It was difficult to figure out which was worse during the 50th Super Bowl, the game itself or the TV ads. Well, of course Denver fans don’t give a hoot on the aesthetics because they watched their Broncos bully the inept Carolina offense and win 24-10 Sunday night in Santa Clara, California.
As the game drew closer during the week, I had to listen to everyone from the casino sports book directors to a friend of mine who coached in the NFL, from golfing buddies to a couple of guys swilling golden nectars on how they saw value in going with the Broncos. Was this a conspiracy? Apparently not. The sports book guys certainly would have had a higher take if all that early money on the Panthers had stood up.
The game was not pretty. However, taking literary license from a line in a narrative poem by Ovid: There is no such thing as an ugly victory in the Super Bowl.
Oh, there was some pretty stuff over the weekend. Kansas State beat No. 1 Oklahoma 80-69 Saturday in Manhattan as Wesley Iwundu put on quite a show. Kansas won its third straight game by beating TCU 75-56 Saturday in Fort Worth. And this sidelight, 600,000 fans over four days watched the Waste Management golf tournament in Scottsdale, Ariz. A golf tourney, mind you. That many. And a guy from Japan, Hideki Matsuyama, beat an American favorite, Rickie Fowler, in a four-hole sudden death playoff. He may shore up the Japanese economy with his first-place money of $1.2 million.
But back to football. Did defensive coordinator Wade Phillips simply draw up a dramatic scheme to thwart the Panthers, who came into the game averaging 32.2 points with just one loss, or was this just a simple case of much-ballyhooed Cam Newton not ready to play? The gold shoes he was wearing didn’t help. Neither did a ton of dropped passes.
Look, he lost a fumble on the first drive and lost a fumble on the next-to-last drive and each led to short-yardage touchdowns. On the last one, linebacker Von Miller knocked the ball away and Newton simply stared at it and didn’t drop on the ground to fight for it. You gotta want it, my friend.
Yeah, he was frustrated. Okay. Yes, he was sacked six times; that would make you jittery.
Bleah! The Panthers suffered three lost fumbles and an interception. Each Bronco score was preceded by a mistake — a fumble, an interception, a penalty, an unforced error, a controversial ruling. The Broncos were opportunists because they had only 194 yards of offense while the Panthers ran up 315. Carolina had more than 125 yards of offense in the third quarter and didn’t score a point.
This probably is Bronco quarterback Petyon Manning’s last game. If so, he will go out a winner but he better pat Miller on the back and praise hell out of the defense and smirk at the many mistakes by the Panthers. MVP Miller had 6 tackles, 2½ sacks and 2 quarterback hits. DeMarcus Ware and T.J. Ward, along with two former KU defensive backs, Aqib Talib and Chris Harris Jr., added solid defensive performances.
Now, some basketball. Iwundu was wonderful. He was everywhere, like Superman jumping tall buildings, like Eliott Ness hunting Al Capone, like Sgt. York fighting on the battlefield. Look at Iwundu’s stats: 38 minutes, 7 of 11 field goals including a 3-pointer, 7 of 8 free throws, 7 assists and 22 points. Then add his superb job on OU’s touted Buddy Hield.
Okay, okay, Hield, the strong Wooden Award candidate, wound up with 23 points, but with 8 minutes to go, he had made just 4 of 11 field goal attempts. He couldn’t get off a clean look from outside. So, with the Sooners in a desperate situation, he started driving to the basket. Boy, did he have to work at it. But it paid off as he hit 3 of 5 down the stretch.
He was so frustrated that he was barking at officials for fouls. He finished his career at Bramlage 0-4.
“Everybody is gonna make it tough on me,” he told reporters after the game. “I’ve gotta find ways to score the ball. I started attacking better late in the second half. I should have done that earlier.”
Shoulda, woulda, coulda.
The Wildcats dida. Oh, the concern was there that this was going to be another one of those games. OU jumped to a 9-2 lead. Nope, it wasn’t going to be that kind of game. The Cats led 38-32 at the half but OU started strong after intermission, going on a 13-3 tear to take a 45-41 lead at 16:10. Nope, not that kind of game either.
Iwundu’s jumper three minutes later put the Cats back on top 48-47 and they never trailed the rest of the game.
“That’s the best team in the country and we just beat them,” Iwundu told reporters after the game. “We have every reason to hold our heads up high right now.”
Iwundu certainly deserved the accolades but he had a band of merry men with strong support. Dean Wade didn’t start but he came in firing and wound up with 17 points. D.J. Johnson, who started in place of Wade, added 12 and Justin Edwards, who also didn’t start, came in and scored 11.
The Wildcats managed 53 percent from the field despite not hitting one single shot off the fast break.
So, here was the No. 1 team in the country coming to town with a four-game winning streak against a team that had won only two games in Big 12 Conference action this season — and that team lost. It was a big win for the Cats and certainly a very big one for Coach Bruce Weber.
He was a man very incensed in K-State’s 77-59 loss to KU last Wednesday. He didn’t appreciate calls made by the officiating crew. The Cats had 18 fouls to KU’s 7 at the half.
This brings up a little theory about why KU Coach Bill Self may have made a big to-do about Brannen Greene, who, as the final seconds ticked off, broke loose and dunked the ball at the buzzer. Self was furious, calling it a “dick move.” He issued an apology to everyone on God’s green earth.
The theory? Would he be clever enough to go into the rant to take away any possible focus on the foul calls? It was a rude move by a player, but did it deserve all the attention?
Back on February 23, 1985, Indiana Coach Bob Knight threw a threw a chair onto the court when the Hoosiers played the Purdue Boilermakers in Bloomington. The incident took away from Purdue’s 72-63 victory.
The Boilermakers had seized a quick lead of 11-2 and were embarrassing the Hoosiers on their own floor. Knight was working himself up into a fury. Three fouls were called on Indiana in the next 58 seconds. After the last one, Knight cussed officials. Technical. He became even more angry and picked up a chair from the Hoosiers’ bench and hurled it so it slid across the court toward the wheelchair section. More technical fouls and Knight was ejected from the game.
The story was Knight’s temper tantrum, not Purdue’s victory.
Nah. Self wouldn’t do that.
The dunk story continued into the weekend and so did KU’s winning streak, now standing at three. The Jayhawks, 19-4 overall and 7-3 in the conference, had lost their previous three conference road games but never trailed in this one after scoring the game’s first seven points. They shot 50 percent from the field (29 of 58) and finished with a 46-25 rebounding advantage.
Perry Ellis led the Jayhawks with 23 points and 10 rebounds.
“They were right, and we had no fight,” TCU Coach Trent Johnson told reporters after the game. “They did whatever they wanted to — 46-25 on the glass speaks volumes of how competitive they were and how competitive we weren’t. The game was decided because of their maximum effort and our lack of.”
The Jayhawks will host first-place West Virginia Tuesday night. Kansas State, 14-9 and 3-7, will be home to Baylor on Wednesday night.