What sports people like is a personal choice, and for a variety of reasons, basketball has almost always been a distance third to football and baseball for Tulane fans. For me, it's different. Basketball was the one sport I played well, although that's a relative term. In my sophomore year at Florida I became obsessed, spending at least two hours at Florida Gym every day after classes on the B recreational courts (the real players were on the A courts) as my GPA went down, playing pickup games to 10 with each basket counting as 1 point and the winning team staying on the floor to take on the next challengers. Then, in March of 1988, I took a ridiculous 30-foot shot while dribbling down the court and landed on someone's foot, spraining an ankle horrendously, to the point where it blew up like a balloon. I was on crutches for six weeks, having to use the crank elevator to get to the third floor of my dorm for a while and never regained the same flexibility in the ankle, which was misdiagnosed as an outside sprain at the infirmary when it was an inside sprain, which also affects the knee. Back in New Orleans that summer, I had to go to physical therapy to learn how to walk properly again, and although I returned to play basketball in the fall of my junior year, it was more of a hobby than a full-time thing from then on.
College basketball in general was my obsession back then. Florida made its first NCAA tournament in school history in my freshman year, when I was one of the only people on my dorm floor to have season tickets at the start of the year and went to games by myself through at least January. The Gators ended up reaching the Sweet 16, but when they were losing by double digits to 11 seed North Carolina State in the second half of the first round, I kicked a hole in the big chair I shared with dorm roommates. The Gators rallied to win comfortably, crushed 3 seed Purdue in the second round and had eventual national championship runner-up Syracuse on the ropes late in the second half before faltering in the Sweet 16.
College basketball is not what it used to be, and the end of games can be interminable with all of the timeouts and officiating reviews to determine how much time should be on the clock, but I still pay incredibly close attention to it even if I do not watch nearly as much as I used to during the regular season. Nothing, and I mean nothing, bothers me more than when Tulane football holds its Pro Day during the first round of the NCAA tournament, which I still watch from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. straight through on both days if my job lets me.
My point in all this rambling, if there is one, is I feel like I know basketball, and this Tulane is talented and fun to watch. My eyes tell me that, and the recruiting rankings back that up. As a group, these guys had higher high school ratings than any group since the heyday of Perry Clark, which was a different level for sure. Last night Tulane blocked nine East Carolina shots after blocking 10 Rice shots on Saturday, which has to be a school record for a two-game stretch but is not look-uppable. This team is rendering the constant carping over the years about Ron Hunter's matchup zone being unworkable as a complete falsehood. He has the right players for his system now, and they are all over the floor causing problems for opponents, ranking first in the AAC in field goal percentage defense, second in 3-point field goal percentage defense, first in blocks and second in scoring defense. The offense has been more up and down, but if Kaleb Banks explosion last night proves sustainable, this will be a dangerous team on that end of the floor, too.
Last night Tulane curb-stomped a previously hot ECU team for 32 minutes, forcing its white hot two leading scorers into inefficient games while going ahead by 18. I thought Hunter took the air out of the ball too early, and the Wave had some bad possessions down the stretch that made the game look a lot closer than it actually was, but it never reached the danger zone, and freshman Kam Williams sealed the deal with the ninth block of the night on a 3-point attempt that could have cut the deficit to 2 in the final 10 seconds.
Theres no question the AAC is the weakest it has ever been. That's fact. But it also is not like the dregs of basketball. Memphis beat NCAA tournament locks Missouri, Connecticut, Michigan State, Clemson and Ole Miss in its non-conference schedule but has struggled to put away AAC opponents in all but two of its 13 games, losing two outright. Tulane is playing well regardless of the competition, and its upside is high heading into the AAC tourney. Beating Wichita State on Sunday will be no easy task--the Shockers just beat Memphis and have won four in a row entering tonight's game at FAU--but a win would go a long way toward securing a top-four seed in the AAC tourney, which absolutely, positively is winnable for Memphis, North Texas, UAB and Tulane. If basketball's not your thing, that's fine. But this team is worth watching and paying attention to if it is.
Here is what Hunter had to say after the 86-81 win.
“We got the win, and in about two weeks or three months from now, no one is going to know whether we won or lost the game, but we have to close out games better than that. We had an 18-point game with eight minutes to go and then we just relaxed. We have to better than that if we want to get to the level we want to get to. Before we got to that time, we played really good basketball. We defended them. I think they are 19th in the country in offensive rebounding (actually they were 27th) and we did a good of that. We actually outrebounded them for the game, but then we relaxed. The last two games offensively we are really starting to come out of a slump now.”
On nine blocked shots:
“That’s why I love this team. We think we can do some special things, especially when we get in the conference tournament because we really believe in our defense. We’ve got great length. Our team D early on our frontline was really good. We were challenging shots, we were flying around. We couldn’t get our guards to do that. I thought they played a little stagnant, but our frontline was really active for the most part in this game.”
On not closing out:
“We relaxed. Our intensity went down. We got the 18-point lead and we started scoreboard watching, we started missing free throws and that’s when you have to turn it up. You can’t let a team like that back in it. We let them get back in it and were very tentative to end the game.”
On Banks bounce-back
“I think Kaleb would say the first thing we did was we won the game. We are 9-4. We know we need him. I thought the last couple of games he played well. He just didn’t have the offensive numbers. When he concentrates on just those rebounds. He has seven rebounds all in the first half, and that gets him going and he got some deflections and a couple of blocked shots and he saw the ball go in. They opened up in that zone, and he got a free look, and once he sees it go in, lights out.
On how much Banks opens up things for other guys:
“I’m not sure how much it opens up. Our backcourt’s been playing lights out. You can’t expect them to carry you the whole time, so we need this. We were struggling to get 60 (points) and all of a sudden it’s back-to-back games where we’re almost getting 90 points. We need Kaleb, he knows that, but not necessarily off his scoring. Just his activity. When he’s active like that, we’re a different team.”
On build-up last few games:
“What we love is that no one talks about us. When we watch the broadcasts they talk about everybody else and no one says anything about Tulane has a chance, so we just want to keep winning, be better the next day and see what happens at the end. I heard someone say on TV the other day there’s four or five teams that can win the tournament, and he didn’t list us. I picked that up. I appreciate him saying that. Just like he was probably the same guy who said we would finish last in this league. What we want to do is keep bringing our defense to the fight. If we bring our defense to the fight, you’ve got a problem.”
On stopping Walker and Felton:
“We’ve been doing this all year. Our guys have been shutting down the leading scorers and trying to make somebody else go win a game. We wanted them to see bodies and wanted them to be volume shooters tonight. Our length really bothered them. When you block some shots early, they started looking around to see what the other block was coming from. Those are two really good players, and we did a good job on them.”
BANKS
On slump-busting game:
“Yeah, for the most part it was seeing the ball going through the basket a couple of times. That felt good to me to get my confidence up. I just found ways to help the team win. I had a couple of good blocks tonight and my shooting was great, too.”
College basketball in general was my obsession back then. Florida made its first NCAA tournament in school history in my freshman year, when I was one of the only people on my dorm floor to have season tickets at the start of the year and went to games by myself through at least January. The Gators ended up reaching the Sweet 16, but when they were losing by double digits to 11 seed North Carolina State in the second half of the first round, I kicked a hole in the big chair I shared with dorm roommates. The Gators rallied to win comfortably, crushed 3 seed Purdue in the second round and had eventual national championship runner-up Syracuse on the ropes late in the second half before faltering in the Sweet 16.
College basketball is not what it used to be, and the end of games can be interminable with all of the timeouts and officiating reviews to determine how much time should be on the clock, but I still pay incredibly close attention to it even if I do not watch nearly as much as I used to during the regular season. Nothing, and I mean nothing, bothers me more than when Tulane football holds its Pro Day during the first round of the NCAA tournament, which I still watch from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. straight through on both days if my job lets me.
My point in all this rambling, if there is one, is I feel like I know basketball, and this Tulane is talented and fun to watch. My eyes tell me that, and the recruiting rankings back that up. As a group, these guys had higher high school ratings than any group since the heyday of Perry Clark, which was a different level for sure. Last night Tulane blocked nine East Carolina shots after blocking 10 Rice shots on Saturday, which has to be a school record for a two-game stretch but is not look-uppable. This team is rendering the constant carping over the years about Ron Hunter's matchup zone being unworkable as a complete falsehood. He has the right players for his system now, and they are all over the floor causing problems for opponents, ranking first in the AAC in field goal percentage defense, second in 3-point field goal percentage defense, first in blocks and second in scoring defense. The offense has been more up and down, but if Kaleb Banks explosion last night proves sustainable, this will be a dangerous team on that end of the floor, too.
Last night Tulane curb-stomped a previously hot ECU team for 32 minutes, forcing its white hot two leading scorers into inefficient games while going ahead by 18. I thought Hunter took the air out of the ball too early, and the Wave had some bad possessions down the stretch that made the game look a lot closer than it actually was, but it never reached the danger zone, and freshman Kam Williams sealed the deal with the ninth block of the night on a 3-point attempt that could have cut the deficit to 2 in the final 10 seconds.
Theres no question the AAC is the weakest it has ever been. That's fact. But it also is not like the dregs of basketball. Memphis beat NCAA tournament locks Missouri, Connecticut, Michigan State, Clemson and Ole Miss in its non-conference schedule but has struggled to put away AAC opponents in all but two of its 13 games, losing two outright. Tulane is playing well regardless of the competition, and its upside is high heading into the AAC tourney. Beating Wichita State on Sunday will be no easy task--the Shockers just beat Memphis and have won four in a row entering tonight's game at FAU--but a win would go a long way toward securing a top-four seed in the AAC tourney, which absolutely, positively is winnable for Memphis, North Texas, UAB and Tulane. If basketball's not your thing, that's fine. But this team is worth watching and paying attention to if it is.
Here is what Hunter had to say after the 86-81 win.
“We got the win, and in about two weeks or three months from now, no one is going to know whether we won or lost the game, but we have to close out games better than that. We had an 18-point game with eight minutes to go and then we just relaxed. We have to better than that if we want to get to the level we want to get to. Before we got to that time, we played really good basketball. We defended them. I think they are 19th in the country in offensive rebounding (actually they were 27th) and we did a good of that. We actually outrebounded them for the game, but then we relaxed. The last two games offensively we are really starting to come out of a slump now.”
On nine blocked shots:
“That’s why I love this team. We think we can do some special things, especially when we get in the conference tournament because we really believe in our defense. We’ve got great length. Our team D early on our frontline was really good. We were challenging shots, we were flying around. We couldn’t get our guards to do that. I thought they played a little stagnant, but our frontline was really active for the most part in this game.”
On not closing out:
“We relaxed. Our intensity went down. We got the 18-point lead and we started scoreboard watching, we started missing free throws and that’s when you have to turn it up. You can’t let a team like that back in it. We let them get back in it and were very tentative to end the game.”
On Banks bounce-back
“I think Kaleb would say the first thing we did was we won the game. We are 9-4. We know we need him. I thought the last couple of games he played well. He just didn’t have the offensive numbers. When he concentrates on just those rebounds. He has seven rebounds all in the first half, and that gets him going and he got some deflections and a couple of blocked shots and he saw the ball go in. They opened up in that zone, and he got a free look, and once he sees it go in, lights out.
On how much Banks opens up things for other guys:
“I’m not sure how much it opens up. Our backcourt’s been playing lights out. You can’t expect them to carry you the whole time, so we need this. We were struggling to get 60 (points) and all of a sudden it’s back-to-back games where we’re almost getting 90 points. We need Kaleb, he knows that, but not necessarily off his scoring. Just his activity. When he’s active like that, we’re a different team.”
On build-up last few games:
“What we love is that no one talks about us. When we watch the broadcasts they talk about everybody else and no one says anything about Tulane has a chance, so we just want to keep winning, be better the next day and see what happens at the end. I heard someone say on TV the other day there’s four or five teams that can win the tournament, and he didn’t list us. I picked that up. I appreciate him saying that. Just like he was probably the same guy who said we would finish last in this league. What we want to do is keep bringing our defense to the fight. If we bring our defense to the fight, you’ve got a problem.”
On stopping Walker and Felton:
“We’ve been doing this all year. Our guys have been shutting down the leading scorers and trying to make somebody else go win a game. We wanted them to see bodies and wanted them to be volume shooters tonight. Our length really bothered them. When you block some shots early, they started looking around to see what the other block was coming from. Those are two really good players, and we did a good job on them.”
BANKS
On slump-busting game:
“Yeah, for the most part it was seeing the ball going through the basket a couple of times. That felt good to me to get my confidence up. I just found ways to help the team win. I had a couple of good blocks tonight and my shooting was great, too.”
