Category: March Madness (Page 52 of 56)

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.

Call me a traditionalist, but there are a few things that bother me about the news that Nike is rolling out a new line of uniforms for four elite college programs – Ohio State, Arizona, Florida and Syracuse – which include tighter jerseys and baggier shorts.

The jerseys are tighter and the shorts are longer and baggier. And players have an option of “personalizing” their look with aerodynamic underlayer tops and leggings.

Nike said players had told the company that they were looking for ways to personalize their look, which some college players already do with tops under their jerseys.

If players want to go all willy nilly and “personalize their look” when they get to the pros, that’s fine with me (if it’s fine with David Stern), but I don’t think it’s good for the game if the five guys playing for a particular team are all wearing a different, customized version of the school’s uniform. It took me a while to get used to the t-shirts that players wear under their unis, but arm-length under armor is another story.

Does anyone remember when NC State switched to a spandex top and baggy shorts? That move went over like a lead balloon.

Also, the new jerseys also include a “LeBron James insignia on Ohio State’s. James has said he would have attended Ohio State if he hadn’t gone directly to the pros.”

So now we’re putting a LeBron insignia on the uniforms for a school that he never even attended? WTF?

Florida rode excellent defense and good shooting to a 73-57 win over the UCLA bruins. Florida’s attack was balanced with four players in double digits along with Adrian Moss’ nine-point contribution off the Gator bench. Florida coach (and maybe the most well-groomed man in the country) Billy Donovan became the second-youngest coach (Bobby Knight, 35) at 40 years of age to win the National Championship.

The Gators controlled the first half, forcing and capitalizing on eight UCLA turnovers en route to a 36-25 halftime lead. UCLA made the mistake of playing Florida’s game, pushing the ball when they should have been walking it up. Corey Brewer had a big first half, scoring seven points but, more importantly, he shut down UCLA’s leading scorer, Arron Afflalo. Joakim Noah broke the title game record of block shots with five in the first half, a prediction that CBS’ Billy Packer made at the beginning of the game. Packer never misses an opportunity to point out when he’s right, but with Noah coming into the game averaging over four blocks per tournament game, Billy is hardly Nostradamus. Jordan Farmar led all scorers with 12 points in the half, carrying UCLA’s offensive load and keeping the Bruins within striking distance.

UCLA needed to get off to a good start in the second half, but Florida drained three early shots from behind the arc to give the Gators an 18-point lead that was too deep a hole for the Bruins to dig out of. UCLA cut the lead to 12 with 5:52 to play, but were never able to close the gap further. Brewer continued to harrass Afflalo, who managed just 10 points on 3-10 shooting. But it was Joakim Noah who won the Final Four MVP, finishing with 16 points, eight rebounds, three assists, two steals and a NCAA Championship record six blocked shots.

All in all, it was a rather anti-climactic Final Four after the previous weekends were maybe the most exciting of any tournament in history. That had a lot to do with Florida, who proved that they were playing ball at the highest level in the country.