I don’t know if people have noticed, but my volume has dropped a little lately. That’s primarily due to several reasons, one of which being I’m a huge college basketball fan. This time of year, I get a little distracted. Some thoughts so far:
Louisville getting a 4 seed was unjustifiable. Washington getting a 1 seed was as well. It’s obvious now.
Louisville coming back on West Virginia was pretty amazing to watch. However, if you watched the game, you saw why it happened. Louisville made a very obvious adjustment around half-time and it paid off.
Arizona collapsing against Illinois was even more amazing to watch. It was a text-book example of how not to protect a lead. Arizona was rolling and pretty much blowing Illinois out of the gym until exactly 4:04 left in the game. What Lute Olson told them at that point was not a good plan. My advice to the guys would have been to keep doing what you’re doing. When Arizona was hustling, they were unbeatable. When they relaxed and tried to protect the ball, they looked like high schoolers. I think the most amazing thing to me about this game is how highly I respect Lute Olson and never imagined a team coached by him would fall apart like that.
Foxsports echoed a LOT of other sports venues with this assessment:
Which one of the power conferences was the biggest disappointment?
Two conferences jump right off the page — the SEC and the Big East — but which one was worst?
The Southeastern Conference was always looked at as having a down year over the course of the season, while the Big East was thought to be extremely strong, and underrated. But after one week in the tournament both look equally weak.
If Kentucky wins tomorrow, the SEC will have a team in the Final Four. Unless Wisconsin beats North Carolina, no division will have more. That’s not much of an example of a weak division. Kentucky didn’t even win their division tournament. If Billy Donovan can figure some way to get his guys as excited about playing anyone else as he does Kentucky, he’d be a load to deal with. I don’t think the SEC was particularly bad this year, I think the PAC-10 and Big East were WAY over-rated.
Another often heard sentiment:
All year long everyone has said how the RPI had it wrong; no way was the Pac-10 the second-strongest conference in the country. Yet after the first two rounds the conference is 4-2 with all four wins coming from Arizona and Washington. Both schools have cruised so far, winning their games by an average margin of 15 points. Players such as Salim Stoudamire and Nate Robinson are finally getting the credit they deserve. Two more wins by each school and there would be an all Pac-10 matchup in the Final Four. Will it happen? Chances are slim, but the Pac-10 has represented itself well in the Big Dance.
Fellas, the RPI was dead-wrong. Arizona was the last Pac-10 team left. Washington was supposed to be the powerhouse ( #1 seed ). They got thumped by a #4 seed. Arizona experienced the ultimate melt-down. The Pac-10 is dust again. What happens in the Pac-10 is each year one team is a little better than the rest ( Stanford, Washington, Arizona ). The only problem is the rest are usually very very bad. It is difficult as heck to figure Pac-10 teams out in tournaments because more often than not they haven’t played a schedule that matches a Michigan State, North Carolina, or Kentucky. Those teams get prepared for March by playing hard schedules all year long. You have some clue as to how good or bad they are by March. Teams beating up on Utah States and Brigham Young’s don’t give anyone a clue how to predict them in the tournament, and, do nothing to prepare those players for the big time.
This has been a great tourney. Much more enjoyable for the masses than last year’s. If you watched today’s games, you got six halves of basketball in two games. That hasn’t happened since 1992. The second game of that double-header was considered by many to be the greatest college basketball game ever played. The Arizona-Illinois game might be considered a close second. Maybe. Duke’s definitely not going to win it this year. That makes this tourney that much better.
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