Category: March Madness (Page 51 of 56)

For the most part, it was good to be the higher seed on Saturday.

The day featured several great games, including a terrific comeback by the Buckeyes (or a horrible blown lead by Xavier, depending on your perspective). OSU looks a little shaky, but it’s doubtful that Virginia or Tennessee will battle like the Musketeers did…A&M fended off a stiff challenge from Louisville and the Aggies remain my dark horse choice for the Final Four…In the East bracket, Georgetown wore down BC and Vanderbilt won a double-OT thriller against Washington State…North Carolina passed the Michigan State test, but didn’t look dominant in the win. The West featured two great comebacks as VCU made a serious charge at Pitt and Indiana made a late run at UCLA, but in both cases, the top seeds prevailed, setting up Ben Howland against his old team in the Sweet Sixteen on Thursday.

There is another nice slate of games today. Keep an eye on that Wisconsin/UNLV game – the Texas A&M CC coach said that the Rebs would beat the Badgers. I don’t think I buy it, but it should make for an interesting storyline during the game.

#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.