Octopus Overlords

Seems like a good time to start the Hoops thread with the season due to start in a few weeks, and massive news breaking.

Tony Bennett abruptly retires as head coach of Virginia Basketball

Virginia men's basketball coach Tony Bennett is retiring effective immediately, the school announced on Thursday. Bennett's abrupt retirement is a stunning turn of events after he was an active participant during the ACC Basketball Tipoff last week.

My guess? Yet another Coach fed up with NIL demands from players and their agents and the boosters paying them.

Because this is College, the speculation on who's next is already printworthy:

National championship-winning Virginia men's basketball coach Tony Bennett is retiring from the sport effectively immediately. That gobsmacking news landed Thursday with just 20 days separating the Cavs and their season opener against Campbell on Nov. 6.

The change comes at a nearly unprecedented time of year for the sport. By October in a normal season, the carousel has long stopped spinning. The timing puts Virginia brass in a precarious position with few options on hand but to promote -- either on an interim basis or a full-time basis -- from within.

Season tips off today! I have no idea if UCLA will be any good or not. Last year feels like it's the floor, and all the transfers should help, but the luster of Mick Cronin's Final 4 run during Covid is mostly gone after 2 tourney exits based in part on bad offense, and a sub .500 year last year where the offense was particularly dreadful. I'm expecting a return to the tourney, but I'm begining to think his ceiling at UCLA is just like Lavin and Alford - the sweet 16 (tho for those 2 guys, it was because the defense wasn't good enough to get past that, for Cronin, it would be the offense).

Michigan is also a total mystery. New coach that everyone seems to think is a slam dunk hire, but I'm always leery of building a team of transfers, which is what he was forced to do to start his tenure. Blew out Cleveland State last night, so things started positively.

Utah is picked to finish dead last in the B12.

Anything other than dead last will be a significant success.

I doubt I’ll watch a single game until March Madness.

We're built on transfers this year too, tho 4 guys from last year got decent minutes last night, we went really deep. Game 1 was everything I'd want to see - great defense, pressing and easy buckets, going 10+ deep. The thing is that Cronin usually starts every season doing this, and then reverts to halfcourt games with no press and a 7-man rotation by mid/end of December. It may not happen this year - we're not as focused on an athletic beast down low who didn't have great hands and wasn't a great passer. This team looks like a much better passing team who won't be stuck in the same offensive sets dependent on Bona in the post. TBD, but night 1 was great.

interested in seeing how Bama handles prosperity. Final 4 finish and start #2 this year.

Wow. WVU just upset Gonzaga in OT. That was fun & encouraging after last season. Will be interesting to see if they can build on this going forward.

UConn loses two in a row at the Maui Invitational, and not to particularly good teams. Seems like they have some work to do this season...

disarm wrote:UConn loses two in a row at the Maui Invitational, and not to particularly good teams. Seems like they have some work to do this season...

Three in a row. Wow.

ImLawBoy wrote:Michigan is also a total mystery. New coach that everyone seems to think is a slam dunk hire, but I'm always leery of building a team of transfers, which is what he was forced to do to start his tenure. Blew out Cleveland State last night, so things started positively.

Looking good so far under May.

Michigan won a big one at UCLA last night (which I couldn't watch because it was on Peacock). Big first half lead, blew it and were behind in the second half, recovered and pulled away to win by 19. Not bad for a road game against a ranked team, particularly given how good UCLA is at forcing turnovers and how many turnovers Michigan gives.

The real story coming out of it, though, is Mick Cronin's embarrassing post game press conference where he threw everyone but himself under the bus. He called out players by name as soft and said he was disappointed in his players and staff. I guess he's trying it as a motivational tactic, but is that really the message you want to send to recruits? Brian Kelly thought it was over the top.

ImLawBoy wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2025 4:55 pm Michigan won a big one at UCLA last night (which I couldn't watch because it was on Peacock). Big first half lead, blew it and were behind in the second half, recovered and pulled away to win by 19. Not bad for a road game against a ranked team, particularly given how good UCLA is at forcing turnovers and how many turnovers Michigan gives.

The real story coming out of it, though, is Mick Cronin's embarrassing post game press conference where he threw everyone but himself under the bus. He called out players by name as soft and said he was disappointed in his players and staff. I guess he's trying it as a motivational tactic, but is that really the message you want to send to recruits? Brian Kelly thought it was over the top.

Yeah. Nice win for you. Cronin has done this before - after a not very good UCLA team got blown out at Utah last year (in a very similar fashion to Tuesday's game - giving up a ton of 3s), he did the same thing and UCLA played some of its best basketball over the next few weeks. But I have my doubts as to whether it will work again. Maybe.

Either way, even tho we did ok on the offensive end v. Michigan (for that one stretch to get back in the game, at least), I've grown tired of Cronin and find his offenses impossible to watch, and have to have the games on DVR so I can fast forward through the long and interminable stretches we have multiple times per game where we just can't score, and usually never even threaten to. It's also that while he can win games that way, it's not a recipe for tourney success - it leaves you with a very hard ceiling of the sweet 16 at best. In his FF run with UCLA, the defense was great, but there was fantastic shotmaking and offensive execution, and we haven't seen much of that since. Even in the 2 Sweet 16 runs after that, the offense wasn't anywhere near what it needs to contend.

I'm kind of flabbergasted this hadn't been happening before given how long ESPN has been televising it, but at least it's happening now - NCAA to start granting 'shares' for Women's Basketball Tourney:

In a historic vote Wednesday at the NCAA convention in Nashville, the organization approved a plan to pay women's basketball teams for making the NCAA Tournament. Men's basketball teams have been reaping the benefits of the same revenue sharing plan for many years. ...

...Under the plan, teams will be given performance units that represent revenue. Each conference that gets an automatic bid will receive one unit, with additional units awarded for each team receiving an at-large bid. The longer a school's tournament run lasts, the more units said school's conference will receive. It is then up to the conference to decide how to split the revenue it receives among its members.

In the first year of the plan, which begins with this season's tournament, $15 million will be awarded to the tournament teams, which represents 26% of the women's basketball media deal. By 2028, that will rise to $25 million, or 41% of the media deal.

Pyperkub wrote: Thu Jan 09, 2025 12:39 pm

ImLawBoy wrote: Wed Jan 08, 2025 4:55 pm Michigan won a big one at UCLA last night (which I couldn't watch because it was on Peacock). Big first half lead, blew it and were behind in the second half, recovered and pulled away to win by 19. Not bad for a road game against a ranked team, particularly given how good UCLA is at forcing turnovers and how many turnovers Michigan gives.

The real story coming out of it, though, is Mick Cronin's embarrassing post game press conference where he threw everyone but himself under the bus. He called out players by name as soft and said he was disappointed in his players and staff. I guess he's trying it as a motivational tactic, but is that really the message you want to send to recruits? Brian Kelly thought it was over the top.

Yeah. Nice win for you. Cronin has done this before - after a not very good UCLA team got blown out at Utah last year (in a very similar fashion to Tuesday's game - giving up a ton of 3s), he did the same thing and UCLA played some of its best basketball over the next few weeks. But I have my doubts as to whether it will work again. Maybe.

Either way, even tho we did ok on the offensive end v. Michigan (for that one stretch to get back in the game, at least), I've grown tired of Cronin and find his offenses impossible to watch, and have to have the games on DVR so I can fast forward through the long and interminable stretches we have multiple times per game where we just can't score, and usually never even threaten to. It's also that while he can win games that way, it's not a recipe for tourney success - it leaves you with a very hard ceiling of the sweet 16 at best. In his FF run with UCLA, the defense was great, but there was fantastic shotmaking and offensive execution, and we haven't seen much of that since. Even in the 2 Sweet 16 runs after that, the offense wasn't anywhere near what it needs to contend.

Since writing this, the UCLA Offense has really turned it around, and with a lot of room to grow. We're finally attacking defenses rather than just hoping for an opening. Getting Aday Mara involved instead of sitting on the bench has been crucial to the offense scoring over 16 points per game higher (as has a nice stretch of games on the West Coast - whatever UCLA was doing for the road trips to Md/Rutgers/Neb didn't work), and he's having a huge impact defensively when he's in too.

Big game against Michigan St (undefeated in the B1G thus far, tho the schedule has missed some big teams) next up for UCLA on Tuesday after demolishing #16 Oregon in Pauley last night.

Side note, the B1G basketball schedule is so very different from the Pac 12 - we used to play almost exclusively Thu/Sat games conference wide (yeah, you'd have 1-2 wed/fri/sun games sprinkled in), but apparently the B1G has a rule for 2 full days off between games, so the games are all over the map, with only a handful of games being played per day, rather than most of the conference in action on a particular day, and we frequently don't even have a game on the weekend like this week - I expect that last is so that all of the TV partners can keep a steady stream of games, but it's still really weird not just looking forward to the games on particular nights, and only once in awhile needing to be prepared for a different day.

Whoa. He is coaching like a jerk, and gee, it seems he is a jerk...

UConn Huskies coach Dan Hurley (33) essentially pulled royalty privileges on an official during UConn’s game against the Butler Bulldogs on Jan. 22. “Don’t turn your back on me,” Hurley barked at the ref. “I’m the best coach in the f---ing sport!” It was a true statement from the reigning two-time national champion, but an ugly one, too. It was Hurley putting himself on a pedestal and telling an official that he’s inferior.

That's one hell of a ref WRT restraint and not just giving him a Technical right there.