First Round Thoughts and Opinions

I've never been a big St. Patrick's day person. I'm not Irish nor Catholic. I also don't like to wear green, so I don't know why I'm supposed to wear green and act Irish on St. Patrick's day. Actually, if I was Irish or Catholic (and especially both), the way St. Patrick's Day is celebrated would be somewhat offensive. Not only is St. Patrick an icon of Ireland, he's been sanctified by the Catholic Church. Yet, what is the expected behavior on St. Paddy's Day? Getting drunk. Doesn't really seem like the proper way to celebrate a missionary's life. Yet, there I was in an Irish Bar (McCarthy's) on St. Patrick's Day. However, there was one good thing about it. I found a lot of humor in watching a bar full of UK fans rooting for the Wildcats while wearing the colors of their opponents, UAB. I don't know who sells those silly "Gettin Lucky In Kentucky", but they made some money if they stocked up on the green ones.

I understand the thought process that led Billy Packer and Jim Nantz to mug the NCAA tournament selection committee chair, Craig Littlepage, during a post-selection interview. It does seem strange that the Missouri Valley Conference got in as many teams as the ACC. However, it's still not a good reason to be rather rude to a business partner. They didn't just disagree with Littlepage. They about called him a liar and then interrupted him when he wanted to give a simple congratulations to the teams in the tournament. Besides, considering that Packer didn't seem to know what day it was (he talked about one matchup before the pairing was announced), he's not exactly a good choice to make any argument. His theory was that at-large bids should measure a conference's historical trends which means that Wichita State should be excluded because Florida State plays in the ACC where Duke and UNC have been more successful in the tournaments than Southern Illinois. Doesn't matter whether or not Florida State is better than Wichita State (they're not), but their conference has been historically better, so they should get the automatic bid. To begin with, that argument is crap. MVC teams that make the NCAAs have to start out with low seeds meaning they play a top team out of the gate. Of course their historical trend will be worse, but it doesn't matter anyway. If the tournament is supposed to be the top 65 teams, it should do away with automatic bids. Why should the SWAC get any team in? It doesn't matter who their conference champ is, it won't be a top 65 team. The funny thing is that we're basically arguing about whether a good small conference team or a mediocre major conference team will be a double digit seed. Does it really matter? After all, since they began seeding in 1979, only two teams seeded lower than eight (11th seed LSU in 1986 and 9th seeded Penn in 1979) have ever made the Final Four. The lowest seeded team to win it all was Villanova which was an eight, but the '88 Kansas and '83 NC State teams (both 6 seeds) are the only other champs that weren't at least a four seed. So, we're talking about a bubble team which has virtually no chance of even making the Final Four, much less winning the title. I say reward the small team for a good season rather than a major school for an underwhelming one. Granted, Packer and Nantz did sort of apologize during the UK/UConn game, but what else could they do? Two of the four MVC teams, neither of whom won the conference tourney, were already in the Sweet Sixteen which is two more than the Big Ten. Hell, the only conference with more is the Big East.

Besides, CBS has the worst coverage. While watching the UK game, I could see where Murray State was tied with North Carolina with a minute left. Yet, they waited until 16 seconds were left before switching to it. I realize that the UK/UAB game was close, but there were over 10 minutes left. Why not switch? Or use that split screen they used to have?

Since I don't have a team in the tournament, I can pull for my bracket teams. So I was already happy that UConn beat UK because a loss would have killed my brackets. However, there was another reason. Phil basically shaved his head hoping it would help UK beat UAB. I was afraid if they had beaten UConn, Phil would have shaved other body parts. Which is fine if that's what he wants to do, but my real fear was that he would post the pictures, and we shouldn't have to see that.

I'm not a big fan of the "Duke Mystique", but Duke teams always play hard. With all the talent on the UConn roster, they would be unbeatable if they played as hard as Duke. Which was why I was scared to pick them to win it all. It was mindboggling to me that UL stayed closer at UConn during the regular season than they did against Rutgers or St. John's. They'll start jogging back on defense and standing around on offense. You get the feeling that Rudy Gay could take over this tournament, but he doesn't. Letting a UK team shooting 50% on threes in the second half come back from a big deficit wouldn't indicate that much of a problem, but letting Albany get a 12 point lead with 12 minutes left in the game does. It's almost like they have too much talent and figure they can always pull it out. Which they almost always do.

I didn't think I'd see a better shot in this tournament after Chris Lofton's game winner in the first round. Then I saw the game winner by Northwestern State's Jermaine Wallace's to beat Iowa. Lofton's as actually a better shot (a fall-away baseline 19 foot jumper with a man in his face), but his was drawn up. Wallace's was a rebound a miss, get stuck in the corner and bury a three. Plus, there were mitigating factors. One is that it was a huge upset by a school that some drunks (we started right after lunch and the place was already crowded) in the aforementioned Irish Bar refused to believe me when I said Northwestern State was in Louisiana. Even I couldn't tell them which city it was in. Two, they were down while the Vols were already tied and would have still had overtime. Three, it was funny to see the two Northwestern State players hugging in celebration at half court while Iowa still has a second left to get off a shot. Lucky for them, the guy with the 'fro got back on defense and kept Iowa from getting off a good shot. Needless to say, both will probably end up in next year's highlight clips to be played over and over.

I thought this was interesting. Apparently, the IU players were happy that Iowa lost in the first round because it meant that Mike Davis went farther than Steve Alford. Of course, they needed a completely inept play by San Diego State (guy gave up a turnover when he incorrectly thought he would have been called for a backcourt violation) and pass tipped directly to an open man to win. Then lost by 10 to a beatable Gonzaga who had won their previous three games by a total of 9 points. Actually, it was pretty stupid of the IU players to celebrate publicly, because even though I wouldn't hire Steve Alford (1 NCAA win in six years), Indiana might. Do you really want to tick off your next coach?

Actually, Mike Davis is lousy coach. He got lucky early when his team got hot and took him to the title game (helped by Jason Williams bricking a free throw). Since then Indiana has tried to strive for mediocrity despite having a number of talented players. Contrast that with Bruce Pearl at UT. It may seem strange that I think Tennessee's team overachieved this year. After all, they barely beat Winthrop in the first round before dropping the second to Wichita State. Still, when I look at that roster, it's got no size and relies too heavily on outside shooting and should never have won the SEC East or been a 2 seed. But it did. As much as I like Chris Lofton, that team had nothing like a Jared Jeffries who Davis inherited. Watch out for UT when Bruce Pearl gets more talent there.