdue team that was playing its best basketball of the season, fresh off a Big Ten conference tournament championship. Not only that, but guess where the game was being played? If your answer was, on Purdue's home court, you'd be correct. With the homecourt comes the homecourt refs, even if Utah was technically supposed to be the home team. So, in summary: Utah was 27-4 going into the tournament, they had a perfect 16-0 regular season record in the best mid-major conference in the country, they had 7 quality wins compared to only 2 damaging losses, and they owned the country's longest winning streak of the season. They were rewarded with an 8-seed and a first round date with a red-hot Purdue team on Purdue's home floor. Even if they had won that game, they'd have to play the defending champion Tennessee Volunteers, lead by Player of the Year Candace Parker. Even an unbiased observer would have to admit that they pretty much got shafted, right? 

Okay, rant (and post) over.