Late Round NCAA Picks

I’d say the wheels started coming off of my NCAA bracket somewhere in the first round. To be honest, the problems probably started before the tourney even got under way.

You see, I had my beloved Arizona Wildcats going to the Final Four, and it was out of sentiment that I made this decision. After all, anything can happen right? Well it turns out I was right, and the ‘anything’ that happened was Arizona going out and crapping the bed against a Purdue team that over-whelmed the ‘Cats with blue-collar basketball. I spent most of the Arizona game trying to figure out if I’ve ever seen a team suck as hard as the ‘Cats did in that game. Mustafa Shakur seemed to think it was a Sunday afternoon run at the YMCA, trying to spin through double teams and careening to the basket as though his life depended on him being out of control at all times. Chase Budinger and Marcus Williams were invisible and the Boilermakers dominated on the offensive glass. It was embarrassing, and exploded my bracket. I got what I deserved.

Other thoughts from the opening weekend:

1) The other void left in my bracket was the elimination of Texas by USC. This one made me a little sick to my stomach. A.J. Abrams has NO conscience. He actually looks like he has the tools to be a great player, even one that would transition well to the NBA. He’s extremely quick, has a good looking release on his jump-shot and has long spider-like arms that allow him to get shots off in traffic. The problem is he’s a black-hole for basketballs—anytime they pass it to him he’s chucking it up. Combine USC freshman guard Daniel Hackett dropping 20 in the game (he’d only scored in double-figures 4 times all year) with Texas being unable/unwilling to get the ball to Kevin Durant and the Longhorns are going home. Realistically, I should never have picked the Longhorns over the Tar Heels or the Hoyas, but I was sucked in by the allure of Durant.
2) I nearly had a heart attack while watching the Louisville-Texas A&M game. Luckily, Cardinals freshman Edgar Sosa imploded Louisville with a horrible late-game decision. You gotta love those freshman that have a good opening game in the tournament, then get to thinking that they’re the next Gilbert Arenas or whatever. Of course, they’re not really the next Gilbert Arenas, which isn’t surprising, and they end up sinking their team by taking unnecessary 25-footers.
3) I love how no one was at all surprised when Wisconsin was bounced from the second round. All season people had their questions about the Badgers, and the Big Ten for that matter, and considering that the Badgers lost to UNLV and the Buckeyes needed late-game heroics and overtime to get past Xavier, the critics might be right.
4) VCU losing in Overtime to Pittsburgh was a heart-breaker. VCU was fun to watch and may have been the only team in NCAA history to have the entire nation cheering for them as they played Duke.

SWEET SIXTEEN- Thursday

The action starts with Kansas against Southern Illinois but CBS doesn’t stay with this game, instead opting for the Texas A&M—Memphis game. When Memphis guard Chris Douglas-Roberts hurt his ankle last weekend, I thought A&M would cruise to the Elite Eight. Instead, Douglas-Roberts starts and both teams have no problem scoring inside in the first half.

I’ve been hyping up Acie Law IV to anyone who’ll listen, talking trash about how clutch he is. He finished this game with just 13 points, and blew a relatively open lay-up that would have put the Aggies up three with less than a minute remaining. Memphis, I’ll admit looked better than I thought they’d be. I thought they’d get bounced early because they had an easy schedule, but they looked solid against an Aggies team that played the best the nation had to offer this season.

I feel this is a good time to mention that Kansas is another team I picked to make it to the Final Four. If they lost here I would have had all four of my Final Four teams eliminated by the Sweet Sixteen. The Salukis forced Kansas to play to their style, to grind it out instead of running and gunning— and that’s a testament to their team. If you can take a number one seed, one of the highest scoring teams in the country, and force them to play your style it says something about the strength of your team.

Down three, the Salukis Jamal Tatum missed a three, but Randal Falker grabbed an offensive rebound with 8 seconds on the clock, only to throw it away to send Kansas away on a two-on-one. A braincramp of epic proportions. Kansas got the win, but looked vulnerable doing it.

On to UCLA— Pittsburgh, a game that featured a defensive struggle to the death. The team that managed to suffocate the other team emerged victorious. I wrote those lines before the game even started, knowing that I could simply insert either team name in after they won. And it worked. UCLA in a snoozefest, by far the worst game of the tournament.

Tennessee was growing on me. Their run-and-gun style was fun to watch, and they started the game against Ohio St. 7-9 from beyond the arc. Oden and Mike Conley Jr. were pinned to the bench in foul trouble, and Tennessee jumped out to a lead as big as 19. Oden picked up his third foul with 5:15 left in the first-half, putting him back on the bench immediately.

Oden is too over-eager to block shots. He blocks so many that he gets addicted to it, but he needs to learn how settle for a good shot alteration and hope his teammates can clean up the trash. On the positive side Oden runs the floor remarkably well for a man his size.

In the end, Oden wasn’t much of a factor—other than the final play when he made a potentially game-saving block—which is a good sign for Ohio St. Even if Oden is on the bench in foul trouble, they found a way to get the baskets they needed and go on a run and win the game. It’s a testament to their depth.

Realistically its not suprising that the Vols couldn’t get away with this style of basketball? They take a high volume of low-percentage shots—a fun but lethal combo. Like gasoline and fire. When they’re hitting those shots everything is fun and it seems like they can beat anyone, but if the lid goes over the basket for a few minutes, like it did early in the second half against the Buckeyes, things get disastrous.

Friday

Friday’s action was interrupted by the Toronto Maple Leafs—Buffalo Sabres game with playoff implications for the Leafs. (Note: The Leafs ended up blowing a 4-1 third period lead, virtually ruining their chances of making the playoffs. No one in the room spoke for about 15 minutes)

Also of note is that I have officially hitched my tournament wagon to the Georgetown Hoyas. I like Jeff Green, loved the Allen Iverson era, and 3 out of 4 of my Final Four teams are eliminated.

Florida and Butler get the action started on Friday afternoon, and I won’t be shy about the fact that I’m outwardly cheering against the Gators.

Vanderbilt jumped out to an 18-6 lead in the other afternoon matinee, while Butler was up 25-16 on Florida. It seems the middle seeds always get off to hot starts against higher-ranked schools, only to cave later on as they are no longer able to feed off the early adrenaline. What happens? Well, the powerhouse program strings together a little run (which is inevitable) and everyone on the lower-seed team starts to think to themselves, “I knew we couldn’t stop them. I knew they’d come back.” Panic sets in and execution goes the way of the buffalo.

It happens so often that I don’t get excited at the early runs that lower-seeds make. College basketball is the streakiest sport going, and unless a these middle-ranked teams have a guy who can put everybody on their back (think Jameer Nelson with St. Joseph), they don’t have a chance in the long haul. Especially in a year when the major programs have as much depth of talent as they currently do.

In the UNLV—Oregon, Tajuan Porter went OFF, scoring 33 points and shooting off screens like a mini Reggie Miller. Also, I should have used a pitch counter to keep track of how many times the analysts talked about his height. Okay, he’s 5’6”, we get it. Let it go, the man can obviously play. The only thing is, I fear Oregon used up all their hot shooting. It would have been nice if they gutted one out against UNLV and then used hot shooting to sink the Gators. Hopefully Aaron Brooks goes off and carries the Ducks to the Final Four.

North Carolina, down as much as 16 to USC, rallied and outscored the Trojans 41-22 in the second half, yet again proving my above point about the lower-seeds starting hot and fading away. Oh and Hackett, who helped USC sink Texas, had a whopping 5 points.

ELITE EIGHT- Saturday

The big story Saturday was about Joey Dorsey of Memphis trash-talking Greg Oden, calling him ‘Overrated,’ and saying that in this modern day battle of David vs Goliath, Dorsey is Goliath. In a surprising move, the announcers didn’t even bring it up until 5 minutes into the game, and even then did a lot to downplay it. I think they should have hyped it up, made everyone choose sides and then proceeded to not call fouls on either player and let them slug it out for forty-minutes.

On the topic of Oden, he was again stapled to the bench in foul trouble. We’re this late in the season and he still can’t avoid picking up these ticky-tack fouls? This concerns me. It shows a lack of decision making ability, it shows he hasn’t been able to make necessary adjustments and it puts more pressure on his teammates to carry the ship while he’s stapled to the bench. Oden’s game-changing ability is among the best I’ve seen, but right now he’s not even scratching the surface of that potential.

I can’t help but think Darius Washington is watching this somewhere wishing he could re-do the last year of his life. After coming out of college to early, only to go undrafted, Washington is now balling in Greece, rather than running the point for this Tigers team.

Ohio St has a lot of players with an uncanny ability to finish in traffic. Highlighting the group is Mike Conley Jr., who manages to score when there seems to be no conceivable way of doing so.

UCLA beats Kansas in a game that felt like the first BIG game of the tournament. The game was in San Jose, so a lot of UCLA fans were there, giving the place an electric atmosphere. Kansas stayed close, but faded down the stretch, meaning I picked ZERO of the Final Four teams correctly. Nice work.

Sunday

I was excited for this game because of the scoring potential. Both teams ended up shooting the ball extremely well, with Florida’s backcourt duo of Lee Humphrey and Taurean Green combining for 44 points. Oregon was kept alive by Aaron Brooks, who did everything he could, scoring 27. Unfortunately, what I wrote after Oregon’s Sweet Sixteen game proved true, as Tajuan Porter used up all his three pointers against UNLV. The problem was that Tajuan Porter bought into to all the Tajuan Porter hype. He was probably up late, watching clips of his feature stories on replay. Then he went out and 2-12 from the field, but those 2 came with one minute remaining.

Malik Hairston was a force all day, but fouled out with 4 minutes remaining, which sealed the fate of the Ducks. As soon as this happened (and probably before that) the Gators should have been pounding the ball inside, but they continue to rely on the hot-shooting guards, who’ve been chucking threes like it’s nobody’s business.

Florida got the big plays they needed from various players, and they look most comfortable playing a run-and-gun style. UCLA would be an interesting re-match for them, because of the contrasts of each teams favored style.

UNC and Georgetown decided to go back and forth like the Phoenix Suns playing, well, the Phoenix Suns. Georgetown gives up 57 points per game on average, and gave up 50 to the Tar Heels in the first half of this game. This game was definitely the best game of the tournament, due to what’s at stake. An otherwise slow tourney came to a great culmination in this game. Hoyas guard Jonathan Wallace nailed a three to send it to overtime, and in OT when DaJuan Summers dunked over Tyler Hansbrough, who was lying prostrate on the hardwood, you couldn’t have thought up a more fitting metaphor. UNC missed a catastrophic 21 of their last 23 attempts from the floor.

Due to the fact that every team I wrote about in my column a month or so ago was promptly creamed in the tournament, maybe my strategy next year will be to write everything I can about teams I hate, thereby jinxing them for the duration of the tournament. Like some sort of literary voodoo.

Nonetheless, here’s how I see the Final Four breaking down next Saturday.

Ohio St vs Georgetown- I finally get to see my Greg Oden vs Roy Hibbert match-up! This has been months in the making, and I can’t think of a more fitting way to end the tournament. I wish this game was the national final for this reason alone.

In truth I think that Ohio St will win, because Oden and Hibbert will both end up in foul trouble, and the Buckeye guards and small forwards are better than the backcourt of the Hoyas. Ohio St will have no answer for Jeff Green, but they likely won’t need one, providing they shoot a decent percentage from outside.

Florida vs UCLA- Everyone loves a rematch, but not nearly as much as everyone loves revenge. It’s tough to find people who don’t hate the Gators right now, but in truth they play a more entertaining style then do the knock-down-drag-‘em out Bruins.

That being said, I’m still pulling for the Bruins, because no matter what my brain tells me right now (Gators will win easily), I still know that my hatred for them is unrelenting, and I cannot endorse their team.