John Clay's Sidelines

Was there a so-called “dome effect” to this year’s Final Four?

It wasn’t just Butler’s horrendous 18.8 percent shooting from the Reliant Stadium floor that raised that question after Connecticut beat the Bulldogs 53-41 in a very low-scoring national title game.

The shooting in all three games was sub-par, from the floor, from beyond the three-point line, from the free-throw line.

Remember, Kentucky made just four of 12 free throws in its semifinal loss on Saturday. And the Cats came into the game shooting 71.6 percent from the foul line.

Get this: Connecticut won the national championship despite making two of 23 three-pointers in its two games in Houston. Kemba Walker is one-of-nine from beyond the arc for the weekend.

There is just no preparing for the background in such a mammoth venue. The Saturday night crowd of 75,421 set a new Final Four attendance record.

Click on the continue button for the charts.

Continue reading ‘Was there a “dome effect” at the Final Four?’

(H-L photo/David Perry)

Morning notes and Big Blue Links for Tuesday:

- Have to admit, after spending most of Sunday in Chicago airport — misfortune of flying Southwest this weekend; got to Louisville at 12:30 a.m., home at 2:30 a.m. on Monday — had a hard time keeping awake through second half of UConn’s 53-41 win over Butler in national title game last night. From a purely artistic standpoint, it had to be one of the worst NCAA finals of all time.

- Mark Story of the H-L stayed behind and covered the final in Houston. He writes that Butler’s dream season became a nightmare.

- Lexington’s own Shelvin Mack did lead the losing Bulldogs with 13 points. But he made just four of 15 shots, and he was four-of-11 from three-point land. Butler shot 18.8 percent for the game.

- Poor Matt Howard missed 12 of his 13 shots for the Bulldogs.

- Pat Forde of espn.com writes that you have to remember the greatness of the entire tournament, not the poor play in the final game.

Continue reading ‘Some morning notes after a sleepy NCAA final’

Darren Rovell, sports business reporter for CNBC, has an interesting blog post about television ratings for the Final Four over the past 11 years.

Turns out, among the late games on semifinal Saturday, the UK-Conn game ranked fifth in viewership.

Four Two of the top five games involved Duke.

Of course, this was UK’s first Final Four visit in 13 years.

The top five ratings of the 11 Saturday late games since 2000:

• 1. Maryland-Duke , 11.6, 2001
• 2. Maryland-Kansas, 11.3, 2002
• 3. North Carolina-Michigan State, 10.9, 2005
• 4. Connecticut-Duke, 10.5, 2004
• 5. Kentucky-Connecticut, 9.5, 2011

If you go back and look at John Calipari’s 76 games as the Kentucky basketball coach, two of the three best defensive efforts against his team belong to Connecticut.

Last season at Madison Square Garden, the Huskies held UK to .900 points per possession, or 90 points for every 100 possessions. That is the third-lowest total a UK team has put up under Calipari.

Saturday, at the Final Four, Kentucky managed just 0.877 points per possession, the second-lowest total in those 76 games.

The lowest came on Feb. 20 of last season when Kentucky made just three of 16 three-pointers and missed 13 of 30 foul shots at Vanderbilt, but pulled out the win.

(H-L photo/Mark Cornelison)

Russ Lande of the Sporting News has a list of current risers on the NFL Draft board.

No. 1 riser: Former Kentucky wide receiver Randall Cobb.

Lande writes:

Over the last two-plus months, however, Cobb has been flying up draft boards with scouts, coaches and front office executives breaking down film and watching him workout. Cobb is an explosive playmaker with the ability to impact games anytime he gets the ball in his hands. While Young is a good prospect and Leonard Hankerson (6-1 5/8, 205) is an athletic big receiver, when it comes to an explosive playmaker, Cobb has vaulted over them, along with many others, to be viewed as the No. 3 receiver in the draft. He could end up being a late first-round pick.

(H-L photo/Pablo Alcala)

Some Big Blue Links for Monday:

• Cats offer a lesson in perseverance, writes Jerry Tipton of the H-L.
• Freshmen will hold key for Cats again, says my column.
• Small crowd gathers to welcome home Cats, reports H-L’s Amy Wilson.
• UK softball sweeps No. 5 Florida, says H-L report.
• No truth to the Braeden Anderson rumors, says Nation of Blue.
• Stan Simpson will visit Memphis, reports All Ky Hoops.
• Calipari-to-NBA rumors start up again with Mitch Lawrence of Daily News.
• Heck of a year for UK basketball, writes Brett Dawson of the C-J.
• Calipari facing some unknowns, says Eric Crawford of the C-J.
• Kentucky hits the end of the road, writes Tom Leach.

Continue reading ‘BBL: Anderson not committed; Simpson to visit Memphis’

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(H-L photo/Mark Cornelison)

Some notes and links for a sad Sunday morning in the Big Blue Nation:

- The amazing thing was the missed free throws. The missed field goals were one thing. But Kentucky going four-of-12 from the foul line was something else entirely. When asked by an ncaa.com reporter about the difference in the game, John Calipari said, “They really guarded us well at the free-throw line.

ESPN’s stats and information person puts it into perspective, writing, “There was a 97.0 percent chance that Kentucky would have made at least six of those 12 free throw, which — keeping everything else constant — would have given them more points than UConn at the end of the day. Even if you assume that made free throws by Kentucky early would have changed the whole structure of the game, an average performance would have made a considerable difference in such a tight ballgame. The most likely outcome would have been UK making nine foul shots, which obviously would have significantly improved the Wildcats’ chance of winning.”

- Terrence Jones missed all five of his free throws. In the SEC Tournament, played in the Georgia Dome, Jones made 11 of 15 free throws.

- No one on the basketball team this year had been worse than 0-for-2 at the foul line.

- You will always wonder how of an effect the huge dome played in Kentucky’s shooting. The Cats shot the ball poorly in the Carrier Dome last year. And Reliant Stadium was huge, with the venue setting an NCAA Final Four attendance record of 75,000-plus. The shooting background just can’t be duplicated.

A veteran team, Butler played in a 71,000-seat venue in last year’s Final Four at Indianapolis. Yet, aside from Shelvin Mack, the Bulldogs did not shoot the ball well in the first semifinal on Saturday.

- Click here for the Herald-Leader photo gallery from Houston.

Continue reading ‘A few morning notes on a sad Sunday for BBN’

After making just six of 23 shots, Brandon Knight talks to the media in UK locker room.

Doron Lamb speaks to the media in the UK locker room in Houston.

Kentucky’s Darius Miller talks about the missed shots on a tough night.