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Category: basketball

NCAA Tourney Cheat Sheet Vol. II – Year of the Streaker

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File photo Neil Miller/The New York Extra

By Lenn Robbins

When the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee arrives in New York the Tuesday prior to Selection Sunday they will be charged with one of the most daunting tasks in college basketball history:

Try to make some sense of this unpredictable season.

Why do we proclaim this season to be one of the hardest to predict in history? Consider the streaks we’ve seen this:

When Kansas edged Baylor 63-61 on Saturday it snapped the Bears 23-game win streak, which snapped the prior Big 12 record of 22 straight, held by, yep, Kansas. The Jayhawks also avenged a 67-55 loss to Baylor in Lawrence which snapped a 28-game home streak. Kansas has now won  12 straight.

Baylor’s five-week run as the nation’s No.1 team was the longest in the Associated Press since Kentucky in 2015.

BYU’s  91-78 upset of Gonzaga snapped the Bulldogs 19-game win streak. It also broke Gonzaga’s streaks of 40-straight regular-season wins in the West Coast Conference and 39-straight road wins in the WCC. against WCC opponents. The 40-game winning streak was the longest league streak in the nation.

UNLV took out the last remaining unbeaten, shocking San Diego State, 66-63. The Aztecs opened at 26-0 and unveiled its regular season conference championship banner before tipoff, something that wasn’t lost on the Runnin Rebels.

“They’ve had a historic year,’’ said UNLV coach T.J. Otzelberger. “Is there a chance it got talked about in our locker room before the game? Certainly, but I seem to forget what they said.” Doubtful.

In Volume I of our NCAA Tournament bracket cheat sheet, we named Mick Cronin as one of our coaches who is doing a terrific job. It’s only gotten better. Not only did the Bruins post their ninth straight win in their last 11 games, but the last victory was a 70-63 stunner at Colorado.

The Buffaloes were up 50-41 with 12:34 on Senior Night when the Bruins broke off a 20-3 spurt. UCLA’s bench outscored Colorado’s 28-16.

“It’s senior day, they’re playing for the Pac-12 title, it’s huge,” Cronin said. “Nine down with 12 to play, on the road against a great team. They’re playing all juniors and seniors, you’re playing freshmen and sophomores and you’re able to pull it out? It’s monstrous.”

Are the Bruins as dangerous as the Providence Friars? Not according to coach Ed Cooley.

“There’s no more desperate team in America than Providence College,” Cooley said after an 84-72 victory over Marquette.

Providence was 4-4 in the Big East and 11-10 overall after losing three straight. Earlier in the season the Friars suffered losses to Penn, Long Beach State and the College of Charleston.

The win over the Golden Eagles was Providence’s fourth straight over a Top 25 team and moved the Friars into undisputed fourth place in the Big East at 9-6 and 16-12 overall. On a personal note, here’s hoping the Friars get into the Big Dance. Cooley is a helluva coach and one of the great personalities in the game.

Seton Hall continues to be in first place in the Big East and the Pirates remain a legit Elite Eight or better squad but no team wants to face Creighton, which is one game back after winning 9-of-10.

 The Blue Jays shredded Butler, 81-59 by making 15-of-26 3’s. Creighton has three players shooting 40-percent or better on 3’s – guard Marcus Zegarowski (40-percent) set his career high with seven of Creighton’s season-high 15 treys, is Ty-Shon Alexander also is at 40-percent. Mitch Ballock is at 44-percent.

Creighton does this by making the extra pass. It had 19 assists on 27 baskets against the Bulldogs, who lost one of our favorite Big East players in Kamar Baldwin with an ankle injury.

Staying with the Big East, Villanova uses the 3 as well as any team in the league but there’s an edge to this season’s team that could serve them in NCAA play. In a 64-55 loss to the Wildcats, Xavier coach Travis Steele had this observation after watching the X-men score their fewest points at home since a 57-52 win over Temple in January of 2013.

“That’s the most physical team we’ve play all year, by far, and it’s not even close.”

The team that continues to streak is Dayton, which beat Duquesne 70-60 for its 16th straight. The Flyers (25-2) have won 16 straight and moved to 4th in the AP poll and 3rd in the coaches’ poll, their highest since finishing third during the 1955-56 season. They are dunk contest in action. If you haven’t seen this team play, they’re at Rhode Island on March 3rd (CBSSN) in what could be a streak  ender.

Maryland still has a two-game lead in the Big Ten and should win the regular season title but the Terps, 79-72, loss at Ohio State ended their nine-game win streak. Few teams have been streakier than the Buckeyes who won their first nine and were 11-1 after a 71-65 win at Kentucky before losing 6-of-7.

The Buckeyes win might have boiled some blood between the two schools. Maryland coach Mark Turgeon said Ohio State’s Kaleb Wesson was “allowed to be the bully offensively today. If he’s allowed to be the bully, he is a heck of a player.”

Wesson had 15 points and nine rebounds. Buckeyes coach Chris Holtmann didn’t take kindly to that.

“Mark said that? To each his own. His opinion can be his opinion. I thought Kaleb was physical and well within the rules.”

Staying in the Big Ten, Penn State has a legit conference player of the year candidate in Lamar Stevens but he can’t do it alone. After winning eight straight the loss of Myreon Jones (illness) finally kicked in. Jones has missed five straight including the last two losses, including a 68-60 setback at Indiana.

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Respect the Game: Hofstra's Mihalich's Path to 400 Wins

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By Lenn Robbins

  HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. – There were about three and one-half minutes left in Hofstra’s game against North Carolina-Wilmington Saturday night and Pride coach Joe Mihalich was bellowing at the officials.

Hofstra Head Coach Joe Mihalich/Neil Miller/The New York Extra 02/15/2020

They had blown a seemingly meaningless call in a game Hofstra was leading by 15. After a solid 30 seconds of getting tongue lashed, the lead official, both arms extended and palms down, implored Mihalich to settle down.

If you wonder how a coach can win 400 games when none of his 21-plus years is in the first chair has been at ‘power school,’ here’s the answer:

There are no meaningless calls. There no meaningless practices. No meaningless games. Most of all, there no meaningless players. Because that would mean disrespecting the game. As long as a Mihalich is coaching, the game will never be disrespected.

Hofstra Head Coach Joe Mihalich/Neil Miller/The New York Extra /02/15/2020

“It’s a team game, right,’’ said Mihalich, after win No. 400. “Things like this happen. More importantly, way more importantly, [guard] Elijah [Pemberton] became the ninth all-time leading scorer in Hofstra basketball. It’s an incredible thing.

“He had exactly eighteen hundred coming in. Eighteen hundred and 23 now, right behind the guy, I forget his name, Speedy Claxton? I had explicit orders from Speedy, ‘When he gets close, take him out.’’’

Hofstra Guard #5 Eli Pemberton/Neil Miller/The New York Extra 02/15/2020

Claxton is an assistant coach at his alma mater and a link to Hofstra’s glory years during the Jay Wright/Tom Pecora eras. Claxton donated money to the construction of the 5,203-seat David S. Mack Sports and Entertainment Complex, which is a terrific homecourt and begs the question why an announced crowd of only 2,506 attended The Pride’s sixth straight win, a 78-64 win.

Hofstra is the metropolitan area’s best kept basketball secret and Mahalich one of the college game’s best guardians of the game.

The Pride (20-7 overall, 11-3 and 1st in the Colonial Athletic Conference) took control early behind center Isaac Kante’s career-high 23 points and 13 rebounds. In the Pride’s last game, Pemberton matched his career-high with 28.

“The culture we built here over the past few years, guys just buy in,’’ said Pemberton, who had 23. “It’s a brotherhood from the last player on the bench to the coaching staff. I think we’re all comfortable with each other.

“It’s fun to win for a coach like this. And it’s fun to play for him when he lets you play your game.”

This has been the story of Mihalich’s career. He took Niagara to two NCAA tournaments and two NITs by pushing the ball and pushing guys with tough love. He won the Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award in 2013, given to the coach who exhibits strong moral character.

Consider this: Mihalich, 63, spent 17 years as an assistant at his alma mater, LaSalle – 17 years as an assistant! He stayed at Niagara for 15 seasons.

You know those coaches that always have one eye on the next job? Mihalich vests his one soul in working with the players he has.

“It’s from the heart,” said Mihalich. “We just got some T-shirts that say, ‘More Than a Team.’ It’s more than a team. As corny as that might seem, it’s a brotherhood in there. There’s a great brotherhood in there. There’s a love for each other.

“We have our tough times. I mean, I’ve gotten on this guy [Kante] and I’ve questioned his manhood, insulted him, but it’s because – it goes back to guys like [former Temple coach] John Chaney, who talked about tough love. It’s because I love you guys so much.”

Mihalich looks for six attributes in a player:

  1. Is he a good person?
  2. Is he a good player?
  3. Is he a good student?
  4. Does he love the game?
  5. Does he hate to lose?
  6. Does he work hard?

Call it what you will – corny, old school, cliché’ – the results speak for themselves. This is Mihalich’s eighth, 20-win season. His overall record is 381-287 (.570) in 21-plus season, the last six-plus at Hofstra, where he’s 116-84 (.580).

But really, he’s from the school of tough love. Mihalich was a walk-on guard who played for coach Paul Westhead at LaSalle. Joe Bryant, father of the late Kobe Bryant, was the star of that team which, which ran an up-tempo offense, a style Mihalich embraced.

Mihalich’s father, Joe, was a pitcher in the Yankees system, rooming with Whitey Ford. When arm trouble ended his baseball career, he became a professor of sports philosophy at LaSalle, which became the family’s second home. Mihalich’s son, Joe, is the coach at Penn.

They should have a box truck that reads – Mihalich and Sons, Respect the Game.

“He believes in you, he tells you he believes in you, it’s fun,” Kante said. “We love you too coach.”

Hofstra led by as much as 28 before Mihalich started running clock. The Seahawks (8-20, 3-12) are reeling, having fired their head coach last month. This was a bit of a trap game for The Pride. They were coming off a 76-63 win over a gritty College of Charlestown team and about to begin their last road trip of the regular season.

Mihalich hopes to take Hofstra to its first NCAA Tournament berth since 2001 and the second of his career.

“Climbing up that ladder, cutting those nets down, there’s nothing like it,” said Mihalich.

The Pride doesn’t know that feeling. They lost in the conference finals last season. Getting the No.1 seed in this year’s tourney means a first-round bye. Then every game becomes a trap game meaning Saturday’s win was worth remembering.

“I’m, just really proud of the guys for how they handled the day,’’ said Mihalich.

“They treated the game the right way. That’s been a battle cry of ours. ‘Respect the game. Respect yourself. Respect the opponent.’ Our guys did that.”

That’s how you win 400 games.

NCAA Tournament Prep Sheet: Volume I

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By Lenn Robbins

Sooner rather than later, you’re going to fill out your NCAA Tournament brackets. So listen up: If ever there was a season to be a contrarian, this is it. Consider the weekend that was and the season that is.

file photo Neil Miller/The New York extra

San Diego State remains the only undefeated team in the nation. Michigan State, the preseason No.1, dropped out of the Top 25.

Penn State is tied with Illinois for second in the Big Ten (18-5 overall, 8-4 in the league). The Nittany Lions have qualified for the NCAA Tournament twice this century. North Carolina (10-13, 3-9), assuming it doesn’t win the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, will miss the NCAA Tournament for the second time in 17 years.

No.1 Baylor is historically a bad NCAA Tournament bet. But the Bears won their 20th straight, a 78-70 win over Oklahoma State, so what’s to worry?

Baylor was a dismal 20-of-33 (60.6 percent) from the foul line. They are 206th in the nation with a 69.7-percentage in free throw shooting. Do you want them in a close first-round game that gets decided at the line?

Remember John Calipari’s 2007-08 team? Terrible all year from the line. Derrick Rose missed 1-of-2 free throws with 10 seconds left in regulation of the NCAA  title game. Mario Chalmers hit a 3 to force OT. Kansas won, 75-68. The Tigers were 12-of-19 (63.2 percent) from the game from the line. The Jayhawks were 14-of-15 (93.3).

MARCH WITH POINT GUARDS: Yes, I’m a firm believer of point guard play translating into tournament success. Dayton has a legit player of the year candidate in PF Obi Toppin. But in a 71-65 win over St. Louis, Toppin wasn’t his usual dominant self. Point guard Jalen Crutcher came to the rescue by making 8-of-8 free throws. He’s an 84.7-percent shooter from the line.

Which brings us to Duke, fresh off its stunning 98-96 OT win at North Carolina. The Blue Devils erased a 13-point deficit in the final four and one-half minutes and a five-point deficit in OT. Guard Tre Jones had 28 points, six assists and five rebounds, which is about as good as it gets, but not as good as LSU’s…

Skylar Mays, who had 30 points (10-for-10 from the line), eight assists, seven rebounds and just one turnover in 42 minutes of a 91-90 loss at Auburn. Auburn (21-2, 802) leads the SEC largely because the Tigers have the green light to shoot 3’s from anywhere on The Plains.

 Before you but Auburn consider its 31.6-percent shooting on 3’s, tied for 275th in the nation. If Auburn is hot in the tourney, War Eagle! But one off game and it’s time for spring football. Just ask Iowa, which….

Got dusted 104-66 at Purdue. The Hawkeyes have the nation’s most consistent inside player in center Luke Garza, who is one-tenth of a point away from averaging a points-rebounds double-double. Whoever faces Iowa in the tourney will have to drop down try to keep the ball out of Garza’s hands, which means open 3’s should be there.

 HOLD IT LIKE AN EGG: San Diego State is the nation’s last unbeaten team (24-0). The Aztecs are 13-0 in the Mountain West, the best start in conference history. In the Aztecs 89-74 win over Air Force, they committed a season-low six turnovers, one in the final 31 minutes and none in the final 21. The Aztecs are 8th in assist/turnover.  

STREAKS, OVER: Seton Hall has a northeast guard in Myles Powell who can flat out take over a game. But the best thing about these Pirates is the way they play. They are a throwback Big East team in terms of mental and physical toughness. Their 70-64 win at Villanova snapped a 17-game road losing streak to the Wildcats. Elite Eight, not so sleeper.

Kentucky has won 9-of-11 since losing two straight including W’s against Texas Tech and Louisville. The Wildcats won at Tennessee for the first time since Rick Barnes took over as head coach. Kentucky is tied for 6th in the nation in free throw shooting at 78.7-percent.

WELL DONE: The following coaches have done a great job.

Mick Cronin, UCLA – the Bruins will never dominate college hoops as they once did but Cronin, who re-established Cincinnati as a national power, is off to a 12-10 start (5-4 in the Pac 12) in his first season. With Arizona shaken by scandal, look for the Bruins to quickly return to the top of the league.

Joe Mihalich, Hofstra – Basketball fans in the Northeast know Mihalich’s Niagara teams were a bitch to play against. So are his Hofstra teams. The Pride (18-7) is in first place in the Colonial Athletic Association, playing the same fundamentally sound ball the Purple Eagles played. Mihalich is 133-91 in his seventh season on Long Island, 45-15 over the last two seasons.

Chris Mack, Louisville – It shouldn’t be hard to win at Louisville but if you don’t succeed there is a one-way ticket to a mid-major program and a lot less money. Big East fans know what a solid person, father, coach Mack is. He took over Louisville which was a mess and won 20 games last season. Mack has the Cardinals atop the ACC with a 12-1 record (21-3 overall)

Steve Pikiell, Rutgers – It’s been impossible to win at Rutgers. Pikiell and the Scarlet Knights found themselves in an unfamiliar position Sunday night in the RAC. They trailed Northwestern by 18. It was arguably one of the first time Rutgers, as a heavy favorite, didn’t take an opponent seriously.

The Scarlet Knights rallied in the second half to eke out a 77-74 OT win and remain undefeated at home and just 1.5 games back for the Big Ten lead. Pikiell has instilled a true team culture. One of his first big recruits, Gio Baker, now comes off the bench. He scored 23 of his 25 in the second half to lead the comeback.

SHADES PLEASE: Which was harder to look at? Oregon State’s upset of No.14 Oregon was secured by holding the Ducks without a field goal for nearly nine minutes in the second half. Oregon shot 22-of-55 from the field (40 percent) which isn’t horrendous. Going to the line just four times (and only making two) is. Or…

UCLA held No.23 Arizona to its worst shooting game in the McKale Center’s 47-year history. The Wildcats shot 15-of-59 from the floor (25.4-percent). They missed all 12 of the second half 3’s. Or…

West Virginia missed 20-of-31 layups in a 69-59 loss at Oklahoma. The Mountaineers were 24-of-76 from the field (31.6-percent).

“Seems impossible, but we missed 22 shots within two feet of the basket,” said WVA coach Bob Huggins.

Defense And No Offense Again For Fordham in Conference Loss

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Again it was the Fordham defense that made it a game against Richmond up at the Rose Hill Gym Saturday afternoon. Similar to other outcomes it was the Rams inability to score that led to a 59-53 loss.

File photo /Neil Miller/The New York Extra

Fordham lost their fourth straight. It wasn’t their defense as they held Richmond, a team that can score, to 23 points in the first half. But as the conference schedule winds down, Fordham 7-15 overall, 1-9 A-10, can’t get both sides of the game on the same page.

Coach Jeff Neubauer, he  is looking at a way to get this offense going.  It has to be more than one that is open for the shot. It has to be making those baskets in a league that thrives on offense. 

Regardless, this was your typical brand of Fordham basketball. Yes, defense is good, Fordham leads the A-10 in scoring defense and is ranked 16th in the NCAA.

“Defensive effort in the first half is never perfect, but it’s amazing that’s what it’s gotta be,” Neubauer said.  “That’s who we are. Second half still good but needed to be amazing in the second half.”

He was referring, though. to that second half and inability to score.  Antown Portley scored 12 points, Ty Perry added 11 and Jalen Cobb 10. They have been part of the mix.

But the Rams need more. If not, all that defense won’t be enough to escape a bottom seeding next month in the conference tournament at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

 Portley, in his last four games after sustaining an early season injury to his leg, has scored 37 points.  But the senior- guard can’t do this alone with a need for others to get the offense going. 

Neubaurer, has always looked at Portley to take that open shot. Part of the Rams second half eight-point run, that gave them a 44-36 lead, was a run to the basket for Portley.

He also found an open and  converted a 3-pointer beyond the arch. Again, if it wasn’t for the defense, the final outcome could have been wider.

“Good to have him back,” said Neubauer. “His minutes helped. He’s one of our better players. We are a better team when he makes the shots.  We encourage in general that the ball moves.”

This is not to say that the Rams are overmatched. With their defense they have been in games. Last Saturday, at  8th ranked Dayton, it was a game before losing 70-56. 

“We play as a team,” Neubauer said. “When you gave a guy with creativity it makes us better.”

Portley has that creativity.

But this Richmond team, striving to move up the standings in the conference, they have it all.  They have deep scoring and that ability to stop a run at the right time 

Jacob Gilyard scored 23 points on 7-of-11 shooting. Blake Francis added 18 points for the balanced Spiders offense. 

The Spiders have won three straight, 17 of their last 18 meetings against Fordham, that included an elimination game at Barclays last March in the A-10 Tournament.

“Their style  for us to hold them to 59, there’s a lot of good defense in there but not enough for us to win,” Neubauer said. 

No, not enough Saturday to win a conference game. And with time running out the Rams are destined to finish last or next to last in the conference. The defense has been consistent the last seven games but  that offense has to chime in.

 If not,  it will be the same story Tuesday night at Davidson.

“We have to find  more baskets somewhere in our roster,” Neubauer said. “ More open looks. I’d like to see more guys produce more.  We need everyone to play a little better.”

He wasn’t kidding. Because at Rose Hill this has become a defensive game and you can’t win games in this conference without the offense.

Comment; Ring786@aol.com  Twitter@Ring786 Facebook.com/Rich Mancuso

With the Trade Deadline Approaching, Dolan Strikes Again.

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By Lenn Robbins

“We hear from people all the time. From players, from representatives, it’s about who wants to come. We can’t respond because of the NBA rules, etc., but that doesn’t stop them from telling us, and they do. I can tell you from what we’ve heard, I think we’re going to have a very successful offseason when it comes to free agents.” – Knicks owner James Dolan, March 12, 2019, ESPN radio

Before Knicks fans replace “Sell The Team,” with “Hire Masai Ujiri,” they should remember the words spoken by their out-of-touch owner less than a year ago. The Knicks didn’t sign any of their elite free agent targets. They didn’t even get visits from some.

Credit Twitter

The fall guy for that, the Knicks 15-36 record, and most of all, those “Sell The Team” chants that reverberated around The Garden and into Dolan’s ears last Wednesday, was president Steve Mills. When “In Denial Dolan” feels he’s been wronged, a head has to roll.

“Steve and I have come to the decision that it would be best for him to leave his role as president of the New York Knicks,” Dolan said in a prepared statement. “We thank Steve for his many years of service to our organization and look forward to continuing our relationship with him as part of our board.”

Mills joins the legions of Knicks fans that have orange and blue pumping in our veins until they bleed out courtesy of all the cuts and slashes that Dolan inflicts season after season.

Consider the timing of this latest move: The NBA trade deadline is Thursday. Thursday! Dolan could not have picked a more tumultuous time to fire the team president, unless, of course, he did this tomorrow.

Dolan reportedly has had his eye on Ujiri for a while now. There’s a lot to like about Toronto’s president. Ujiri put together an NBA championship team in the toughest of places by making the most precarious of trades – rolling the dice on Kawhi Leonard.

Because of Canada’s high taxes, NBA players have been reluctant to go North. Raptors fans have long believed they are a victim of NBA conspiracy – they get the worst schedule and refs. They’re seldom on national TV.

But the fan base is flat out bonkers for their Oh Canada team. Ujiri embraced that, attending rallies before playoff games. He was fined prior to the 2015 playoff series against the Nets for telling the crowd to, “F$%k Brooklyn!”

Leonard did his championship one and done but the Raptors have kept winning, proof Ujiri built a franchise. He’s smart, knows talent, has a passion that would play here.

But does Dolan think Ujiri, and the rest of the NBA – players and executives, trainers and coaches – aren’t taking note of the toxic environment that hangs over the Knicks? Does Dolan think Ujiri doesn’t see the petty owner point out the teenager chanting, “Sell The Team,’ to security personnel.

Does Dolan think the revolving door of coaches and presidents, the ludicrous contracts given to disinterested employees (see Phil Jackson), the snubs by NBA free agents falls on deaf ears and blind eyes?

Does he think the bizarro timing of his latest head-scratching move goes unnoticed?

Yet Dolan has three things going for him, known them named James Dolan:

The Knicks again have nowhere to go but up. The Garden remains the most magical of basketball arenas. And Dolan is willing to offer life-changing contracts. It’s a hard combination to walk away from.

Getting Ujiri, who is under contract with the Raptors until the end of the 2021 season, would likely require a stiff price. It would be so typical of the Knicks, who have wisely held onto their first-round draft picks, to unload at least one of those No.1s on a president, not a superstar.

Regardless of what Dolan offers, it still might not convince Ujiri to leave Toronto. Because what Dolan sees and hears is not what the rest of the NBA does.

Offense Not Defense Is Issue For Fordham

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Fordham took St. Bonaventure to overtime Wednesday night up at Rose Hill. Coach Jeff Neubauer, after a 62-55 loss in overtime, said his team played their best game of the year. 

credit Robert Cole

But it was the Fordham defense that kept them in this one.

The Rams lead the Atlantic 10 in scoring defense and rank 15th in the NCAA and that came up strong again allowing the Bonnies to 21 points in the first half.

The offense was a difference which attributed to this loss, and In this conference, you need to score. The Rams scored 22 points in the first half, were 19-for- 58 from the floor, 12-for-33 when shooting for three.

Saturday, Fordham scored  a season low 39 points in a loss at Saint Louis.  

“Our biggest offensive challenge is we cannot make two point baskets,” Neubauer said. “ 

 And making those baskets are so important in the A-10, a high scoring league.

credit Robert Cole

Fordham dropped their seventh game in their last eight. Their overall mark is 7-13, and the Rams  stand next to last in the Atlantic 10 Conference at 1-7.

Saturday, they travel to  Dayton (18-3) the top scoring team in the conference, ranked 7th in the nation. So, the Rams will need to score and not rely solely on their defense.

But the Rams did step up and send the game into overtime. Antwon Portley, limited in his second game back  from injury, forced overtime with a running one-handed shot with 2.8 seconds left.  

He also had a key 3-pointer down the stretch that tied the game at 53. 

Thing is, the Bonnies got the ball and made their shots, outscoring Fordham 9-2 in the extra period. Dominick Welch, a career high 22 points made three free throws that got the Bonnies a two-game sweep against the Rams this season. 

Again, the Rams need to convert their baskets. Though, Portley, does help with his return to the floor. 

“He made clutch shots; that’s who he is,” said Neubauer.

Despite those offensive struggles the Rams in three prior games saw their freshmen and sophomores account for 82.6% of their scoring, 138 of 167 points. 

Neubauer said about this loss, “The offensive rebounds we gave up,  hard to win, 12 rebounds in 25 minutes.” 

And if there is any chance of giving Dayton a game, Fordham has to score.  Their defense has not been the issue.

Neubauer was asked about that Dayton game that awaits. Saturday. He said it will be  a challenge.

“Good challenge as a team and as a coach,” he said.  “ My feeling is that tonight is that game we’ve played really talking about our defense. Our defense had gone to an amazing level.”  

Another conference loss for Fordham. But one they hope to build on with Dayton.

Comment: Ring786@aol.com  Twitter @Ring786  Facebook.com/Rich Mancuso

Kobe Just Might Have Made His Most Important Play

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file photo /Neil Miller /The New York Extra

By Lenn Robbins

It’s taken two days to see.

Since the first alert on my phone Sunday morning stating the unfathomable had happened – Kobe Bryant, 41, his daughter Gianna, 13, and seven other human beings – taken from us in the blink of a text, we’ve been blinded by grief and uncertainty.

The Lakers-Clippers game was canceled last night, as it should have been. But when do the Lakers return to the court in spirit as well as body? A week? A month? A season?

Prior to the tipoff of Monday night’s prep game between Friends Seminary and Packer Collegiate Institute, the rivals huddled at midcourt, arms around each other’s shoulders, as a 24-second shot clock ‘violation’ counted down.

Generations of Americans are hurting.

There are memorials at Staples Center and the House of Kobe Gym in the Philippines and Lower Merion High School outside of Philadelphia and Mamba Sports Academy, and Reggio Emilia in Italy and the Bryant Park subway stationed unofficially renamed Kobe Bryant Park.

(Memo to City: Don’t change that).

Should everything go back to the way it was before Kobe died or should it never be the same?

Does a reporter continue to write about Kobe or the suddenly surprising Knicks or disappointing Nets?

How do we evaluate any NBA team going forward when so many players lost a friend, idol, mentor, role model, former teammate or opponent?

How can we attend a Super Bowl party on Sunday, cheer and laugh, when four families are in the soul-numbing process of planning a funeral they never expected to plan so soon?

How do we go to church or temple this weekend knowing that Bryant and his daughter reportedly attended Mass Sunday morning at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Newport Beach, just hours before they died?

A parishioner there, Julie Hermes, told NBC-LA that she recalled watching Kobe with his four daughters after Mass one day.

“He was showering them with cupcakes, and he put them in car seats and buckled them in so carefully,” Hermes said.

That’s what love looks like. And this is Kobe’s last and possibly greatest legacy.

We’ve see men, seemingly the most manly among us, publicly showing their emotions in tears and tributes. LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Spencer Dinwiddie crying. Barack Obama, also a father of daughters, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar, expressing their sadness.

“[He was] and a leader in a lot of ways,” Abdul-Jabbar said on social media. “He inspired a whole generation of young athletes.”

Imagine that. A whole generation of young athletes seeing Kobe memorialized as a father and husband more than a player. A whole generation of young athletes overtly and covertly getting the message that there is more to life than a ball or a puck. A whole generation of young athletes seeing men that express their emotions as strong and sensitive.

Imagine this: In death, Kobe has made his most important play.

A Father, a Daughter, And a Love of Basketball.

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ROBBINS NEST

File photo/Neil Miller /The New York Extra

By Lenn Robbins

It was early January of 2013 when I bumped into World Metta Peace in the bowels of Madison Square Garden. He broke into a huge smile, gave me a neck-cracking hug and we settled into a couple of chairs courtside to do some catching up.

I had forged a bond with the young man then known as Ron “Ron-Ron” Artest Jr. years earlier when he played at St.  John’s. Anyone in the metropolitan area basketball world knew of Ron-Ron, his acts of generosity and volatile personality. He was ‘real,’ as they say, a kid out of Queensbridge who marched to his own thumping, erratic drummer to the NBA.

File Photo/Neil Miller/The New York Extra

There were the really good years in Indianapolis, ended by the notorious Malice in the Palace brawl; the solid years in Sacramento and Houston, followed by the magical season when Artest and Kobe Bryant won the 2010 title together with the Lakers.

“Man, Kobe and I went at it before the Lakers,’’ Metta Peace told me. “I was worried we weren’t going to get along when I signed with them. It wasn’t that we didn’t like each other. We wore different jerseys, came from different places.

File photo/Neil Miller/The New York Extra

Bryant had lived in Europe as a child, where his father, Joe ‘Jellybean’ Bryant played professionally. Kobe was fluent in Italian and Spanish and later educated at Lower Merion High School on Philadelphia’s exclusive Main Line.

Artest’s world was a housing project in Queens and a struggling Catholic school on Manhattan’s Lower Eastside – LaSalle Academy.

‘Kobe, people would see his smile, right,’’ said World Peace. “And he can speak, like five languages or something. Nice suits. I’m all ghetto. But we would kill you to win a game. Kill you. That’s what we had.”

We will never see Kobe Bean Bryant’s luminescent smile again, which is almost as tragic as the fact that we will never see the smile of his daughter – Gianna Maria Bryant. Kobe, 41, and Gianna, 13, were both killed in a helicopter crash outside of Los Angeles on Sunday.

File Photo gallery/Neil Miller/The New York Extra

The Black Mamba, a nickname Kobe gave himself, is dead. Unfathomable.

Kobe still had so much of life to live but he had accomplished so much in such a short time. It was 14 years ago this week that he scored 81 points in an NBA   game. It was just Saturday that LeBron James passed Kobe for third on the NBA’s all-time scoring list.

 James wrote “Mamba 4 Life” on his sneakers in Sunday’s game against the 76ers.

Bryant is a member of the most exclusive sports club – Pele, Serena, LeBron, Kobe.

And he was on the cusp of business and creative greatness. He won the 2018 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film for “Dear Basketball,” a six-minute film based on a poem Kobe wrote. He parlayed a $6 million investment in sports drink BodyArmor into a $200 million payday when Coca-Cola bought the company.

Most of all, he was scratching the surface of being a father. Bryant was taking Gianna to one of her travel basketball games. Gianna had dreams of playing at Connecticut, the Lakers and Celtics of women’s college basketball rolled into one.

Gianna had her entire life ahead of her. There will be no WNBA title, no opportunity to write a poem or become a businesswoman. Unfathomable.

One of the few truths we know is that no parent should have to bury a child. Now Vanessa Bryant, Kobe’s high school sweetheart, will have to bury a husband and child, and find a way to raise daughters Natalia, Bianka and Capri.

In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Kobe was asked if he had any regrets.

“Probably the amount of time spent on my craft and spent away from my family,” he said.

Unfathomable.

So what do we now, how do we process this tragedy?

Here’s the only consolation I can find. In their final seconds, Kobe and Gianna had each other. A father and a daughter together because of their love of the city game.

“He loves the game so much,’’ Artest said of Kobe. “You have to take his life to take that game from him.”

March Madness is Just What Major League Baseball Needs

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By Lenn Robbins

File photo Neil Miller/The New York Extra

  Pitchers, catches and cheaters report in less than four weeks.

The winter stretch from late-January to March has traditionally been a slow spell in sports. That’s one recent Sports Illustrated used to give us the swimsuit edition in February. Now it’s May. Enough of that.

This is not your typical year. MLB is giving us the Rocky Horror Sign Stealing Show.  Need to focus on the something less tainted? Consider this:

 Based on the many college basketball results in this week alone we’ve seen enough head-scratching results to make a safe bet, (sorry MLB)  that this has the potential to be the most maddening, thrilling, impossible to predict NCAA Tournament in recent time – if not all time.

Considered these results:

Unranked Alabama crushed No.4 Auburn, 83-64.

No. 18 Seton Hall slapped No.5 Butler, 78-70 in Indianapolis. South Carolina stunned No. 10 Kentucky, 81-78. Fear not Kentucky, here’s as good a place as any to point out that the Gamecocks got plucked by Northern Iowa, 78-72.

Struggling Georgetown edged No. 25 Creighton, 83-80.

Clemson shocked No. 3 Duke, 79-72.

Wisconsin tripped up No.17 Maryland, 56-54.

Minnesota banged No. 19 Michigan, 75-67.

Oregon State humbled No. 24 Arizona, 82- 65.

And Purdue humiliated No. 8 Michigan State, 71-42.

Defending national champ Virginia is not ranked.

Indiana and Syracuse (see 1987 NCAA National title game finalists) are not ranked.

Man, this his is fun:

Duke was upset at home by Stephen F. Austin, 85-83.

“We played young,” Coach k told reporters. “You gotta get old. You get old by experience, and I can’t teach them to be 22. They’re 18, a lot of them.”

Young gets you beat in the big Dance.

Kentucky fell at home to Evansville, 67-63.

“Stuff like this happens,” Kentucky coach John Calipari told reporters. “You wanna grow from it, you wanna learn from it. We may look back in a couple weeks and say ‘this is the greatest thing that happened to this team.'”

Or not.

Georgia was blown out at Dayton, 80-61.

“I knew we were going to be coming in against a whole different level of intensity, physicality, the way guys play,” Bulldogs coach Tom Crean told reporters. “That’s where we’re at and we got exposed by that.”

Exposed.

LSU got manhandled at home by East Tennessee State, 74-63.

“Obviously, this was a tough night,” LSU coach Will Wade told reporters. “East Tennessee had a great game plan. They shrunk the paint on us and then just pinned their ears back and killed us on the offensive glass. They got 15 more shots than we did and that really, really hurt us. It was too much for us to overcome.”

Killed us.

Boston College has become an attractive game for every mid-major, having lost to St. Louis, 64-54, and Richmond, 64-44. Richmond also owns a 93-92 win over Vanderbilt.

Santa Clara might be pushing for membership in the Pac 12 after knocking off Washington St., 70-62 and Cal, 71-52.

And our most convincing argument for March insanity is this:

North Carolina isn’t even listed in ‘Others Getting Votes.” North Carolina. Take that Rob Nelson, Channel 7!

“I want to apologize to all the North Carolina fans, the people that care about our basketball program, former players, everyone that cares about us,” Roy Williams said after a 79-76 home loss to Clemson, which had lost 60 straight to the Tar Heels in Chapel Hill.

Why apologize? It’s not like anyone cheated. In fact, North Carolina could have a starring role in the maddest March of all time.

From the Deli to the Penthouse: Stern Lifted the NBA to International Fame

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By Lenn Robbins

Before there was Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, before there were vloggers and people earning a living as influencers, heck, before there was an Internet, there was a force of nature known as David Joel Stern.

Almost anything and everything you see today in marketing and branding, probably makes its way back to the man who took the National Basketball Association from the brink of irrelevancy to one of the most successful sports leagues in the world.

Many NBA fans are young enough to not know of a league in which playoff games took place with little or no television coverage. Or an NBA Draft Lottery that didn’t exist.

“David took over the NBA in 1984 with the league at a crossroads,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said of his friend and mentor. “But over the course of 30 years as Commissioner, he ushered in the modern global NBA. He launched groundbreaking media and marketing partnerships, digital assets and social responsibility programs that have brought the game to billions of people around the world.

“Because of David, the NBA is a truly global brand — making him not only one of the greatest sports commissioners of all time but also one of the most influential business leaders of his generation. Every member of the NBA family is the beneficiary of David’s vision, generosity and inspiration.”

Stern died yesterday at the age of 77. He suffered a brain aneurysm hemorrhage about three weeks ago and never recovered. Stern was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014.

Under Stern’s New York City brash and confident persona (he worked at his father’s Manhattan deli), the NBA saw the birth of seven new franchises, the relocation of six other franchises and the creation of the WNBA and the D-League (now the G-League).

The value of franchises exploded. Jerry Reinsdorf bought the Chicago Bulls for $16 million in 1985. Less than 30 years later (2014), Steve Ballmer bought the L.A. Clippers for $2 billion.

The secret to Stern’s success was as simple and complex as this: He marketed the league’s stars as never before. He became commissioner just as Michael Jordan was emerging as a star of stars. Stern road Jordan, Magic, Bird, Charles Oakley and Patrick Ewing to international superstardom.

It was Stern’s vision to sell the stars that ingratiated the commissioner to the players even as he played hardball in negotiating. The NBA endured its first four lockouts under Stern.

By the time Stern handed the reins to Silver the NBA had a unique dynamic with its players: We’re in this together. The end result was that the players went from well-paid to millionaires and the owners left the millionaire club to become billionaires.

During his tenure, the league went from about $10 million a year in television revenue to more than $1 billion. NBA games became a place to seen by actors and musicians. Prince William and Duchess Kate attended a Brooklyn Nets game with Jay Z and Beyonce’!

“Without David Stern, the NBA would not be what it is today,’’ Jordan said in a statement. “He guided the league through turbulent times and grew the league into an international phenomenon, creating opportunities that few could have imagined before.

“His vision and leadership provided me with the global stage that allowed me to succeed. David had a deep love for the game of basketball and demanded excellence from those around him — and I admired him for that. I wouldn’t be where I am without him.”