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Sully’s Court: A look at Saturday’s national semifinals

A look at Saturday’s national semifinals:

Butler (27-9) vs. Virginia Commonwealth (28-11)

It’s the mid-major national championship. VCU has shocked opponents early with high intensity. The Rams play hard and they’ve been playing both ends of the court (not something they always did while losing 11 games, including ones to Georgia State and Northeastern). The formula won’t change. At this point, this opponent should be ready. Butler plays tremendous defense and will aim to keep this game under a controlled pace. They’ve been able to succeed at that in the tournament. Butler’s vulnerability is under the basket, but VCU’s big guys will not pose that much of a challenge for the hard-working Matt Howard and Andrew Smith. Coach Brad Stevens will eventually stick Ronald Norad (who comes off the bench) on VCU’s mercurial point guard Joey Rodriquez. Pace will dictate the winner and Butler has shown it can dictate pace.


Kentucky (29-8) vs. Connecticut 30-9)
Both these teams are incredibly young. Three of Kentucky’s most important players — Brandon Knight, Terrence Jones, and Doron Lamb — are freshmen. UConn also relies heavily on three freshmen — Jeremy Lamb, Shabazz Napier, and Roscoe Smith. Kentucky also gets solid and sometimes very clutch play from senior center Josh Harrellson and junior forwards Darius Miller and DeAndre Liggins. What’s different is UConn’s first-team All-American guard Kemba Walker. He will be the best player on the court. How Coach Cal defends him will have a big bearing on the result. The reason UConn is in the Final Four is Walker’s teammates — especially Lamb — have improved tremendously in the last month. But Coach Cal’s goal should still be containing Walker on offense. If he succeeds, he’ll advance to the national championship game. If he fails, he loses to a hated rival, Jim Calhoun.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, June 25th, 2011 and is filed under Education News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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