Day 3 Recap On Championship Sunday

I felt bad for Barry Hinson, Coach of Missouri St, after his team got blasted by the Jays on Saturday. Hinson’s polite tone of voice in the postgame didn’t hide the fact that he was baically saying that his team was actually in the game vs. Creighton. Saying “It was a 8 point game with 2 play” and that the Committee shouldn’t look at the 17 point margin of victory is just wrong. The Jays never allowed MSU into the game in the 2nd half and NEVER trailed the entire game. MSU got outworked and out coached on Saturday afternoon. Watch for this – 2 Valley teams go into the dance in exchange for higher seeds. If the Jays win today – could they go as high as a 6 seed? We’ll see….

Now, I think the Bears should make the tourney given the fact that they have some amazing wins and they have an RPI that is comparable to last year. The big difference this year is that they have the ONE win vs. Wisconsin. We’ll have to wait and see if that is enough to get them in.

The Seniors scored 65 of the Jays 75 points on Saturday. Amazing work by Nate Funk, who scored a tourney record 33 and only missed 5 shots all day long. Nick Porter was, as Nate called him, the X-factor with 19 points and 13 rebs – his first double double of his Bluejay career. AT wasn’t needed on offense that much but was his typical dominate self on D. I’ve really like his work on the defensive end of the floor in this tourney. Can they repeat the effort today, less than 24 hours after the win over the Bears?

Now onto SIU. The Salukis looked a bit bored with the Bradley game yesterday. We’ll have to wait and see if they play harder today since it’s CBS and the Bluejays. I’ve said it before – I just think the breaks are going to go CU’s way today. They might lose but it won’t be because they got a bad break. More on this game later from the arena….

Some Notes from St. Louis:

- I ate lunch with Gary Parrish of CBSsportsline.com yesterday and talked to him a lot about the Valley. He told about his article that he was planning to write on The Valley and the fact that he didn’t like the current talk going on about the league. I don’t totally disagree with him about quality of the Valley – except top to bottom – the MVC is better than the Big 12. I don’t know how much of the Big 12 Gary has seen, but Colorado, Nebraska, and Baylor are god awful. Drake and Evansville won a game in this Tourney – Let’s see if those 3 Big 12 teams can do that.

- I’m still hearing rumblings that Doc Sadler isn’t thrilled with what is going on with Nebraska and that Arkansas could come calling. If that happens, many that I spoke with expect him to jump quickly.

- Evansville fired Steve Murfeld. Indy St. fired Royce Waltman. Everyone is wondering when the firing of Porter Moser is going to be announced. Everyone in the media that I spoke with has heard the same rumor – he’s out. But why no word yet from the school?

- I met Jerry Palm of Collegerpi.com on Friday night for the first time. Really nice guy and I talked with him at great length about the Jays and Missouri St. The win yesterday was huge for a couple of reasons. First, the Jays jump Missouri St. on his board and put them into the tourney. 2nd, Missouri St. now has to answer the question of “why do you belong” after losing to the Jays 3 times and finishing a full game below them in the standings. Jerry says the league is a 2 bid league that could get 1 more if everything falls right in the other tourneys. Just be glad you won yesterday J.