Hereafter

[Wayne23]

2/18: Up early. Up 15 after 10. We need an easy one! Up 31 at the break. I plan to give the subs minutes. Up 33 with 10 remaining.

88-57. A laugher! 21, 2, 5 for Maxx, 13, 7, 5 for Free, 13, 6 for Milt with his usual tough D.

9 TOs to 23. We shot way better than they did and made 13 more shots. +24 in the paint.

Ranked #8 and alone in 1st; Utah was upset. We play there next in the game that will likely decide 1st place. They're ranked #21, 19-8, 10-4. We won
by 8 at our place. It was a shootout and we had more guns. We also were +8 in RBs and took great care of the ball. We have an edge outside, we score more, and we give up fewer. We need to bring our A game!

The spacecraft sent us scans of just about the entire interior of their ship. They don't look like a vessel of war at all. No way to be 100% certain but it looks good. They asked us to do the same. We replied that we will do so but the images may not be perfectly clear due to the distance. We told them when they get closer we will redo the scans.

[Wayne23]

2/22: This is a big one! Defensive battle early. Down 5 after 10. Not hitting shots. Down 4 at the half. Still back and forth! Up 1 with 10 to play.

62-75. They went on a late 8-0 run and that was that. We shot 36.1%. Shooting pct. is a real weakness for this team. Against really good teams we don't get the extra shots to compensate. They took 2 more shots than we did. And we went 1-16 on threes.

A season high 22 TOs and that was a big part of the loss. +6 RBs wasn't enough to make up for it.

22, 5 for Milt, his best game of the season, and his D was, as usual, excellent. 12, 8 for Free. But our 2 bug scorers, Maxx, 2-10, and Mann, 2-11, let us down. And we got 8, 8, 3 from the bench. With all that we were in it for 36-37 minutes.

We just may face them on a neutral court for the PAC 12 tourney title.

At 9-17, 6-9 USC. Beat them by 14 at home. We can't afford a let down.

[Wayne23]

2/25: Early lead. Up 13 after 10. Up 22 at halftime. Up 21 with 10 to go.

73-51. Terrific D! 19, 4 for Free, 10, 11, 4 for Milt. Solid play all around.

+11 RBs, 9 TOs. We owned the paint.

2 games left and we're tied with Utah.

20-9, 9-7 AZ ST is here. They beat us by 7 in OT at their place. They beat us at C but Milt was out. We didn't rebound, we didn't shoot well. We didn't take care of the ball and we still got to OT. We need to turn them over and hit some shots.

Their starting C is out for the season with a broken finger.

The spacecraft is on its way to us. It will be awhile until it gets here.

[Wayne23]

3/1: Early lead. Up 8 after 10. Up only 2 at the half. Down 5 with 10 to go.

65-88. They ate us up in the last 10 minutes. Damn! They outshot us and were +10 at the line. They were +7 on the boards and turned us over 16 times. They were better in the paint.

Milt played well, 17 and 6, and Maxx was 16 and 8, but nothing from the bench and damned little from Free and Mann. This team is schizophrenic.

This ensures that we'll finish 2nd.

At 10-18, 4-13 Wash ST to finish the regular season. We won by a laughable 42 at home. Need I say more?

[Wayne23]

3/4: Slow start. Down 5 after 10; shooting .125. Up 1 at the half. Up 12 with 10 left. Milt is killin' it!

98-86. Great O, terrible D! 24, 11 for Milt, 19, 4 for Free, 16, 0, 6 for Ward, 11, 14 for Mann. We shot well, 48.3%, and were +13 at the line. +8 RBs, 9 TOs. +10 in the paint.

We finish the regular season at 23-7, 13-5, alone in 2nd. Ranked #9, NET #6.

+9.3 PPG (#2 in PPG), +2.8 RBs, -5.4 TOs, 11.8.

Maxx gets 14.6, Free gets 14.2. All 5 starters average in double figures. Mann leads us with 8.5 RBs. Ward leads with 4.2 assists. No one had more than 1.9 TOs.

3/9: We play #7 seed Oregon ST, 17-14, 9-9, in the quarters. They won by 11 at their place in our only meeting. We were in a terrible slump at the time. That night we didn't rebound and we didn't play D. On paper it's a walk over, which doesn't cover the fact that they kicked our butts a while ago.

[Wayne23]

3/10: Early lead. They come back. Down 1 after 10. Up only 1 at the half. VERY unhappy! Up 9 with 10 to go.

90-80. Great O, lousy D again. 23, 5, 6 for Free, 21, 6 for Milt, 15, 4, 7 for Ward,

13, 6 for Tuck, who hurt his foot and is out for the rest of the PAC 12 tourney.

7 TOs. We shot 50.9% to their 51.9%, but we took 15 more shots, made7. +10 in the paint.

Not our best effort. If we continue to play this way it will be a short post season. All the favorites won so we face #3 seed AZ ST, 23-9, in the semis.

They won in OT at their place and then crushed us at our place. We need to turn them over and make shots.

[Wayne23]

3/11: Early lead. Up 2 after 20. Down 3 at the half. Mini-run puts us up 9 with 10 left.

90-80. Not much D in this one, they shot 60.8%, we shot 57.1%. We took 12 more shots and made 5, and that was the difference. +10 RBs. A horrible 22 TOs but they had 20.

18, 7 for Milt, 15, 11, 3 for Mann.

Unsurprisingly, we play #17 Utah, 25-8, for the title. We split a pair during the regular season. The night we lost we couldn't score and we turned it over 22 times. The night we won we lit it up for 92 points and had 8 TOs. So the key seems to be hitting shots and taking care of the ball. Statistically the two teams are very closely matched, so it's going to be about execution. It usually is.

[Wayne23]

3/12: Slow start for both teams then we take a lead. Up 3 after 10. Up 1 at halftime. It's the battle we expected. Up 5 with 10 to go. It's a war!

72-71. Back door pass to Sam Milt who hit a 6 footer at the buzzer. HELL of a game! 15 lead changes, 9 ties, never more than a 9 point difference.

18, 6 for Milt, 14, 21 for Mann- you don't see 21 RBs very often! Shooting was about equal but we took 9 more shots, made 5. -8 at the line.

+11 RBs. A poor 18 TOs but we overcame it. +8 in the paint, +6 on 2nd chances. In a close game that was key.

Winning the PAC 12 tourney should set us up for a #2, or with a little luck, a #1 seed. Our NET is #4 so a #1 is a strong possibility.

#2 Midwest. Frankly, I think we were ripped off. If we were going to be a #2 it should have been in the West, and I think we earned a #1.

We play Omaha, 19-13. On paper this is an easy win; I don't think their D can stop us.

[Wayne23]

3/16: Early lead. Up 14 after 10 and we're not shooting well. This will be ugly. Up 14 at the half. Milt and Ward are scoring freely. Up 18 with 10 left. I'm about to clear the bench.

80-64. They actually did better than expected. Of course I played subs quite a bit. I like it when I can do that in the tournament. Someday a guy who never played much can tell his grandchildren, “I played in the 2034 NCAA tournament!” Cool!

20, 7 for Milt who has been on top of his game lately. 18, 7, 2, 3 steals for Ward, 13, 8, 3 for Free. Not much from the bench.

Post Game Press Conference (Excerpts):

Q: Keys to victory, Coach Clark?

Coach: We just had a lot more talent. And we executed very well and took care of the ball. 8 TOs? I'll take that any time!

Q: But you didn't blow them out.

Coach: You know, they showed an awful lot of heart tonight. I really admire that. And I tried a lot of things that we may need later in the tournament, and played subs quite
a bit. I felt like we could win this one so I didn't concentrate on running up the score but on practicing some things under game conditions.

#10 seed Vanderbilt, 25-11, next. Thoughts?

Coach: Good outside shooters, good defenders. If the threes are falling they'll challenge us. They can play, 3-2 vs. ranked opponents. We want to play this game near the basket, that's where we think we'll have the edge.

Q: Will you go to the 3-2 to slow down the outside game?

Coach: I'll certainly show it. How much we play it will depend on how the game goes.

Q: Thanks Coach Clark.

[Wayne23]

3/18: It's close early. Up 1 after 10. Down 4 at the break. Up 3 with 10 left. It's a battle!

72-59 and we're back in the Sweet Sixteen. Their outside game gave us trouble but we kept switching Ds and our D did its job very well.

16, 4, 4 for Maxx, 13, 10 for Tuck, 14 each for Mann and Free.

Post Game Press Conference (Excerpts):

Q: Satisfied?

Coach Clark: NEVER!!! I have to say our D was very good tonight. We shut down 2 of their 3 best outside shooters, and we never let them get anything going. Every time we needed a stop in the 2nd half, we got it.

Q: Talk about Mel Tuck.

Coach: Love to. He's our super sub. Sam Milt was in foul trouble all night and Tuck stepped in and just did everything we needed, on D, on the boards. Even scoring a bunch. He may have been the key tonight.

Q: Kent Maxx?

Coach: Kent was on tonight. When he's on we rarely lose.

Q: Your PG, Jay Ward. Seemed to disappear.

Coach: Not at all. He played solid D against a very good shooter, and he had 5 rebounds and 6 assists. He dished it really well. He didn't score much but he did everything else well.

Q: #22 ranked, #6 seed Clemson next.

They're 24-11 and they upset #13 Louisville; 4-4 against top 25 teams. They can play.

Q: What's the plan?

Coach: Well, we're still working on it but we need to tiurn them over. They have a very good PG, one of the best, but they can be sloppy. We need to make them sloppy. Sam and the rest of the bigs need to contain their C, who is a player. We need to play good D. They only average 68.9, and we want to keep them at or below that. On the other hand they only give up 63. We need to score on them.

Q: Good luck, Coach.