Monday's Overreactions!!!
Kentucky's los, West Virginia's win, and questions concerning Keyontae Johnson
Before we get into the things that you need to know from this week in college basketball, a little update on what we’re going to do with the newsletter:
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What happened to Keyontae Johnson on Saturday is the nightmare scenario.
With just about four minutes gone in Florida’s visit to Florida State, Johnson finished a thunderous lob that forced Leonard Hamilton to call a timeout. As he walked onto the court after the timeout, Johnson passed out, falling face first into the floor. He was taken off the court on a stretcher, and as of Sunday night, he was still in a Tallahasse hospital, listed in critical but stable condition.
Johnson had tested positive for the coronavirus back in June. It’s important to note here: We DO NOT KNOW the details of what happened. We DO NOT KNOW why Johnson passed out, or whether or not this had anything to do with the long-term effects of COVID-19; myocarditis, the inflammation of the heart muscle, is a symptom that some people have experienced after contracting the virus.
But I will say this: If (and it is very much still an if at this point, I want to emphasize that again) it turns out that what happened to Johnson on Saturday is in anyway connected to the fact that he contracted COVID-19 in June, then that drastically changes the conversation surrounding college basketball this season, but let’s put a pin in that. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
Considering that this happened at 11 a.m. on a Saturday of a weekend that featured college football, the NFL and the return of the NBA, it feels like it has become a complete non-story, at least nationally.
A 21-year old All-American college basketball player, a kid that will play in the NBA if he can get healthy, is lying in an ICU bed after collapsing during a game. Have you noticed that we have not yet seen any footage or photos coming out of that hotel room? That Florida hasn’t so much as pushed out a picture of Keyontae smiling and giving a thumbs up? That Keyontae is still listed in critical, but stable, condition?
He’s not out of the woods yet, and the story is already off of the front page of ESPN.com, CBSSports.com and NBCSports.com?
Hell, we didn’t even stop the game that he was playing in despite the fact that one of Leonard Hamilton’s former players, Michael Ojo, died after suffering a heart attack during a workout back in August. He, too, had contracted COVID-19.
And yes, I know that decision was made by Florida’s players, but at what point do we have to protect the players from themselves? What kind of psychological impact does this have on them? If they’re still in shock now, what were they feeling in that moment?
I wrote back before the season started that I’ve resigned myself to a level of cognitive dissonance in enjoying college hoops this year. Maximize safety measures, give people that are wired to compete an avenue to compete, shut things down if anyone tests positive, hold out as long as we can.
Can I still justify that?
The whole reason we shut things down for so long was that we didn’t know how much we didn’t know about this virus. We are starting to learn more about it, but we still cannot possibly know the long-term impact it has on people because it hasn’t been around long enough to have had a long-term impact on anyone. We don’t know if it caused Keyontae to pass out. We don’t know if it’s the reason he is still in critical condition.
But here’s what we do know: There is a kid in an ICU bed that collapsed during a basketball game. He had COVID-19 in June. One of the symptoms of COVID-19 is myocarditis. Myocarditis is what killed Hank Gathers, Reggie Lewis and countless other athletes.
Should we still be playing?
That’s a question, just like so much of what is written in this column is a question.
I do not have an answer.
But, at this point, we need to start having that conversation.
Because I do not want to see another college basketball player collapse, get stretchered off the court and wind up forgotten by the national media within hours because #football.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Luka Garza, Iowa
Is it too early to just give him the National Player of the Year award?
We discussed last week the impact that he had against North Carolina despite the fact that he shot just 6-for-20 from the floor. Big men can have gravity, too, especially when they are as dominant on the block as Garza is.
What did he do on Friday?
He went 13-for-14 from the floor and 6-for-7 from three in a blowout win over in-state rival Iowa State. He finished with 34 points in all of 17 minutes of action. That, according to well-established sources within the Iowa community, is good.
TEAM OF THE WEEK: Missouri Tigers
It really does not get much better than knocking off your biggest rival* on your homecourt.
Well, maybe it does.
Fans could be there.
But considering where we are in the world right now, I think Missouri will be fine “only” beating their biggest rival* on national television. That’s a tough basketball team that has some really good, veteran guards and completely exploited the issues that Illinois has on their perimeter. Good for Cuonzo Martin.
*(I don’t know who Missouri considers to be their biggest rival, but you can’t have a rival you don’t play and I will use every chance I get to call out Kansas for going so long without playing the Tigers.)
MONDAY’S OVERREACTIONS
1. WEST VIRGINIA WILL WIN THE NATIONAL TITLE IF THEY SHOOT LIKE THAT
I host a podcast with former West Virginia All-American Da’Sean Butler.
(You should subscribe to that, by the way.)
Back in October, when I was making jokes about how West Virginia can’t shoot, and how hard it is to watch them play, he told me to watch out. He said that Miles McBride had taken a step forward as a sophomore, that Sean McNeil and Taz Sherman were bucket-getters, that there was enough firepower on their perimeter to be able to make teams pay for throwing bodies at Big Sheeb and company.
I didn’t believe.
But maybe I should have.
Sherman is shooting 50 percent from three early on this season. After putting up 20 points on 9-for-11 shooting in Sunday’s 87-71 win over Richmond, McBride is hitting 43 percent of his threes. McNeil is starting to get it going. Even Jordan McCabe knocked down a couple of triples of his own.
Now performances like this are not going to happen every game. The Mountaineers shot 8-for-14 from three, but they were 6-for-9 in the first half, when they shot 66 percent from the floor and hit their last ten shots of the half. That was abnormal.
But West Virginia doesn’t have to shoot that way, not all the time. What they need to do is to bury those jumpers at a high enough clip to force defenses to guard them, to run them off of the three. It’s the threat that matters, that creates the space, that gives a shooter gravity.
They sure looked like threats on Sunday.
2. CADE CUNNINGHAM IS THE BEST NON-ZION PROSPECT TO COME THROUGH COLLEGE SINCE …
Is it Anthony Davis? Maybe Ben Simmons or Deandre Ayton, if you’re giving the big fella some credit for his defense? Maybe you’re bullish on Ja Morant?
Regardless, Cade went out this week and really started to throw together some impressive clips for the Prospect Profile video that you know is coming soon.
He had 29 points in a come-from-behind win over Oral Roberts. He is averaging 18.8 points, 5.0 boards and 3.8 assists while shooting 47 percent from three. He hit the game-winning three on Saturday afternoon.
But for my money, the totality of this sequence was more impressive — and more indicative of his potential at the next level — than knocking down a contested jumper:
3. ILLINOIS IS NOT THE BEST TEAM IN THE BIG TEN
I may have been on an island with this one, but I really thought that the Illini would win the Big Ten regular season this season, but I just can’t see that happening this year, not unless they find a way to clean up their ball-screen defense. Baylor, Missouri and Ohio all had way too much success carving up Illinois on their perimeter. Kofi Cockburn and Giorgi Bezhanishvili both struggle to defend ball-screens, which is not ideal when there are so many young guards being asked to make plays on that end.
But it’s not just the Illini that have made me change my mind.
Iowa looks like they are going to be good enough on the offensive end of the floor to make up with a lot of the issues they have defensively. I’ve been particularly impressed with Joe Wieskamp early on. He’s always been a great shooter. Now he’s scoring off the bounce aggressively and regularly.
Now, Iowa is going to have trouble against teams that can match up with their four-guard lineup and that will have a big to deal with Luka (hello, Illinois!) but even on those nights, if they shoot the way they’ve shot early on this season, it may not matter.
4. KENTUCKY IS CLOSER THAN YOU THINK
Let me ask you guys a question: Let’s that the jumper that Olivier Sarr missed at the buzzer on Saturday went in. Let’s say that Kentucky won that game, that they erased a 24-point deficit at the hands of Notre Dame. Let’s say that this group of kids came all the way back to beat an ACC program loaded with upperclassmen despite playing the worst half of basketball that they will play all season long in the first half.
What would the narrative be then?
That this was the turning point? That Kentucky had figured out how to win games? That they were rounding into form? That this was the first step in the right direction?
It would be something like that.
Why does it change just because Sarr missed one jumper? One shot in a 40 minute game in a 30 game season should not have that much of an impact on how we view a team, and right now, I’m viewing Kentucky as a team that lacks leadership, that lacks a vocal presence and a motivator on the roster, and that can really, really lock up when they decide they are going to.
For my money, the second half against Notre Dame was proof that there is a top 20 team somewhere in that Kentucky locker room.
I don’t know that we’ll ever see them that good this season.
But the potential is, certainly, there.