Gotta love Robbie Hummel's toughness, not to mention his ability. The kid did everything he possibly could to make sure the Boilermakers didn't get run out of the building. But in the end, Purdue didn't have anything or anybody that could do anything at all to combat Hasheem Thabeet.There is no shame in this. No one does. There's no player in college basketball that has any kind of answer for Thabeet, which is why UConn remains a worthy 1-seed and one of the favorites to win the whole thing in spite of the absence of Jerome Dyson. They still have way too many good players to be counted out, and they have the game-changer in the middle. Thirteen rebounds, four blocks, just one foul...he did everything he wanted to do tonight, and as a result the Huskies didn't have to sweat.
It's hard to see where UConn gets tripped up the rest of the way. Missouri or Memphis, whichever team the Huskies play next, is going to have the same problem. Neither has anybody who can play Thabeet on either end.
Theoretically, Missouri's press could help prevent the game from ever getting to Thabeet. But in A.J. Price and Kemba Walker, the Huskies have guards athletic enough to beat the press and run with anybody. And once they got into the half-court, where Jeff Adrien does the dirty work and Thabeet's massive paw sits in front of the hoop like an angry mini-golf windmill that got stuck in place, they'd just be overmatched.
In my bracket, UConn wins one more game and then loses to Michigan State in the Final Four. The thinking behind this pick is that the Spartans are a good enough rebounding team that they could direct the action under the hoop to some degree and maybe even play tough enough inside to force Thabeet away from the basket a bit and annoy him. Thabeet can get out of his game when annoyed.
But this is just a theory, and it's no reflection on my opinion of the UConn Huskies' chances. Dyson or no Dyson, recruiting scandal or no recruiting scandal, Connecticut is good enough to win this tournament. There's been nothing in any of their first three games to indicate otherwise.
