by Wayne23 » Mon Aug 12, 2013 3:19 am
On to our 2nd straight Final Four! We’ll play #7 Kansas, and #2 Arizona plays #3 Indiana.
Kansas is 30-6, 13-5, finished 2nd, won the tourney. Won their last 9. Stronger outside but talented inside. Not deep.
4/1: 72-61. We were down as many as 13 in the first and went in down 11. Didn’t take the lead until 7:07 to go and not for good until 4:53. Rice scored 19 straight points during one stretch, and had 11 straight in the last 2 ½ min. He had only 7 in the 1st half.
+7, -11 (worst TO game of the season), 65-43%.
40, 9, 4, 1, 3 for Ali, 11 each for Sass and Fark but Fark had 11 TOs. Not an easy game.
#3 Indiana, 33-5, 13-3, won by 4 so we’ll play them for the title. Finished 1st, won the tourney, won their last 13. Very solid at 2, 3, 4 but 1 and 5 are shaky and there’s not much bench.
4/3: We had to earn it, 82-78. Once again we went into the locker room trailing, this time only by 3. We quickly built a 13 point lead in the 2nd but Indiana came back. They tied it twice but never took the lead. In the last 2 ½ minutes Ali hit 2 threes and 6 free throws to get us the title.
+2, -8, 62-48%, fouls 24-16.
Ali had 59, 6, 2, 4, 2 but 5 TOs and 4 fouls. He played the entire 40 min. 6 each for Sass and Camp. Last game for Kirk, Carr and Sass.
66 wins in a row, Ali has a total of more than 4,000 points in two years. He informed me on the plane home that he intends to do two Masters degrees here after finishing his B. A. requirements next semester, one in math, one in English, sort of simultaneously. He says he wants to be well rounded academically. Then it’s off to Cornell for the Ph.D. in astrophysics. So he’ll play here for four years.
4/4: Awards: Ali gets the Norton, the WS Player of the Year, the NCAA MOP, Defensive POY, 1st team All American, and I get the national Coach of the year. In conf., Ali is POY, Def. POY, 1st team, and I get Coach of the year.
4/9: #207 PG Marc Walk commits. I get some pretty terrific job offers, none of which I have the slightest interest in. Maybe when Ali graduates I’ll go for the $.
4/16: No staff vacancies.
4/23: I ask for a facilities upgrade. I get it, we move from C level to B level facilities.
4/30: My numbers: 66-0 in the Ali era, Off. 61, Def. 65, Recruit 61, Scout 52, Player Development 63, Reputation 61. Pretty good!
Ali’s numbers for two years are 4,046 points, 742 RBs, 241 assists, 238 blocks, 80 steals, 58n TOs, 1.8 fouls per game. He has hit 794 straight free throws, his FG % is .932, and on threes it’s .947. Best college hoops player ever if he never played another game.