Beyond The Press
Posts
🏀 Too Little Too Late

🏀 Too Little Too Late

April 05, 2023

Good morning BTP family! March Madness has finally concluded after a somewhat underwhelming championship game between the UConn Huskies and the SDSU Aztecs. UConn really dominated the whole game except for one moment late when SDSU cut the lead to six. Nonetheless, UConn deserved that national championship after dominating each and every round from start to finish. A very impressive performance by Dan Hurley and the Huskies this March. On the other hand, we only have four days left of regular season NBA basketball before we lock in for the playoffs. Grab your popcorn and recline your chair back because this us going to be a fun one!

On today’s rendition of Beyond The Press we breakdown UConn’s incredible tournament run and where they go from here, the legendary Caitlin Clark vs. Angel Reese NCAAW National Championship Game, and what the Mavericks need to do to stop the bleeding except it may already be too late!

Congrats to UConn & LSU!

DYNASTY MODE

UConn is Officially a Blue Blood Program

The UConn Huskies have entered rarified air with their latest NCAA championship victory Monday night. In winning it all, this Huskies team broke several NCAA records while building a case that UConn is one of the all-time great college basketball programs in the country.

About this team:

Simply put, the 2022-23 UConn Huskies are a historically dominant team and will be talked about as such in the years to come. They are the first and only team to win all six tournament games by 13 or more points and the first to win every game by double figures while also keeping every opponent to 65 points or fewer. If that wasn’t impressive enough, you should know this team began the season unranked…

How’d they do it?:

The Huskies dominated the competition through the strength of their dominant frontcourt duo, Adama Sanogo, and Donovan Clingan, and the key outside shooting additions Hurley acquired through the transfer portal. The team suffocated you on the defensive end and generated a lot of easy buckets at the rim alongside plenty of open looks for quality three-point shooters.

The big picture:

With its fifth national championship, UConn solidified its place among the greatest college basketball programs. The knock against UConn is a lack of success before 1999, but since then, UConn's run has been otherworldly. Since 1999, UConn has won at least two more titles than any other program has, and currently has the same amount of titles as Duke and one more than Kansas, despite appearing in 11 fewer regional finals than Kansas and 11 fewer Final Fours than Duke.

The Huskies don’t have the track record of sustained success that many traditional Blue Bloods boast, and even during this impressive 28-year window, there have been plenty of years where they’ve missed the tournament altogether. However, after going 5-0 in title games, they are unequivocally one of the most successful programs in NCAA history and need to be respected as such. UConn has arrived, and with a stellar recruiting class waiting in the wings and the architect Dan Hurley at the helm, they’re just getting started.

BATTLE OF THE AGES

Clark vs Reese, The Taunt Heard ‘Round the World’

A historic 9.9 million people tuned into the Women’s National Championship Game, which should have been a landmark moment and celebration. However, the conversation quickly turned away from the high-scoring and exciting game and into something much uglier.

What Exactly Happened?

As time expired in the game, LSU star Angel Reese taunted Iowa standout Caitlin Clark, and a certain subsection of the internet and media lost their minds. Reese taunted Clark with WWE wrestler John Cena’s “You Can’t See Me” gesture in response to Clark using that same taunt against Louisville in the Elite Eight. However, while Clark was almost universally praised for her actions, Reese was vilified and called “classless.” With almost no difference between what the two stars did, it’s hard not to conclude that this was a racial issue.

At no point did Caitlin Clark take issue with Reese’s action, nor should she have. Clark is an epic trash talker, and when you talk trash, you have to be able to take it in return. But things reached such a boiling point online that Clark appeared on SportsCenter yesterday to clear the air and defend her opponent.

Clark claimed she didn’t see the gesture in real-time and only recently learned what had happened as she avoided social media following the loss. Clark went on to call Reese a “tremendous, tremendous player” while adding: “I have nothing but respect for her [and] I don’t think there should be any criticism for what she did.” With Clark shutting down the nonexistent beef, hopefully, the negative comments being hurled at Reese will end and in an ideal world, be replaced with apologies and learning instead.

TOO LITTLE TOO LATE

Is it Time for Dallas to Shut Down Their Stars?

When the Mavs traded for Kyrie Irving at the trade deadline, they did so to take their fourth-place squad to the top of the wide-open West. Instead, they currently sit in 11th place and have just an 8% chance of making the playoffs through FiveThirtyEight. Things are so bleak that on Monday, Shams Charania reported that the team was seriously considering shutting down Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving for the rest of the season.

Why Would They Do That?

Shutting their star duo down would help ensure they stay at their current place in the standings, and increase their odds of landing a top 10 pick in the 2023 Draft. While landing in the top three is incredibly unlikely given the tankapalooza we’ve seen this year, staying in the top 10 would allow Dallas to keep the pick, rather than send it to the Knicks as part of the Porzingis trade.

While it’s true the Mavs' play-in chances are alive, their odds are really slim because they don’t fully control their own destiny. For instance, even if the Mavs were to win all three remaining games, the Thunder can still leapfrog them by winning their last two games. Then, of course, they have the Lakers and Timberwolves also in the mix for that spot.

Given what an uphill mountain they have to climb and the depleted asset chest from the KP and Irving trades, it makes a lot of sense to go down that path, assuming you can get Luka onboard. As of Wednesday morning, the latest injury reports have the Dallas duo listed as probable.

What went wrong?

It’s easy to want to pin this all on Irving, and perhaps because of the baggage he carries, he is the reason the team is failing, but on the court, Irving has held up his end of the bargain. In 19 games as a Maverick, Irving is averaging nearly identical numbers as he did in Brooklyn earlier this season.

However, the defense which was already on shaky ground before bringing in Irving at the cost of defensive stalwart Dorian Finney-Smith took a big step back. According to Basketball Reference, Dallas has the 23rd defensive rating in the league, but that doesn’t even tell the full story of their recent struggles. In their last 8 games, the Mavs have gone 1-7 and allowed an average of 118.4 PPG, four of which they allowed 127 or more points.