UTC hoops
Matt McCall and the Mocs delivered at VMI on Monday.
It was not always pretty and it was far from easy, but it was most effective.
UTC won the Southern Conference regular-season title with a 67-65 road win.
It pushed the Mocs to 15-3 overall in the conference (26-5 overall), and gives them the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament. UTC will play Friday against the winner of Samford-VMI.
It also gives UTC, at worst a secured bid to the NIT tournament, if the Mocs happen to stumble in Asheville at the SoCon tournament.
In retrospect, it's impossible not to give McCall an A-plus in his rookie season, right? Dude landed three monster non-conference wins. He took over the program without taking over the dynamic. From the very start he praised this team's chemistry and cohesiveness and he let that strength carry this team.
He let that strength congeal the roster after losing Casey Jones. (Side question: Can you name one other team in any other league that could lose its best player - and arguably the best player in the conference - and still cruise to the regular-season crown. That's what McCall and the Mocs did.)
Yes, a lion's share of the talent was assembled before McCall got the call, but it's impossible not to be overly impressed by the product on the floor.
He got the buy-in from the entire roster, and that allowed the Mocs to win in a variety of styles. Take the clincher Monday. It was more fistfight than fundamentals. UTC got all of six assists, but managed to make big plays on each end of the floor when it mattered most. It dominated the backboards and forced 16 turnovers.
That's effort. That's key-moment energy at the end of a brutal February.
That's a team that is dedicated an very well coached.
---
Vonn Bell and Combine wrap
The defensive backs completed the on-the-field scouting combine drills on Monday. It was an unusually revealing (yes, we're talking about you Chris Jones) Underwear Olympics.
The final day included one of the fastest rising players. Florida State defensive back Jalen Ramsey dropped a 4.41 40, had better than a 41-inch vertical and was stellar in almost all of the physical events Monday. He's a hybrid safety/corner who has great value in that he's big enough (6-1, 209 pounds) to play inside and fastest enough and skilled enough to be a shut-down cover guy.
He may have pushed his way into the discussion for the top overall pick. (And yes, the last time a defensive back went No. 1 overall was Gary Glick, the former Colorado A&M star who went first to Pittsburgh in 1956. Before you go nuts, though, also remember that Titans defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau made championship-level defenses built in large part around hybrid athletic safety and future Hall of Famer Troy Polamalu. Polamalu was the No. 16 overall pick in 2003, and if you redraft that year's selections, he would be right there in the discussion with Carson Palmer, who went No. 1 overall. We think Ramsey could be that type of player, and there's not the can't-miss QB prospect in this draft that Palmer was back then.)
As for local star made good, Vonn Bell, the former THE Ohio State All-American only did the bench press at the combine, doing 16 reps of 225 pounds. He measured at 5-11 and 199 pounds and did not run in any of the events because of an injured hamstring, according to Mike Mayock of the NFL Network.
According to this story, Bell's injured leg had not dented his confidence. Here's what he had to say when asked this weekend if he's the best safety in this draft:
"I am," Bell said this weekend to the Columbus Dispatch. "I'm the full package. You'll get a playmaker. You'll get a guy who can tackle in the open field. You'll get a guy who'll bring the whole team together. You'll get a leader and another coach on the field."
The whole in his game was made clear to him in meetings with NFL personnel. He has to get better in run support.
"It was kind of iffy in college," Bell told the Dispatch. "Sometimes you get lazy. When I was sitting down with some scouts, they were tearing me up a little bit. It's something to fix. It's not hard to fix. You just have to run to the ball a little harder and be more consistent."
His leg injury will make his pro day at THE OSU of utmost importance. Some scouts, according to the NFL Network, have questioned his straight-line speed. Maybe, as Bell alluded to, that was not always great effort, but if he runs a sub-4.6 40 Bell will be right there in the late first- early second-round discussion. If it's higher than that, well, then it becomes a little bit of a talking point.
Here are three guys who improved their stock (beyond Ramsey, who already was a slam-dunk top-10 prospect, but still wowed folks Monday) and three who hurt their stock at the combine:
The speedsters: Georgia running back Keith Marshall, Notre Dame wide out Will Fuller and Auburn cornerback Jonathan Jones all clocked 40 times at 4.33 or faster. Those numbers came at speed positions and always catch someone's attention. Marshall's speed puts him in rarified company - he's the 15th player to run a 4.31 or faster at the combine since 2000 when the drills becomes electronically timed. All of the previous 14 players at that time or better were drafted in the fourth round or higher. Fuller made a push to be right there with the top wide outs in the draft since LaQuan Treadwell did not run. Jones, who has some very good tape, especially from 2014 with the Tigers, also moved up boards with his time.
Carson Wentz. Lots of folks are using Andrew Luck comparisons for the former North Dakota State star. He had good measurements -6-5, 237 pounds, a 4.77 40 and 10-inch hands - and apparently wowed in the interviews. Still, Andrew Luck? That's either very lofty praise for Wentz or the realization that Luck's ceiling has dropped after all the injuries.
Darron Lee. We spoke about this yesterday, but a linebacker matching the 4.47 40 time of OSU teammate and top-ranked running back Ezekiel Elliot opens eyes.
As for the other side:
Cardale Jones. The former Ohio State quarterback who helped the Buckeyes to a national title with three magical games late in the 2014 season, Jones needed a monster showing after losing his starting job to J.T. Barrett last season. He never got the chance after injuring his hamstring in the 40. Jones' performance at THE OSU pro day may be more important than Vonn Bell's
Christian Hackenburg. Another quarterback who may have been a top-five pick if he could have entered the draft before now, but Hackenburg was awful in the accuracy drills and had some scouts wondering if the former Penn State star may not get drafted at all.
Noah Spence. Spence left Ohio State for Eastern Kentucky because of a litany of off-the-field issues. For a guy to move past those types of questions he has to have a monster workout. Spence did not, weighing in at a light 250 for a defensive end and running a slowish 4.80 40 for a speed rusher.
---
Super Tuesday
Lots happening today. Super Tuesday. First day of March. College hoops tournaments on the horizon. Spring training games about to start.
If you agree with MT and do not want to be bogged down by politics around these parts, feel free to skip this chunk of the 5-at-10. There will not be a quiz afterward.
We are aware that our governmental talk has been a little more frequent of late, but in truth, what is happening around us in this presidential tug of war has been fascinating.
It will also be interesting to see how tonight plays out in the Republic primaries with 11 states set to decide. The math, the methods, the mainstream mania, it all has been mesmerizing. (If you are a Democrat, that's fine. But, according to all the polls, Hillary is going to end the Bern tonight.)
It has even worked its way into an extra dimension in which Donald Trump is the GOP frontrunner and he fights with Fox News on a weekly basis. So it goes.
The rise of Trump has stunned most of us, me included. And if he were being honest, here's betting that he's doing way better than he ever believed he could when he started this thing last year.
How has he gotten here? That's the million-dollar question.
Maybe it's a cosmic tumbler-thing with the timing clicking in a perfect cohort.
Maybe it's the ultimate testament to a frustration and angst that is craving if not begging for something different.
Look at it this way: Trump has changed the conversation, even converting it to a barroom argument, that has caused all of the candidates to act in a way that, if our 8-year-old acted that way - shouting insults at women, interrupting adults, using colorful language, et al. - he would be in trouble.
In fact, last week we wrote that Marco Rubio won the debate, and in a lot of ways he did on Thursday night. But he may also have lost the war. He got Trumpish with Trump and in truth, he looked desperate and the acts appeared like a Hail Mary.
Will it work? We will know tonight, but we think it's a long shot.
Going into the single biggest delegate grab that is Super Tuesday, Trump was favored in most of the races, even holding a slight edge over Ted Cruz in Cruz' home state of Texas until recently.
Here's the breakdown from fivethirtyeight.com for tonight's GOP states:
Alabama (29 delegates) - Trump has a 91 percent chance of winning.
Alaska (28 delegates) - Toss up.
Arkansas (40 delegates) - Cruz with a slight lead over Trump and Rubio.
Georgia (76 delegates) - Trump with a 76 percent chance of winning state wide, but Rubio could do well around Atlanta.
Massachusetts (42 delegates) - Trump with a 95 percent chance of winning.
Minnesota (38 delegates) - Wide open, and this may be an area of weakness for Trump.
Oklahoma (43 delegates) - Trump with a 65 percent chance of winning.
Tennessee (58 delegates) - Trump leads the polling, but this one may be close.
Texas (155 delegates) - Cruz with an 85 percent chance of winning.
Vermont (16 delegates) - Toss up.
Virginia (49 delegates) - Trump has 72 percent chance of winning.
Almost all the states up tonight have voting systems that award delegates in varying proportions depending on statewide and district voting totals. It's more confusing than understanding Chinese trigonometry to tell you the truth.
That said, here's an interesting take from a Yahoo.com story on today's election festivities:
Neuroscientist Sam Wang, who runs the respected Princeton Election Consortium, projects that Trump will win 31 percent of the popular vote on Super Tuesday - enough for him to collect 46 percent of the delegates.
"Combined with early-state delegates, Trump would [then] have a cumulative total of 369 out of 695 delegates, or 53 percent," Wang writes. "So there is a very good chance that Donald Trump will end up with over 50 percent of cumulative delegates at the end of Tuesday night."
Trump has made it clear that he needs to get to the 1,237-delegate mark during the primary to turn the convention into a coronation.
He's right too, because there's a very real chance that if Trump goes to the convention without the magic number the establishment could circumvent his nomination.
And if you think the electorate is outraged at politics as usual, let Trump dominate the primary process and then get ambushed at the line. There would be outrage and revolt within the party and within the public.
Buckle up.
(OK, MT and the rest of the folks who do not want politics around these parts, you are now clear.)
---
This and that
- Wow, it finally looks like an adult has taken the reins at University of Missouri.
- The WWE channel did not flourish as some industry insiders though it might. But as sports and TV entities look to the next generation, WWE is well-positioned for the transition. WWE is now a Diamond Play Button channel on YouTube. It's the website's highest honor and means WWE has topped more than 10 million online subscribers. WWE joins Taylor Swift, The Ellen Show and The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon as the only Diamond Play Button honorees.
- Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes signed a three-year, $75 million contract in the offseason and he's enjoying every day of it. He rolled into spring training with a couple of tricked out cars worth in excess of a quarter of a million dollars. Last weekend, Cespedes went to a county fair in Florida and dropped$7,000 on a prize winning hog. Ladies and gentlemen, that's bringing home the bacon.
- Filthy pick-off move by a Rice left-hander right here.
- We have talked at length about the problems of college basketball and how the regular season has been devalued because of the greatness of the tournament. Here's what should be proof 1A to that claim. Kansas has now won 12 consecutive Big 12 regular-season titles, a feat that is staggering. But in a lot of ways, postseason struggles have Kansas coach Bill Self with what kind of legacy?
- Here's an excellent UT football spring practice primer from TFP UT beat ace Downtown Patrick Brown.
---
Today's question
We'll go a little differently here today.
As always, you are welcomed to offer some feedback on any of the above, and mailbag suggestions are welcomed.
OK, the Mocs are in the NIT. This we know. They are the favorite to win the SoCon tournament, too, which would mean an NCAA tournament bid.
That said, which would be better for fans and the program: Winning the SoCon and then going one-and-done in the NCAA or making a long run (say to the semifinals or so) with several home games in the NIT?
Discuss.