Category: College Basketball (Page 136 of 153)

#2-seed Wisconsin overcame an 18-point first half deficit to beat Texas A&M Corpus Christie, 76-63. Kammron Taylor both contributed to the big deficit with poor shooting in the first half and also led the Badgers to victory with 24 second half points. He’s a streaky shooter and will need to be a little more consistent if Wisconsin is going to advance very far.

#10 Georgia Tech was a popular upset pick, but played a brutal game against #7 UNLV. The Yellow Jackets never seemed to get into a flow, and Paul Hewitt’s schizophrenic substitution patterns didn’t help…CBS insisted on covering Tennessee’s blowout of Long Beach State to the bitter end. I assume it has to do with LBS’ proximity to the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles, but nobody around here cares about LBS. If they’re in the game, sure I’d love to watch them, but if they’re down by 20+, go to another game. Luckily, I was able to watch Notre Dame’s wonderful comeback against Winthrop on cbs.sportsline.com. (Winthrop prevailed.)

#3 Oregon is only up by three on #14 Miami (OH). I had the Irish beating the Ducks to advance to the Sweet Sixteen, so if Miami can pull the upset, it will lessen the effect of Notre Dame’s loss.

#11 VCU beat Duke! That’s right, all the haters can rest easy for a few months. A combination of poor foul shooting (20-32), turnovers (17) and VCU’s Eric Maynor (22 points, including the game winner) did the Blue Devils in.

Save for VCU and #9-seeds Michigan State and Xavier, all of the top seeded teams moved on yesterday, making it one of the quieter starts in recent memory. Usually a #3 or #4 seed is knocked off on the first day. There is a nice slate of games today, featuring #7 Nevada vs. #10 Creighton, #8 Arizona vs #9 Purdue, #7 UNLV vs. #10 Georgia Tech and #6 Notre Dame vs. #11 Winthrop. That list doesn’t even include the three 5/12 matchups. My guess is we’ll see at least two double-digit seeds pull the upset today.

I’ll finish with a complaint. Yesterday at 3 PM here in California, and there was a game going on, yet my local affiliate was airing an episode of “The Price Is Right.” Granted, Vandy blew out GW, but why in the world would you show Bob Barker when there’s a game to broadcast?

Get real.

No shockers yet as #6 Louisville, #3 A&M, #2 Georgetown, #7 BC, #3 Washington St., #5 Butler and #4 Maryland all advanced. Thus far, I’m 7-0 in my bracket, but things aren’t looking too good for George Washington, my first upset special. They’re trailing Vanderbilt 27-10 in the first half. Ouch.

A few random thoughts from the early games:

Boy did Stanford lay an egg. You have to consider the effect of a West coast team traveling to the Midwest to play a game at 9:30 AM PT, but these are college kids, they should be ready to play day or night. Louisville looked strong and should give A&M a great game. The Aggies struggled against Pennsylvania, but wore those Ivy brats down in the second half. I have A&M going to the Final Four, and after today’s performances, I’m not feeling great about that pick…The announcers were going on and on about how Stanford big man Robin Lopez decorates his shoes. Apparently, he’s an artist, while his twin brother is a writer. All this discussion was going on as Robin was at the free throw line bricking two free throws. Note to self: spend less time drawing on my shoes and more time practicing my free throws…Best name of the tourney (so far)? Ken Tutt of Oral Roberts. Do you think his parents named him that on purpose?

There are some interesting matchups coming up later – #6 Duke vs. #11 VCU and #8 Marquette vs. #9 Michigan State.

Tired of getting punked in your brackets each March? While my five tips won’t guarantee you’ll win it all this year, they should help ensure you don’t get beat by your buddy’s girlfriend who picked Kansas to go all the way because she thinks their mascot is cute.

The brackets have been announced, which means it’s time to second-guess the selection committee. In BE’s Bracket Breakdown, I give my initial thoughts about each region, including general analysis of the seeds, upset possibilities, intriguing potential matchups and possible dark horses. I’ll also discuss a few teams that were snubbed and one team that really should be headed for the NIT.