Most Wonderful Time of the Year Part II

Initially, I had intended to provide my thoughts after each block of games. As you can tell, that didn't happen. What follows are some highlights of the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament.

Belmont Deserved Better: What a fantastic game. The Bruins (who were playing their third straight NCAA tournament) went toe-to-toe with the Dukies for 40 minutes. If not for the parting of the sea defense against Gerald Henderson and a bad inbounds pass, Belmont might have become just the fifth 15-seed to win a first round game. (A side note: Special thanks to West Virginia for finishing off Coach K's squad in the second round).
Stephen Curry Drinks Your Milkshakes: Curry, who is just the second player in the history of the NCAA tournament to score at least 30 points in his first three NCAA tournament games. Curry had 30 a year ago in a near-upset of Maryland, and followed that up with 40 on Friday against Gonzaga (30 in the second half) and 30 (25 in the second half) against Georgetown on Sunday. Curry, just a sophomore, was the most impressive player of the first two rounds and has many folks wondering if Davidson is this year's George Mason. Can he carry the Wildcats past Wisconsin? Absolutely, but Kansas (should the teams meet in the regional final) will be a much stiffer test.
Upset City: The people at the St. Pete Times Forum sure got their money's worth. For the first time in the history of the tournament, all four lower-seeded teams at one site won their games. Western Kentucky beat Drake 101-99 in an overtime contest that will go down as the game of the tournament. San Diego survived foul trouble to upset Connecticut, while Siena blew out Vanderbilt and Villanova held of Clemson. All told, two 12-seeds and two 13-seeds advanced to the second round in the same building on the same day. That, folks, is why the NCAA tournament is the best sporting event of the year.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year Part I

Without questions, at this time of the year "bracket" is the greatest seven-letter word in the English language. Here are some quick thoughts on Thursday's first set of games:
-All is Right with the Universe: Pitt beat Oral Roberts 82-63. In all honesty, nothing else matters. The 2008 NCAA Tournament can already be considered a success, and Jamie Dixon (Pitt's coach) has my ever-loving gratitude (however much that's worth).
-Josh Duncan and Derrick Brown Saved my Bacon: Speaking of guys who have my ever-loving gratitude, these two gentlemen inspired Xavier(one of my Final Four picks) to go on a 22-6 run in the second half to rally and beat Georgia. The Muskateers outscored the Bulldogs 47-26 in the second half. I have lost Final Four teams on the first day of play before (South Carolina in 1997 and Syracuse in 2005), so I appreciate Xavier's second half efforts to keep all four of my teams alive.
-Joe Crawford's Better is Better than Your Better: In what could very well be the best individual performance of the first round, Kentucky's Joe Crawford carried his team, scoring 35 points. Unfortunately for Crawford, the rest of his teammates managed just 31 points in the 74-66 lost to Marquette.
-If Only the First Half Didn't Count: Kent State had a first half to forget, tallying only 10 points in the first 20 minutes of their 71-58 loss to UNLV. The good news for the Golden Flashes is that they won the second half 48-40. UNLV's Wink Adams will be around for at least one more game, and who doesn't love a guy named Wink.
-No Christmas in March: Michigan State held Temple's top scorer, Dionte Christmas, to just three points in the Spartans' 72-61 win. MSU looked very much like the team that upset Texas in December and much less like the team that lost to Penn State in February.

Some Bracket Thoughts

As everyone with a pulse ponders over the men's NCAA Tournament bracket and tries to figure out which 12-seed will pull the upset this year or whether a Running Rebel (UNLV) would beat a Golden Flash (Kent State) in a fight, here are some random thoughts on the field of 65:
-I don't have nearly as many issues with the last few teams in as some of the talking heads do. As previously mentioned, I would liked to have seen VCU and Illinois State in over teams like Oregon and Villanova, but overall I'm pretty happy with the field. Arizona State and Virginia Tech have no gripes. All they needed to do, was win more games. Arizona State has good wins over Xavier and Stanford, but they also split series with Cal and Washington. Sweep those two teams (who finished 8th and 9th in the Pac-10 respectively), and there's no question they'd be in the field of 65. The same goes for Virginia Tech. The Hokies have one win over another team that made the NCAA Tournament. Either beat more of the middle of the road teams, or beat the UCLA's and North Carolina's. Now shut up and enjoy the NIT.
-Butler and Drake both got screwed. Not only was Butler under-seeded (they should have been now lower than a top-5 seed like last season), but they also have to play South Alabama in Birmingham. That's rough. Drake, while seeded higher than Butler, probably should be a seed or two higher as well. There just wasn't as much love for the mid-major teams as has been shown in the previous few tournaments.
-The best first round game is USC vs. Kansas State. The committee needs to be commended for this one. OJ Mayo against Michael Beasley. Everyone is looking forward to watching these two sensational freshmen match-up against each other. Mayo's supporting cast is a little better, but Beasley is the better player.
-Some double-digit seeds with the chance to pull an upset or two: No. 11 Kansas State (vs. USC), No. 12 George Mason (vs. Notre Dame--the Irish are very average away from South Bend), No. 11 Saint Joseph's (vs. Oklahoma--Phil Martelli is a fantastic coach), No. 11 Baylor (vs. Purdue--Scott Drew could very well be coach of the year, and the Boilers youth is starting to show), No. 10 Saint Mary's (vs. Miami--St. Patrick's Day is today, so why wouldn't freshman guard Paddy Mills have success this week?), No. 10 Davidson (vs. Gonzaga--The Wildcats have the nation's longest winning streak at 22 in a row).
-North Carolina is the No. 1-seed most likely to reach the Final Four. It must be nice for Roy Williams knowing his club won't have to leave North Carolina before the Final Four. Games in Raleigh and Charlotte pave the way for the Heels to make it to San Antonio.
-Memphis is the No. 1-seed most likely to miss the Final Four. I love watching the Tigers play, but the committee didn't do them any favors. If the seeds hold form, they will play Texas in Houston for a trip to the Final Four. The stands will be 90% Texas fans, and that might be too much for the Tigers to overcome.
-Early Final Four projections (that are sure to be wrong or change five times in the next three days): North Carolina, Kansas, Texas and Xavier
-One not-so-fearless prediction: Pittsburgh will beat Oral Roberts by 40

Bursting Bubbles

I have to preface this by saying that did my undergraduate schooling at a mid-major (Valpo), so I'm certainly a little biased. I was watching FSN's coverage of the Pac-10 Quarterfinals last night, and the announcers were lamenting the fact that the West Coast Conference would probably get three teams (San Diego, Gonzaga and Saint' Mary's) in the NCAA tournament, while Pac-10 teams like Oregon and Arizona State might be left on the outside looking in. They argued that the Pac-10 was a much tougher conference than the WCC (a point I'm not going to argue), and it was a shame that the WCC was going to get three teams because one team unexpectedly the conference tournament on its home floor, while Pac-10 teams that went .500 in conference play would be NIT-bound. This is what I say to them: Tell your Oregons (who lost to Saint Mary's and Oakland in the regular season by the way) and your Arizona State's (who's biggest non-conference win outside of Xavier was Nebraska) to beat someone. The Pac-10 plays a true round-robin schedule. ASU beat rival Arizona twice (good wins), but also lost to Washington and Cal. They don't play an unbalanced schedule like the SEC does, so ASU and Oregon both had plenty of opportunities to win one or two more games and could not get it done. Tough luck. I guarantee (and this is where the bias comes in) that teams like VCU (regular season champs in the CAA) and Illinois State (second in the Missouri Valley) have a much better chance of pulling an upset than a couple of .500 teams from the Pac-10 do. It would be a tremendous shame (especially given the recent success of Gonzaga, Butler and George Mason to name a few) if VCU, Illinois State and Saint Mary's were left out of the Dance in favor of teams like Arizona State, Oregon and Villanova. Here's hoping the selection committee wises up.

Hey There

Welcome. Just as I was seemingly the last person on the planet to get an iPod, I'm also the last one to join the ranks of the blogosphere. I'm going to apologize in advance because most of the postings here will be about sports, fantasy and otherwise, but I will try and cover more than just that. If you're lucky (or unlucky depending on how you want to look at it), I might even update what's going on in my life. Thanks for stopping by, but mostly stay classy.