Gonna wrap up a long day with some quick thoughts on the hoops game. First off, will share a couple videos.
Cuonzo's postgame
Our live postgame show (which had more people than the football show did which is either a nod that people like to win or that they'd rather hang out with a random dude on YouTube on Saturday night than Saturday afternoon)
On to some quick thoughts:
1) Missouri beat a top ten team (and I think Illinois is every bit of that) with absolutely nothing from Jeremiah Tilmon and almost nothing from Mark Smith. That's remarkable.
2) Xavier Pinson wasn't great all night. But he was great at times. No time more than leading 78-76 when Illinois had most of the momentum and he simply took over and went one on one and scored in the lane. If this team HAS to have a basket, Pinson's the guy taking the ball and making the play (and after the result when he kicked it out to Kobe Brown with 12 seconds left, he may not pass it any more).
3) It was a ref show. We all know that. They were awful. Both ways. Ayo got too many calls, and then when he probably deserved a call they called a charge. Tilmon's fifth foul was awful and Kofi's flagrant might have been worse. They didn't change the outcome of the game (and if Illinois had won I'd say the same thing) but they were just in general terrible. As I told someone on the postgame show, I just go into every game assuming the refs will suck and try to watch the game independent of that fact.
4) I thoroughly enjoyed Cuonzo clowning the rankings in the postgame (it's in response to the first question in the video above). If I were to fill out a poll, I think I'd put Missouri at 12. There's no science to that. I don't know who's better. It just seems like a good place to debut them. Truth be told, I can't imagine there are five teams in the country who have accomplished more, so maybe they should be top five. Of course they won't be. Which is why I agree with Cuonzo that nobody should be ranked until the end of December.
5) If I were to pick an MVP in the game tonight, I'd pick Mitchell Smith. I'm not sure there was a time I believed I would type those words, but I just typed them. He described himself yesterday as the dirty player on the team. He does the stuff nobody else wants to do. There was a four or five possession sequence where I think he chased three rebounds out of bounds. May not have showed up in the box score, but the dude played well tonight.
6) Maybe it's just because I'm really tired and it's been a long day, but I feel like it's gonna take me at least 24 more hours to figure out what the hell Ayo was trying to do on that last possession.
Cuonzo's postgame
Our live postgame show (which had more people than the football show did which is either a nod that people like to win or that they'd rather hang out with a random dude on YouTube on Saturday night than Saturday afternoon)
On to some quick thoughts:
1) Missouri beat a top ten team (and I think Illinois is every bit of that) with absolutely nothing from Jeremiah Tilmon and almost nothing from Mark Smith. That's remarkable.
2) Xavier Pinson wasn't great all night. But he was great at times. No time more than leading 78-76 when Illinois had most of the momentum and he simply took over and went one on one and scored in the lane. If this team HAS to have a basket, Pinson's the guy taking the ball and making the play (and after the result when he kicked it out to Kobe Brown with 12 seconds left, he may not pass it any more).
3) It was a ref show. We all know that. They were awful. Both ways. Ayo got too many calls, and then when he probably deserved a call they called a charge. Tilmon's fifth foul was awful and Kofi's flagrant might have been worse. They didn't change the outcome of the game (and if Illinois had won I'd say the same thing) but they were just in general terrible. As I told someone on the postgame show, I just go into every game assuming the refs will suck and try to watch the game independent of that fact.
4) I thoroughly enjoyed Cuonzo clowning the rankings in the postgame (it's in response to the first question in the video above). If I were to fill out a poll, I think I'd put Missouri at 12. There's no science to that. I don't know who's better. It just seems like a good place to debut them. Truth be told, I can't imagine there are five teams in the country who have accomplished more, so maybe they should be top five. Of course they won't be. Which is why I agree with Cuonzo that nobody should be ranked until the end of December.
5) If I were to pick an MVP in the game tonight, I'd pick Mitchell Smith. I'm not sure there was a time I believed I would type those words, but I just typed them. He described himself yesterday as the dirty player on the team. He does the stuff nobody else wants to do. There was a four or five possession sequence where I think he chased three rebounds out of bounds. May not have showed up in the box score, but the dude played well tonight.
6) Maybe it's just because I'm really tired and it's been a long day, but I feel like it's gonna take me at least 24 more hours to figure out what the hell Ayo was trying to do on that last possession.
