Mark Madsen just keeps on dancing.
What went down in our final quarterfinals:
UAB 67, Vanderbilt 59
What happened:
Let’s make something clear here: Jelly Walker did not play his best game. He took 22 shots from the floor and he only scored 21 points. That’s not great. He did, though, have an excellent second half, and he did it in more ways than just scoring. He had a career performance on the boards. He was one assist off his season high. And—and this is what you would want and hope Jelly Walker would do—he did get buckets when buckets were needed. He didn’t exactly take over the game, but with a lot of UAB’s other options scuffling, he stepped up and did enough to get past a Vanderbilt team who missed 23 three-point attempts.
What it means for the NIT:
UAB is now favored to make the championship game, which could be the fourth meeting of the season between the Blazers and North Texas. It’s a great look for Conference USA this year, and it’s a great look for the American next year, which is losing Houston, UCF, and Cincy but picking up some good programs, even if every coach doesn’t come along (Grant McCasland is said to be the guy at Texas Tech, though Andy Kennedy at the moment seems likelier to stay in Birmingham than get a look elsewhere).
One additional thought:
UAB has dudes. The quantity is often overshadowed by Walker, but this team is full of dudes. Even Eric Gaines, who doesn’t always start, is a dude. In a pick-up game, this would be a hell of a roster. It also evidently is in the NIT.
Utah Valley 74, Cincinnati 68
What happened:
Everyone who hasn’t watched Utah Valley got to know a lot about Utah Valley. It was a poor shooting night for the Wolverines, but dunks were everywhere to be found, and as they’ve done the whole tournament, UVU made their opponent pay whenever they failed to get back on defense. It’s not that these guys are always pushing the pace: It’s that when there’s an opportunity to get the ball behind the defense, they hardly ever fail to take it.
Like Walker in Nashville, Landers Nolley and David DeJulius were the big scorers for Cincinnati but did it on volume, and while Cincinnati did knot it up early in the second half, it was only ever enough to keep the Bearcats in it. Utah Valley came out, hit Cincinnati in the mouth, and held them off the rest of the way.
What it means for the NIT:
Madsen’s wife is evidently due any day now, so one of the Final Four teams is fairly likely to be without its head coach next week in Las Vegas. Orem isn’t all that far away from Vegas—it’s a shorter drive than Reno–to–Vegas by an hour and a half—but I don’t get the impression proximity is going to be the issue. That doesn’t doom the Wolverines, but it’s a good situation for UAB.
One additional thought:
The Utah Valley crowd was electric, but you could tell ESPN had the crowd noise amped up (because every single individual heckle of the refs came through loud and clear, which doesn’t usually happen). Great showing from the UVU faithful, possibly their biggest attendance as a unit, but that arena’s biggest attendance is still the home games against BYU in 2017 and 2022.
**
More through the weekend, and we’ll of course have boots on the ground next week. Good luck with the beginning of your acclimation to the NIT offseason. These few days are just a sample, but it’s a good time to start to reckon with the end.
