Key Arena, the former home of the Sonics and current home of the Storm (and concerts with intolerable sound) hosted four NCAA Tournament games on Friday: Northern Iowaâs win over Wyoming, Lousivilleâs thrilling win over UC Irvine, Davidsonâs heavy defeat at the hands of Regular Iowa, and Gonzagaâs victory over plucky North Dakota State. We were on hand for three of them. Here are some thoughts:
⢠The dayâs biggest star was UC Irvineâs center Mamadou NâDiaye. NâDiaye is 7â6â tall, which I imagine sounds very very tall, but he was somehow even taller than what youâre picturing in your head or saw on TV. I swear. He is indescribably tall, which is stupid because itâs very easy to describe height. And yet, here we are. With me searching for a proper descriptor for NâDiayeâs height, and failing to find one. Here, watch him dunk:
With every NâDiaye dunk (and there were a good amount), the crowd, which was surprisingly full of Northern Iowa partisans who had hung around for the Irvine/Louisville matchup, all got behind NâDiaye and his Anteater brethren. Did I mention that Irvineâs mascot is the Anteater? It is. It was great.
Did Irvine win? No. Did they win my heart? Yes.
⢠On the flipside, Davidson was poor enough on Friday to extinguish much of the goodwill they built up during the Steph Curry era. Sure, you canât expect them to shut down Iowa with their 180th ranked defense (which is by far the worst of any tournament team). But they were also pitiful on offense. They were bad enough that Iâm not sure dropping Curry on their team would have made a difference.
⢠Wait, thatâs dumb, of course it would have made a difference. Also, Davidson is still a great school, and its amazing that an academic powerhouse with 1,600 undergrads consistently also has good basketball teams filled with players who get useful degrees.
⢠Friday saw the first 15 tournament games of the day go to the favorite, which is its own sort of madness in a very âO alienistaâ sort of way, but was also very boring. Also, the pace of play in college basketball, which Louisville coach Rick Pitino commented on in his post game press conference, is a nightmare. Shorten the shot clock. Shorten it! Letâs fix this!
⢠Or⌠in a world where Steph Curry can dominate in the NBA, and chalk reigns in the NCAA, do we still need college basketball? Especially given the whole âstudent-athleteâ madness that hurts players and educational institutions alike? I donât know. Letâs proceed with this blog post as if March Madness is fun, while in the back of our head remembering itâs just a huge mess.
⢠Mascots are not actually important, but when the scheduling dynamic of the tournament means that much of the crowd in the arena wonât care about your team, the guy inside the mascot is obliged to bring it. Louisvilleâs Cardinal didnât. Total âbeen there, done thatâ from a mascot who had mascoted at the Final Four. Almost cost his team the win. The UCI Anteater? Brought it. Davidson Wildcat? Looked sad from the tip. Iâd say he scripted his teamâs own demise. Gonzaga? They didnât have a mascot. Didnât need one.
⢠No strike against Gonzaga who looked pretty good on Friday, and remain favorites to make the Elite Eight, but watching them play with a home crowd advantage was weird. Gonzaga is the closest thing Seattle has to a real menâs basketball team right now, which is stupid because they play in Spokane and they are a weird assemblage of transfers and under-recruited specialists. No city needs real basketball, nor does any city deserve real basketball. Those are silly notions. That said, Seattle would really enjoy good basketball.
And by good basketball I mean NBA basketball. All day I was thinking to myself, âSomeone should fill this place with an NBA team.â Now, I know Key Arena is not a suitable NBA arena. Not even close. Which is fine, because any potential NBA team will bring with it a new stadium primarily financed by private interests. That said, Key Arena still gets loud. Nostalgia-inducingly loud.
The cheers echoing through Key Arena on Friday as UC Irvine hung tough against Louisville and Gonzaga pulled away late did not fully awaken the ghosts of Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton (and not just because Kemp and Payton are still alive and ghosts arenât real). But with the other big basketball news of the day, it was tough not to dreamâŚ
See, right now in Oklahoma City the Thunder are imploding. Would-have-been Sonics star Kevin Durant was sidelined indefinitely on Friday with a foot injury that threatens his season. Durant is a free agent in 15 months, which happens to be when the NBA salary cap will supernova out in response to a new TV deal and a poorly bargained CBA. This means any team in the country could sign him away from Oklahoma City, with triple-double machine Russell Westbrook able to leave in a similar climate the following year. This from the same team that dumped MVP candidate James Harden in a trade designed to save money.
In two years, Oklahoma City could have a team that lost three MVP caliber players because they got cheap after moving a team under questionable circumstances to a tiny market. Thatâs a bad look for the NBA. You know what a good look would be? A team in the fastest growing city in America, thatâs part of a league that pays its players. That would be cool. Maybe call them the Sonics? I donât know. Just spitballing here.