Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis. The national semifinals are in the books, leaving just one game to go for the season, and we take a look at the two games on Saturday night. They were two pretty different games, even though the margin of victory was not very different.
We start with the second game, mainly because Villanova put on a very impressive performance in taking out Kansas 95-79 in a battle of No. 1 seeds. The Wildcats were 13-26 on three-pointers in the first half alone, and finished 19-40 in a game that was never a contest.
Villanova is looking like the Villanova of two years ago, a basically unstoppable team during the NCAA Tournament. This offensive dismantling was so complete that it was guys down the list of scoring options like Eric Paschall and Omari Spellman who had the big nights. Even Donte DiVincenzo, a terrific reserve, had a big night off the bench.
It’s the end for Kansas, but of their Final Four teams in recent memory, this may have been the most unlikely one in the first place. Bill Self may have done his best coaching job to get them this far.
After that, we look at the first game of the evening, where Loyola-Chicago tried to keep their run going against a Michigan team that was on a roll. The Ramblers had a seven-point halftime lead that grew to ten, but Michigan came alive offensively and clamped down on several of Loyola’s guards to take over the game and win 69-57.
While the Wolverines are playing about as well as anyone, they have a tall order ahead to beat Villanova. They have to defend the Wildcats and they have to rebound the same way they did Saturday, including at the offensive end, and on top of all of this, the offense can’t have an off-night. Even so, this has the potential to be a very good game, and a high-scoring one at that although both teams are underrated defensively.
We hope you enjoy the podcast and share it with your fellow college basketball fans. Make sure you tune in to College Basketball Tonight, our look at the national championship game and other college basketball news, which will go live late Sunday night into Monday morning.
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