@MarkKnudson41
Strike One: Good basketball teams do the little things well. Don’t beat themselves. Take what the opponents give them…that sort of thing.
Lost in the news about the University of Colorado’s third consecutive 20-win season (during a season in which schedules were shortened and multiple games cancelled) is a tiny fact that says everything about what Tad Boyle has going on in Boulder: Unless his team collectively decides go Chris Dudley on him, CU should end up setting a national record for free throw shooting this season. After beating Arizona State to improve to 20-7 on the season, the Buffs were making free throws – in essence free points the other team is giving you – at a clip of 83.4%. Better than eight out of 10 freebies. The record as things stand right now remains the 1984 Harvard squad, which hit free shots at an 82.2 clip.
There’s almost no chance they won’t topple the Pac 12 mark of 78.6 set by the Arizona Wildcats in 2003 and will most certainly blow away the school record of 77.8, set by Boyle’s 2011 unit.
The reason this stuff matters is that it illustrates how well coached this program is. Tad’s teams do the little things well. That’s why he’s won 20 games or more eight times and the rest of CU’s head coaches combined did it four times.
With all the restrictions placed on coaches and programs during the past year, it says a lot that Boyle still had the buy in of his players to work on the little things – like free throw shooting – that end up deciding games. That helped them win a school record 14 conference games during a shortened season.
These upstart Buffs, predicted to finish seventh in the Pac 12, will get a #3 seed and a bye in the upcoming conference tournament. Led by senior guard McKinley Wright IV, they’re legit threat to not only win the conference tournament but advance in the NCAA tournament further than any other CU team ever has.
Wright has been everything Boyle said he’d be and more during his senior season, including being voted Pac 12 Player of the Week for the final week of February. He’s had seven 20-point games and been a solid defender. He’s likely to be the next in a steady stream of former Buffaloes to make a mark in the NBA, following guys like Spencer Dinwiddie, Andre Roberson, Alec Burks and Derrick White in the past decade. Of course the King of Park Hill – Chauncey Billups – remains the King of CU NBA alums, too. Wright will soon be joining his club.
With the Buffs a lock for a single-digit seeding in the Big Dance, local fans can start to wonder and hope that maybe those in charge of the brackets will do us all a big favor and finally give us a shot at a CU-CSU match up…
Strike Two: That’s because CSU has also had a record-setting conference season, and if the Rams have a good showing in the Mountain West tournament – at least reaching the finals, which is very doable as the #2 seed – they should be a #11 or #12 seed in March Madness. At 17-5 they have a resume that’s more than worthy of a bid.
After the Rams also notched their school record 14th conference win, a loss in their regular season finale at Nevada left them squarely on the bubble. ESPN projects them to face Michigan State in an #11-seed play IN game – with conference rival Boise State in the same play in situation, and Utah State on the outside looking in. Regular season champ San Diego State is a lock, but the other three teams are playing for their NCAA tourney lives in Las Vegas.
So what happens in Las Vegas won’t stay there…yet if the young Rams do well, they could perhaps lose for winning.
As in, lose their coach.
Niko Medved has done a terrific job during his three seasons in Fort Collins, including this pandemic marred season that has seen COVID-19 rob the Rams of a chance to win 20+ games for the second straight season and cement their NCAA tourney status well ahead of time. Other schools are bound to notice. Especially one like Medved’s alma mater, the University of Minnesota, where Richard Pitino is rumored to be on his way out after a poor season and Medved – a local product who began his coaching career as a student assistant with the Gophers – has already grabbed their full attention.
Did I mention he’s an alum?
Medved hails from Roseville, Minnesota, a short drive from the UM campus, and still has roots there. He used those roots to lure Minnesota product and current Ram’s standout David Roddy to CSU. Those who follow the Gopher program are already touting him as the perfect fit in Minneapolis.
Medved has a good thing going in the Fort, but this is the Big Ten we’re talking about. The best college basketball conference in the country. If he were to get an offer, how does a 47-year-old up and coming coach who is currently making $750K a year say no to what is certain to be the best job offer he will ever get? Who could begrudge him the opportunity of a lifetime?
Did I mention he’s an alum?
Medved has already been named the Mountain West Coach of the Year. He should get his team into the Big Dance. He’ll get a lot of love from everyone associated with CSU hoops and he’ll deserve every bit of it. But in the end, it might not be enough to keep him around.
Strike Three: Air Force hasn’t been to the Big Dance since 2006, and they haven’t been to any post season tournament since 2013. And unless they pull a giant upset and win the Mountain West tournament, basketball season will once again be over shortly in Colorado Springs. On the bright side, that should give Falcon fans ample opportunity to start to follow the Air Force baseball team, which isn’t shying away from big time competition and could end up making some noise in the MW Baseball tourney in May.
After sweeping Army to improve to 4-5 on the young season, the Falcons will play a couple more on the road this coming weekend when they travel to Tucson to face powerhouses Wichita State and the University of Arizona. If that sounds like a tall order for Mike Kazlausky’s bunch, it is…but it won’t scare a team that’s already taken down powerhouse LSU earlier in the season.
AFA was supposed to open the season against Notre Dame, but COVID cancelled that one. So, after splitting two games with the host Tigers in Baton Rouge, they dropped four straight, including three MW conference games at New Mexico. But the gritty Falcons bounced back to capture the baseball version of a Commander & Chiefs series against the Black Knights and still have most of their conference season left to make some noise. Along the way, they’ll also squeeze in games against Kansas and Dallas Baptist – another baseball powerhouse – before this season ends (COVID willing, of course.)
Mountain West baseball hasn’t gotten a ton of attention since Stephen Strasburg left San Diego State, but there are some very good teams in that league, and Coach Kaz has his group poised to join that fray. It’s very very early, but at the outset of the season, both Nevada and UNLV are among the top 12 teams nationally in RPI. The Rebels come to Colorado Springs the final weekend of March.
If you think it’s tough to get basketball and football players with professional aspirations to accept an appointment to the Academy, imagine the difficulty getting high school kids who want to turn pro – and have that option out of high school – to accept and appointment to a place that makes them spend their first summer in boot camp, then gives them a class load of no less than 21 credit hours per semester, limits their summer baseball opportunities to one month, and their professional options to a very limited minor league season while they fulfill their post graduate cadet requirements.
Ya, it’s not easy to get a lot of baseball talent to come to Air Force.
Still, somehow Kazlausky has done just that. For example, pitcher Griffin Jax is now a First Lieutenant and may soon become the first Air Force graduate to play in the Major Leagues.
He last played for Coach Kaz in 2016 when he was the MW co-pitcher of the year. Later, he became the highest draft choice in Academy history when the Minnesota Twins made him a third round pick. Now he’s very close to making the big leagues.
And his alma mater is close to making some noise in a baseball conference that normally sees them as an also-ran. With visits from San Diego State and the aforementioned UNLV on the docket for this month, it could be a different kind of March Madness at the Academy.