Hello, friends.
Matt Harvey, Tyler Skaggs, and So Much Sadness
An Angels staffer is on trial right now for his alleged role in Tyler Skaggs’ fentanyl-driven death in 2019, and today, Matt Harvey, C.J. Cron, and others testified about their own drug usage and connection to Skaggs’ drug usage. It was sad. It’s all so sad. Addiction is an awful thing, drug abuse is an awful thing, and while I’m not qualified to know where exactly this fell for the staffer and/or each of the players involved in terms of whether this was abuse or addiction or something else, it’s just all so sad.
I don’t want to discuss what federal or state or local drug policy should be, because I’m not someone qualified to discuss that. I don’t have anything to say about the legal issues at play in the trial. But I do have a thought on the baseball side of this.
Harvey’s testimony was the most widely reported, whether because it was “explosive” or because he’s a big (and controversial) name, and in it, he evidently acknowledged the testimony would affect his career. Hopefully, the effect is not that he gets blackballed from the game. Hopefully, the effect is that anyone interested in acquiring Matt Harvey, the pitcher (and they should be interested—the guy had a solid FIP last year over 28 starts), works to get him some help before and during his time with their team. Hopefully the same is done for any player in need of substance abuse help. A takeaway from this trial in the baseball world should be reinvigorated efforts by MLB, MiLB, and the MLBPA to make the world of baseball a safer place. If you’ve been to an overdose funeral, you might share that feeling of the unusual unnecessity surrounding these kind of deaths. So many deaths feel unnecessary, but something makes these especially so. They aren’t tricks of nature or fate. They’re tragedies. Awful, awful tragedies.
Iowa State’s Offense Was Good Until It Wasn’t
Shifting gears, Iowa State looked great on Saturday.
For one half.
In the second half, the wheels came off, and the team that roared to a twelve-point halftime lead on the back of Aljaž Kunc’s phenomenal shooting coughed away an important win, ultimately falling to Kansas State in overtime. It was a bad game for Tyrese Hunter. It was a good game from Izaiah Brockington, but he was again being asked to do so much.
My impression, and this may be wrong, was that down the stretch Iowa State didn’t get away from Kunc (and Caleb Grill, who had an awful shooting day but was the right guy to be getting shots, as we’ve discussed) so much as they stopped getting him shots in the flow of the offense. They stopped getting everyone shots in the flow of the offense, frankly, because there was no flow. It was a desert out there, with nearly every shot forced, and it didn’t work.
I still think trying to speed things up might be the answer, but I’d also like to point out that George Conditt had seven assists, and that’s not something that just happens. It especially isn’t something that just keeps happening, yet here we are—Conditt has the seventh-highest assist rate in the Big 12. This isn’t all that surprising. The offense isn’t running well through Hunter (as much as we love the guy), but it can run through Conditt by opening up looks for others. Iowa State should lean into this. Get the big man touches. And again, please speed things up.
One piece of the game that could have gotten all of this overlooked had it gone a different way was Kansas State’s ability to protect the ball. The Wildcats’ nine turnovers were the fewest ISU’s forced all year, and that was not at all a product of tempo, because the game went to overtime. I’m not even really sure this was an Iowa State problem so much as that Kansas State played a very clean game of offense. That might be a condolence, it might be a little scary, it might just be a coincidence. But had Iowa State gotten a couple more takeaways, they would’ve won, and we’d be talking about how the offense hit a rough patch in the second half but still did enough, and we can all breathe a lot easier now.
Big one tonight in Fort Worth, but not too big. Road games against projected tournament games are not must-wins when you’re projecting on the right side of the bubble. Still, it would sure help. My best guess is that the Cyclones need to go 3-5 from here to make the field, with 2-6 maybe still getting them in depending which two and which six, but it possibly taking 4-4 to be safe. It’s officially crunch time, and the best offensive rebounding team in the country is going to be ready to give the Cyclones fits.
At the Top
Elsewhere in college basketball, what we’ve seen from our Contenders and Possibilities since we last spoke:
Contenders
Gonzaga just keeps doing it, their latest feat a sixteen-point foot on Saint Mary’s chest in which the halftime score was 36-23. The Gaels successfully slowed the Zags down, but it turns out the Zags can play slow just fine.
Arizona ran past Washington on Saturday in Seattle, finishing up a three-game road trip unbeaten. They come home this week to host the Oregon schools in two they should win handily.
Kentucky’s a team of major interest tonight, playing at Tennessee as the Volunteers make a Texas Tech-like case for inclusion in our second category. On Saturday, UK beat Florida by 21 in Gainesville in a 59-possession game, and if you’re curious, that makes the margin much, much more impressive. An awesome offensive showing, akin to the 107 they hung on the Vols in Knoxville. Still a game back in the SEC, but there are scenarios where they could lose tonight and remain the SEC Tournament favorites. High pressure in the narrative on them, but unless they get beaten soundly, they’ll still likely be a Contender in our world.
Possibilities
We’re excluding Houston from this after their second straight loss, this time at home to Memphis, and by a comfortable margin. We were waiting to learn something about the Cougars, and we learned it, and it stinks for them to be without Marcus Sasser and Tramon Mark but it’s the situation.
Baylor may soon go the way of the Cougs, with Jonathan Tchamwa Tchatchoua out for the year with a dreaded non-contact knee injury, which came in Saturday’s thumping of Texas in Waco. The injury came early, Baylor played just fine, they’re good enough to still be a Possibility, but they’re overwhelmingly not a Contender at the moment, and they may be a stretch even in this category.
Auburn beat Texas A&M at home, so congratulations to them on that. The way the SEC schedule works, you have to play five teams twice. Of the five teams Auburn gets to play twice, one (Alabama) is expected to make the NCAA Tournament, one (Florida) is expected to make the NIT, and three (South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia) are expected to miss both tournaments. They got Kentucky and LSU at home and they’ve yet to play Tennessee. 11-1 in league play is impressive, and they look great at times, and I do now think they’re the fourth-best team in the country, with Tchamwa Tchatchoua out, but they’re a step behind Kentucky, head-to-head result and all (Kentucky’s double dippers are LSU, Alabama, Tennessee, Florida, and Vanderbilt, for some more context).
Kansas beat Oklahoma on Saturday and Oklahoma State last night, dodging the former and starting slow against the latter. They’re fine, but Remy Martin’s still out, and their path to a title might be pretty dependent on their draw (which could be good—they’re a fairly likely 1-seed right now).
Finally, we’re bringing back Duke. Not because the Blue Devils were particularly impressive in their win at Boston College on Saturday, but because somebody has to win the title and Duke does have the talent for it. Were Houston still doing its thing, we might not include Duke, and should Villanova start decimating everyone in their path, we might bump Duke off this rung, but for the time being, we’ll call them a Possibility.
Tonight’s Big Ones
Speaking of Villanova, the Wildcats go to Providence tonight for what should be a rowdy game with Big East regular season title implications. Villanova currently trails the Friars by two in the loss column but leads by one in the win column, meaning they’d pull to percentage points back with the head-to-head win. I don’t know the Big East’s tiebreakers this year, but I’d guess you’ll hear about them if you tune in.
Elsewhere, there is of course the Kentucky/Tennessee game, and Wake Forest goes to Duke. Wake can’t lock itself into the tournament with an upset, especially after losing at home to Miami on Saturday, but this is a big opportunity for the ACC’s second or third fiddle, and coming ahead of a tricky stretch (home against Notre Dame on Saturday, at Clemson next Wednesday) it’d put a lot of win in their sails. For Duke, meanwhile, an emphatic win would help the legitimization effort. Duke’s got those wins over Kentucky and Gonzaga, but their only other wins over tournament teams right now are the ones against Wake and UNC, and three of their four losses came against teams not expected to make the field (two of those were at home).
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What I’ll most likely be flipping between:
- 6:30 PM EST: Michigan State @ Penn State (BTN)
- 7:00 PM EST: Wake Forest @ Duke (ESPN)
- 8:00 PM EST: Villanova @ Providence (CBSSN)
- 9:00 PM EST: Kentucky @ Tennessee (ESPN)
- 9:00 PM EST: Iowa State @ TCU (ESPNU)
- 10:00 PM EST: Utah State @ San Diego State (CBSSN) – SDSU’s on the bubble, Utah State was getting close but took an awful loss at home to Nevada on Friday and now has to climb a long way back.
Be good out there.
