A lot of in-season tournaments around Thanksgiving feature a couple of big-time schools and a couple of not-so-big-time schools…but this year’s Continental Tire Main Event is not 1 of them. We have 2 of the past 3 NCAA champs (Baylor & Virginia), the school with the most titles in NCAA history (UCLA), and another school that ranks top-25 all-time in winning percentage (Illinois). HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel has accepted the tough assignment of traveling west to Las Vegas to see a quartet of top-25 teams battling it out and has prepared the following photo essay from the 2nd day of games on Sunday at T-Mobile Arena.
Game #1: Illinois-Virginia
Unlike a normal tournament that saves the best for last, it is a noontime local start for the championship game. UVA has kept it classy by wearing warmup shirts featuring the last names of the 3 football players who were murdered the previous weekend (Devin Chandler/Lavel Davis Jr./D’Sean Perry):
If you are looking for a detailed account of the 1st 15 minutes of the game…then you are in the wrong place because the power strip at the media seating was not working. Illinois’s game 1 star (Terrence Shannon) was not draining 8 threes tonight but turned into a great distributor with 5 AST in the 1st half:
Illinois has a guard named Clark (FR Skyy) but it was Virginia’s guard named Clark (SR Kihei) who got off to the hot start with a pair of layups and a pair of 3-PT shots to keep his team in it as UVA only trailed 31-29 at halftime:
Illini F Coleman Hawkins was a non-factor early (0-5 FG in the 1st 20 minutes) but came alive in the 2nd half with a scoop, a floater, and a pair of threes:
The sea (of orange) was alive that day my friends, as most of the crowd was standing during the final 4 minutes: it really felt like an Elite 8-caliber game with 2 big-time schools playing in front of 2 passionate fanbases. However, it seemed like the most passionate people in the entire arena were Virginia’s bench players, who were jumping around and cheering on their teammates:
The Cavaliers’ biggest advantage was the FT discrepancy, as they attempted 23 more (32) than their opponents (9). Reece Beekman kept getting to the basket for dunks/3-PT plays/scoops off the glass en route to being named tourney MVP and getting a fancy gold chain as his team hung on to win 70-61:
I made it down to the court to watch the team celebrating a remarkable performance considering the tragedy that occurred on their campus just 1 week before:
In the postgame press conference I asked Virginia coach Tony Bennett how he felt about the big FT discrepancy in both of his games this weekend. He said that both of the teams they played switched 90% of the time on defense so they made a concerted effort to attack whenever they could. Baylor/Illinois are both so physical and FTA was always a big stat for his former boss at Wisconsin (Bo Ryan) so he hoped they could keep that up and be more assertive going forward:
I noticed that Jayden Epps grew up in Norfolk, VA, which made me wonder how he felt about the Hoos. He said that 1 of his friends plays for UVA (Chase Coleman) and that he was a fan of their team while growing up a couple of hours away. He confirmed that he has a lot of respect for them coming out and competing while going through everything that happened last weekend:
I tried to see if Coach Underwood felt that Shannon needed to score a lot of points in order for his team to win a lot of games. He assured me that he will always put his players in a position to be successful, but that Terrence cannot forget where his bread is buttered and needs to drive to the rim. He needs to grow from this because they are counting on him to be good because good players do not have bad games against good teams:
Game #2: Baylor-UCLA
The arena really emptied out after the 1st game of the doubleheader, which was a shame because the nightcap featured 1 of the best consolation games (a top-10 matchup!) that you will ever see. After watching a battle of Clarks in Game #1 (Skyy vs. Kihei) we got to see the best Clark of them all (UCLA’s Jaylen). He only scored 7 PTS vs. Illinois on Friday but after his teammate Jaime Jaquez picked up 2 early fouls vs. the Bears and sat for most of the 1st half he took over with all manner of layup/follow dunks/runners as he had 17 early PTS on 8-10 FG:
With Jaquez on the bench we did not get to see his signature shot (a fadeaway jumper) but Baylor PG LJ Cryer showed off his own signature shot (a runner in the lane) by making several of them as Baylor only trailed 37-35 at halftime:
Jaquez made it back onto the court in the 2nd half and did a little of everything on offense (layup/tough bank shot/old-fashioned 3-PT play/that signature fadeaway J) to finish with 15 PTS in just 26 minutes:
UCLA PG Tyger Campbell also poured it on after halftime with a floater in the lane and a couple of bank shots but his 12 PTS/5-15 FG would simply not be enough:
Cryer was near-unstoppable with a career-high 28 PTS including a quartet of trifectas in the 2nd stanza, and his backcourt mate Adam Flagler also finished the game with 4 shots from behind the arc as Baylor hung on to win 80-75:
In the postgame press conference I tried to get Baylor coach Scott Drew to admit that he had the best backcourt in the country. He did not take the bait but confirmed that they have potential because of their experience, since games like the ones this weekend really test freshmen:
I knew that Jaylen Clark was unhappy to lose twice in Vegas but I wondered if it at least gave him some hope that his team can play with anyone. He declared that there are no moral victories but that if his team can improve defensively then they can play with any team in the country:
I revisited the topic of his team’s humility with UCLA coach Mick Cronin and then sat back while he educated the media. “I tell guys the truth, which is not very popular in this era, as their outer circle is telling them that I am the problem and that they are great players, the goal of coaching is to overcome that, we have good guys but are just not good enough defensively to stop elite teams, if you told me that we would shoot 49 FG% and only have 8 TO against 1 of the best teams in the country then I would think we were supposed to win, we will find out Wednesday (when UCLA hosts Pepperdine) what we are made of but right now we are not tough enough on defense”:
That is a wrap from Vegas, hope you enjoyed the write-ups as much as I enjoyed all 4 games, and check back next month for some home-cooking back at Georgetown!