The Roman Main Event has quickly become 1 of the best 4-team early-season basketball tournaments in the nation that has a different field every fall, putting itself right up there with other events such as the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Classic and the Jimmy V Classic. This year’s edition features a fearsome foursome of Arizona/Michigan/UNLV/Wichita State. HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel is on the scene in Vegas this weekend trying to bring you as much access as possible. He continues his coverage with a review of Friday night’s doubleheader:
After waking up early in DC and flying across the country to Vegas, I checking into my room at Excalibur and took a much-needed nap, then woke up and took a short walk to T-Mobile Arena for Game 1 to see my Wildcats take on the Shockers. You never know what kind of crowd you are going to get for a neutral-site event, but Arizona has a long history of students/alumni making the trip to Sin City for the Pac-12 Tourney every March, and with low temperatures in Wichita approaching 32 degrees in late-November it served as a great excuse for the Midwesterners to make the trip west for some 70-degree weather:
Not sure how to feel about an in-arena entertainer named DJ Prenup(?!) but the music was great so I cannot complain. The media room had plenty of snacks/drinks but not a proper meal: fortunately I found a concession stand hot dog to help me make it through the night. We also had quite an eclectic mix of fans in the front row including this mismatched pair of unmasked folks: a large older gentleman in a red hat who brought his walking stick sitting near an attractive young woman in a slinky brown dress who spent most of the night talking to her friend or texting on her phone:
UofA’s average height of 6’7” is #1 in the nation and they used their size to dominate the paint for most of the 1st half. On the defensive end they were blocking lots of shots, forcing some shot-clock violations, and even taking charges for new coach Tommy Lloyd:
Most of the team was ice-cold from the 3-PT line but Bennedict Mathurin made a trio of 1st half threes, and when the defense extended out to guard him he would get to the hoop for a follow dunk/alley-oop dunk or get to the line after drawing contact:
The shortest starter also happens to be the most energetic: Kerr Kriisa might look like a mild-mannered Estonian with a headband, and frankly he had a poor shooting game with only 2-10 3PM. However, when he finally made a 3 in the 2nd half he stuck out his tongue to let the crowd know about it, and when the Shockers called a timeout to regroup he screamed at the top of his lungs while heading to the huddle. He was so amped up to go congratulate a teammate on the court after 1 good play that he had to be held back by half his team!
Wichita State was able to close the deficit to 8 PTS by halftime thanks to SG Craig Porter Jr., who made several jump shots while the rest of his team was in search of a spark. Since the colors of the 2 teams in Game 2 (Michigan/UNLV) are very similar to the 2 teams in Game 1, when most of the fans had arrived at the arena by halftime it looked like a sea of red and yellow.
The Cats opened up a 54-38 lead early in the 2nd half in large part due to the Shockers’ foul trouble: Wichita State was whistled for 7 fouls in the 1st 6 minutes and ended up having 3 guys foul out after the team committed an incredible 31(!) total fouls. It seemed like they were ready to fold but to their credit they turned it up a couple of notches and fought all of the way back. Tyson Etienne had a quiet 1st half but simply exploded in the 2nd stanza with 18 PTS in 19 minutes: jump shots, threes, floaters, bank shots, you name it. The 1 place he did have a problem converting was from the foul line: he had not missed a single FT all year but only made 4-8 on Friday. He did make 1 with 39 seconds left to give his team a 1-PT lead, then Azuolas Tubelis answered with an old fashioned 3-PT play to give Arizona a 69-66 lead with just 22 seconds left. Everyone in the arena knew that the ball was going to be in Etienne’s hands on the final possession…yet he somehow was able to drill a 3 with 17 seconds left to tie it at 69-69 and send it to OT. Even though the Shockers had all of the momentum they were simply running out of players due to foul trouble and ended up losing 82-78. In an era of inconsistency it was nice to see 2 stars go head-to-head and showcase their skills: Etienne finished with 27 PTS and Mathurin countered with 25 PTS.
In the sparsely attended postgame press conference I asked Coach Tommy Lloyd about the message he had for his team heading into OT after blowing a huge 2nd half lead. He said he knew they would take some punches but they stood their ground:
After 3 of the Shocker’s tallest players fouled out (6’11” Kenny Pohto/6’8” Morris Udeze/6’7” Clarence Jackson) and they were forced to go small, Lloyd decided to get the ball to his 6’11” big man Tubelis inside, which ended up helping the entire team find its rhythm. In his words, “Sometimes you have to slow down and play chess”:
After the game it was revealed that Christian Koloko’s mother had finally gotten to see her son play for the 1st time in person that evening, and since he finished with 13 PTS/11 REB/4 BLK/3 AST it was surely worth the wait!
During 1 of his answers Lloyd referred to Etienne as a “hard-shot maker” so I decided to inquire how the SO SG trains for those moments. He responded that he employs several different methods (such as getting off a shot as the clock is winding down and practicing them with a hand in his face) but that he treats each of them as just another shot thanks to the trust he has in both his mechanics/teammates:
My question for Coach Isaac Brown was how on earth his team was able to get 20 offensive rebounds against the tallest team in the country. His answer was that his guys battled/competed while sending 3 frontcourt players to the glass: after falling behind in the 2nd half they learned their lesson and began to dish it out:
I was starting to fade after my day of cross-country travel and salty snacks so I barely made it through the 1st half of Michigan-UNLV before calling it a night:
Bryce Hamilton made a 3 with 3 seconds left in the 1st half to cut the deficit to 3…and I wondered if this was a sign that I should put $3 on the roulette wheel to land on #3! Then I got another sign that perhaps I should pick Tampa Bay to beat the Giants on Monday night despite Tom Brady’s history of not beating New York when it matters the most:
The semi-home crowd (the arena is just 2 miles west of the Thomas & Mack Center) seemed to think that they might be getting lucky that night, but the Wolverines used a 21-4 advantage from the FT line to pull away in the 2nd half. DeVante’ Jones singlehandedly had as many AST as the entire Rebel team (8) as Michigan ended up winning 74-61, setting up a Sunday night showdown between a coach who was an assistant for a #1 seed last March (Lloyd) and a coach who was a #1 seed last March (Juwan Howard):
Check back in the days ahead for continuing coverage from Vegas Baby Vegas!
