After last year’s shockingly predictable NCAA tournament, with no Davidson or George Mason underdog bandwagons to jump on, audiences began to forget just how mad March can be. This year’s tournament has brought us all sorts of beautiful madness packed full of overtimes, buzzer-beaters, upsets and unexpected heroes.
The Real Cinderella
There are three low seeded small conference teams who are still in the dance, but who really fits the slipper? St. Mary’s, Cornell and Northern Iowa have been terrible for brackets but great for entertainment. Cornell looked like a one seed as they punished Temple and Wisconsin, but they have by far the toughest challenge of the three underdogs. Kentucky is too big, too talented and too well coached to lose that game, but the other two just might have a shot…
Get Your Samhan’s Off Me!
St. Mary’s big man Omar Samhan has been the best player in the tournament so far and he’s not afraid to tweet about it. He’ll have to be nothing short of that for his Gaels to beat the Baylor Bears. Baylor center Ekpe Udoh gives up about 20 pounds to Samhan, but Udoh is a better shot-blocker and a much tougher matchup than anyone Samhan has faced in the tourney so far. Even if Samhan wins the battle down low, between LaceDarius Dunn, Tweety Carter, Ekpe Udoh and Quincy Acey, Baylor has too much offensive talent and too many hilarious names to fall to St. Mary’s.
That leaves us with the Northern Iowa Panthers, who made number one overall seed Kansas look like… well, like you would expect Kansas to make Northern Iowa look, I suppose. Aside from a few turnovers against the Jayhawks full court press late in the game, the Panthers did everything right. Particularly center Jordan Eglseder, who took it to future lottery pick Cole Aldrich for 14 points and five boards during only 18 minutes on the court, and guard Ali Farokhmanesh who buried nine threes in the first two games of the tourney, including the dagger that erased the chalk from the Jayhawks and will likely immortalize Ali F in One Shining Moment montages for years and years to come.
This is Sparta, isn’t it?
Michigan State is riding on an emotional high themselves after knocking off Maryland with a buzzer beating three, despite a career summarizing run by Terrapin senior Greivis Vasquez late in the game. But the great win came with terrible news for the Spartans when the team announced that star point guard Kalin Lucas will miss the remainder of the tournament with a ruptured Achilles tendon. Although Lucas’ backup, Korie Lucious, was clutch in knocking down the game winning shot, he struggled with point guard duties, totaling only two assists in 27 minutes on the floor. The team looked out of sync offensively when Lucas left the court and the Terrapins began to make their comeback.
The Izzone Defense
Coach Tom Izzo has had all week to prepare his Spartans to win a battle without their greatest warrior, and Northern Iowa doesn’t have a dominant point guard themselves. No matter how much Lucas means to the Spartans, and no matter how hungry these Panther’s are, they are still not nearly as talented or experienced as Michigan State. I give the slight edge to the Spartans in what I expect to be a great game, but if you’re looking for an underdog to move on, the Northern Iowa Panthers are your guys. I guess they would be undercats…
I went to the Sports Addict Lab and conducted various complicated and highly technologically advanced studies to determine the chances each Cinderella team has of advancing past the Sweet Sixteen. Here are the results:
Cornell over Kentucky: 12%
St. Mary’s over Baylor: 31%
Northern Iowa over Michigan State: 46%
Self Pity
How is an All-American senior with more experience than any player in the tournament made to look like an unpolished freshman prospect on his first day in the starting lineup?
How does a team who shot over 40% from beyond the arc this year only make 6-23 despite having wide open looks all day?
How do three 2010 first round draft picks allow Ali Farokmanesh to look like the best player on the floor?!
How does Bill Self sit back and remain calm while his team fails to box out down the stretch, or move the ball around and run the offenses that they’ve beaten teams with all season?
We’ve seen upsets like this before, but to see a team as talented and experienced as Kansas play so poorly for an entire tournament game, and still have so many blown chances to get back in it, was just bizarre. Bill Self had no sense of urgency, looking bored on the sideline and not instituting the full court press until way too late in the game, especially since full court pressing was the only thing Kansas did well. Senior point guard Sherron Collins made his last college game ever his worst, turning the ball over five times while only dishing out four assists and shooting an atrocious 4-15 from the field, missing all six of the three point shots he forced up. What’s even more shocking than all the things Kansas did wrong, is that they only lost by two! Just think about how little they had to do right to win that game? Sorry to be so hard on you Kansas, but its not nearly as bad as what you did to my bracket.
Sexy East
The Big East has been the big bust this year. We were all naively taken her sexy high scoring games and all the fun she gave us this season without recognizing her immaturity and lack of commitment to defense. Syracuse and West Virginia are still in great shape, but the other six Big East teams failed to make it to the Sweet Sixteen despite very favorable seeding.
Louisville, Georgetown, Marquette and Notre Dame all fell in the first round. All of them but Louisville were favored to win. Villanova couldn't get past confident underdog St. Mary’s in the second round despite being a common final four pick and Pittsburgh was X’ed out by the Musketeers in round two as well.
Doesn’t it seems like every year we’re convinced that one or two conferences have all of the competitive teams in the nation and every other conference is “down”, yet mid-majors and teams from those “down” conferences keep making up the majority of the sweet sixteen? I guess the moral of the story is: We don’t know #%&@!
Dancing Without the Stars
While Big East teams are dropping like Jayhawks, three out of five Big Ten teams in the tournament have advanced to the Sweet Sixteen despite difficult matchups and injuries to star players. Michigan State survived without Kalin Lucas in the second half of Sunday’s game against Maryland, and Purdue lost star forward Robbie Hummel late in the regular season but were still able roll through Siena and Texas A&M last weekend.
Doesn’t it seem like every year we ignore the Big Ten until they grind out tough tournament wins with great defense? We would say we're sorry, but I’m sure we’ll just do it again next year.
The Rest of the Story
Since my actual bracket is ruined, along with everyone else in the country who's not lying, I thought I’d give it another shot:
Syracuse will stay hot this weekend, crushing Butler and sneaking past an overlooked Kansas State squad. The Orange won’t have enough flavor to get past the Buckeyes in the Final Four and Ohio State will move on to the title.
Darryl Bryant’s injury won’t be enough to stop West Virginia from beating Washington, but the Mountaineers will get topped by Kentucky on their way to Indy.
Purdue hasn’t boiled up quite enough momentum to get past the Blue Devils, but Duke’s run will end in the Elite Eight against a deep Baylor squad. The Bears will get bit by the Wildcats in the Final Four as Kentucky moves on to give John Calipari his first ever National Championship in a game that will feature the three best players in college basketball: Kentucky’s John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins and Ohio State’s Evan Turner.
This weekend is the best in American sports, the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight are still packed full of games and the matchups get even tighter with nothing left but the hottest teams and the most talented players. This is when the Cinderella’s really have a chance to write a story to remember and the favorites prove why they’re favored. Hopefully I won’t have to update my predictions again next week, but regardless what happens, this weekend will leave us with some great memories. Enjoy the madness.
