SAN ANTONIO — As a new CBS analyst, Steve Kerr likes to get to know the teams up close and personal. His dogged research Thursday led him onto the Alamodome floor for an impromptu 3-point shooting contest.
Virginia Commonwealth coach Shaka Smart is noted for making the end of shootarounds fun. Kerr happened to be attending, and Smart and assistant Kyle Getter invited Kerr to take on senior point guard Joey Rodriguez.
For the record, Rodriguez won, hitting 8-of-11 to Kerr’s 6-of-11.
“That was cool,” Rodriguez said. “I’m sure if he had a couple more warm-up shots, he would have killed me. You could kind of see at the end he wanted to win. He’s a great shooter, probably the best clutch shooter of all time, one of them, at least.
“I’m sure if I was out there against Utah (Jazz), I would have air-balled it.”
Ironically, Kerr is one of three players Smart uses as examples to demonstrate how to defend shooters coming off screens. The others are Rajon Rondo and Dwyane Wade.
“I thought for sure Steve would win because he’s the best shooter I’ve ever seen,” Smart said. “But Joey stepped up there and knocked them in.”
Kansas is on course.
For what it’s worth, top-seeded Kansas won the 2008 national championship by taking a similar path it’s taking to reach this year’s Final Four. The similarity goes beyond returning to the Alamodome, where it beat Memphis for the national title that year.
In 2008, the Jayhawks, also top-seeded, beat No. 16 Portland State, No. 8 Nevada-Las Vegas, No. 12 Villanova and No. 10 Davidson to reach the Final Four. This year, they beat No. 16 Boston University and No. 9 Illinois. They play No. 12 Richmond tonight, and if they win, they might play Florida State. You guessed it.
It’s a No. 10 seed.
“It’s not about the seeds,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “Fans and media people may play it out to be that way. It’s about players. It’s about matchups.”
Seminoles are show-stoppers.
Quick. Name the best defensive team in the country. Duke? Nope. Kansas? Wrong again. How about Pittsburgh? Try Florida State.
It’s true. The Seminoles lead the nation in arguably the most important defensive statistic: shooting defense. They hold opponents to only .360 shooting from the field. This is no fluke. A year ago, they also led the nation at .377.
“We developed a system that has evolved, I guess, from a lot of different people who I’ve worked with and coached for,” FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said. “And over the years, we’ve tried to steal the things we think that we like from a lot of different philosophies. We kind of try to include all in one.”
If the statistics hold, the Seminoles will be the first team since Georgetown in 1990 and 1991 to lead the nation in shooting defense two years in a row.
Talent search.
Richmond coach Chris Mooney and Smart are being mentioned for job openings. Smart has been connected with Missouri, which lost Mike Anderson to Arkansas, and North Carolina State. Mooney has been mentioned with Georgia Tech.
Mooney, who coached Air Force in 2004-05, interviewed for the Boston College job last year. When he returned to Richmond, he signed an extension through 2016-17 annually worth $700,000.
