Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I really think that if they don’t beat the Jazz tonight, the Pistons could see their nightmarish losing streak easily reach 30 games.
In today’s SI:AM:
🐻 Too little too late for the Grizz?
Two unbeatens go down
As the new year approaches, only three teams in men’s college basketball remain unbeaten: Houston, OIe Miss and James Madison.
That list was trimmed last night when previously undefeated Oklahoma suffered its first loss of the season, against North Carolina. The Sooners had risen to No. 7 in the AP poll on the strength of decent wins over teams such as Providence, Arkansas, USC and Iowa. But the Tar Heels were the toughest opponent they’ve faced this season, and UNC won fairly comfortably, 81–69.
The reason? Oklahoma turned the ball over 18 times, compared to just nine for North Carolina. It also didn’t shoot the ball as well as it had during its 10–0 start, hitting 40.4% of field goals and 66.7% of free throws.
The win was an important one for North Carolina after the Tar Heels fell in their last two games to top-notch opponents (UConn and Kentucky). The 2022 national runners-up struggled last season, finishing 20–13 as they missed the NCAA tournament for the first time in 13 years. But the win over Oklahoma is the third noteworthy victory on their résumé (in addition to beating Arkansas and Tennessee) as conference play looms.
There are 10 unbeaten teams left standing on the women’s side: NC State, TCU, Texas, Baylor, West Virginia, Marquette, Oregon State, UCLA, USC and South Carolina. Washington was on that list until Louisville handed it its first loss of the season last night. The Huskies had faced only one Power 5 opponent before last night (a 60–55 win over a Washington State team that was ranked No. 21 at the time), so traveling to face the No. 19 Cardinals on the road was their biggest test of the season. Louisville took the lead with 1:29 left in the first half and never looked back, keeping Washington at arm’s length throughout the second half en route to a 59–51 victory.
Those two losses by previously undefeated teams weren’t the only notable college hoops results last night, though. Two of the Big East’s top men’s teams went down in what was a reminder of how challenging that conference is every season.
Fifth-ranked UConn was beaten handily by unranked Seton Hall, 75–60, as the Huskies bricked shot after shot. They were especially terrible from long range, hitting just four of 21 three-point attempts. The Pirates, meanwhile, killed them from the midrange and down low. They took just eight three pointers and scored 46 of their 75 points in the paint.
The other Big East upset of the night was Villanova’s 68–66 overtime win over No. 12 Creighton. Eric Dixon’s contested three-pointer with 28.3 seconds left in OT proved to be the game-winner. The Wildcats have some questionable losses this season (to local foes Penn and Drexel, both ranked outside the top 100 in KenPom) but also impressive victories over North Carolina and now Creighton. At first glance, there might be reason to be concerned about the Bluejays, who were ranked eighth in the preseason poll but are now 9–3 and have yet to face an opponent ranked in the AP Top 25. But the AP poll isn’t the best judge of the top programs in the country, and Creighton has victories over a few teams that the advanced numbers really like, such as Colorado State and Alabama. Its game against No. 6 Marquette on the road Dec. 30 will say a lot about the trajectory of its season.
The best of Sports Illustrated
Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY Sports
- Albert Breer’s NFL mailbag leads with a question about Mike Tomlin’s future with the Steelers.
- The Clippers made a big jump in Chris Mannix’s NBA power rankings.
- As part of our year-end series, Mannix also looks at Victor Wembanyama’s first year in the NBA.
- Emma Baccellieri writes that 2023 was the year A’ja Wilson entered the WNBA GOAT conversation.
- Rohan Nadkarni fears that Ja Morant’s return may have come too late for the Grizzlies to reach the playoffs.
- Florida’s recruiting class plummeted in the rankings as yesterday’s signing day approached, but Richard Johnson writes that Billy Napier and his staff may have dismissed all those concerns by retaining one key player.
- Andrew Brandt’s Business of Football column looks at the 10 biggest money-related narratives in the NFL this year.
- Here are our experts’ picks for every NFL game this weekend.
The top five...
… things I saw last night:
5. St. John’s center Joel Soriano’s strong rebound and powerful dunk.
4. Kawhi Leonard’s smooth move for an easy basket, and James Harden’s hilarious reaction.
3. Dylan Samberg’s pass off the boards to Axel Jonsson-Fjallby for a goal.
2. JaVale McGee’s vicious block on Jaylen Brown. Brown had just put Trey Lyles on a poster two minutes earlier.
1. Joel Embiid’s 51-point, 12-rebound night. It was his second 50-point double double in the last two weeks.
SIQ
Hall of Fame slugger Josh Gibson was born on this day in 1911. What was his career batting average?
- .315
- .331
- .356
- .373
Yesterday’s SIQ: Which experimental broadcast element did NBC deploy for an entire Jets-Dolphins game on Dec. 20,1980?
- 3-D
- No commentators
- An aerial camera
- Split-screen
Answer: No commentators. The network didn’t even send announcers down to Miami for the game. The broadcast featured only the ambient sound of the stadium, with the microphones turned up to better capture the voice of the Orange Bowl’s public address announcer, Bob Kaufman. NBC asked Kaufman to provide more context with his calls than he usually would. The broadcast also featured more on-screen graphics than usual.
Jets-Dolphins was the perfect game to serve as the backdrop for the experiment. It was the final week of the regular season, and New York entered at 3–12. Miami had also been eliminated from playoff contention at 8–7. With no real stakes to the game, it made a suitable candidate for the experiment.
The idea came from NBC executive producer Don Ohlmeyer, who told Sports Illustrated a few weeks before the broadcast that he was always searching for ways to strip away elements of the broadcast.
“This business tends to admire quantity too much. If two announcers work well, three will work better. I have tried to operate differently at NBC,” Ohlmeyer said. “When we did the Super Bowl in 1979, I killed two cameras and did the game with the same number we used during the season. We won an Emmy for our coverage. And when it has come to announcers, we’ve constantly striven to present a less-is-more approach. I think it has worked.”
The announcerless game was the ultimate test of that philosophy. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube here. NBC did have one on-screen personality on hand in Miami. Bryant Gumbel addressed viewers before the start of the game to let them know that what they were about to see would be unusual. He appeared again at halftime with another message.
“What you have been watching is a production experiment,” Gumbel said. “We have just completed, from the Orange Bowl, to the best of our knowledge, the only half of NFL football ever to be done without the benefit of announcers. The reaction to it? Well, we will leave that to you. If you can understand what just transpired, then our experiment is a success. If you find yourselves wondering what’s been going on, then maybe we have to work out the kinks. In any event, we’ll continue with the experiment. We’ll try to work out the kinks in the second half.”
