St. Louis 61 - Memphis 54
Upset #1: 9 over 8. Memphis played the way most assumed Missouri would, lots of ball pressure and plenty of dribble penetration. St. Louis was able to match them pretty well in the athleticism department (well, except for their coach, Rick Majerus) and in the end they stepped up their defense to choke off the penetration. When that happened Memphis took too many tough 3's that didn't go in, while Saint Louis was able to execute their offense.
Ohio 65 - Michigan 60
Upset #2: 13 over 4. Ohio did a good job taking Michigan out of their comfort zone. When Michigan only shoots 30% from behind the arc, they're going to struggle. Combine that with Ohio shooting over 50% from the field, and you get the upset we saw. Charles Barkley just made a terrific point: usually the difference between David and Goliath is quality big men. But the teams losing today are guard-oriented, jumper-oriented. When the jumpers don't fall, these teams are extremely vulnerable. And that's what happened. These teams were vulnerable, and the Davids stepped up and took the game.
Lehigh 75 - Duke 70
Upset #3: 15 over 2. Wait what???? There are teams you aren't shocked lose to vastly lower seeded teams. Missouri? Not a huge shock. Michigan? They haven't been a top seed for awhile, okay. Duke? What??? The most striking thing about this game? Duke was NOT more athletic than Lehigh. Lehigh! From the Patriot conference! They were able to match Duke's athleticism. This gave Duke fits on the offensive end, and their futility on that end overrode their as-usual strong defense.
There is one downside here, I can't make my yearly Patriot League joke. There aren't many conferences the Ivy League can turn up its nose at when we're talking about athletics, so I usually get my shots in where I can. Instead, let's all point and laugh at Duke. Eat it, Duke.
Purdue 72 - Saint Mary's 69
Upset #4: 10 over 7. When you're giving up penetration like that, it's tough to win. Kudos to St. Mary's for rallying and briefly taking the lead, but in the end Purdue was able to get better looks. Purdue is a good story because of 5th-year senior Robbie Hummel, who lost the end of two seasons ago and all of last season to ACL injuries. Two years ago Purdue was in the running for a top seed, and then Hummel got hurt towards the end of the year. They ended up a 4-seed and lost to eventual champion (and top seed) Duke in the Sweet 16. Hummel's missed his team's last two trips to the NCAA tournament, so it's nice he gets to enjoy his stay this year.
Before today, 4 #15 seeds had won their first round matchup over #2 seeds.
Today, 2 #15 seeds beat #2 seeds in the first real round of the tournament.
Friday, March 16, 2012
March Madness Day 2, Part 2
Florida State 66 - St. Bonaventure 63
Florida State spent all of the postgame insisting they didn't take St. Bonaventure lightly. Florida State spent most of the game taking St. Bonaventure lightly.
Georgetown 74 - Belmont 59
Georgetown did what higher seeds are supposed to do. Overwhelmed their opponents. They shot 62% from the field and Belmont never seriously challenged them.
North Carolina 77 - Vermont 58
So much for John Henson being ready for the NCAA Tournament. I bet a lot of people would reconsider their brackets had the truth about Henson been known. Miles might even have decided to tank his Final Four dunk attempt if he had known. I can't imagine Roy Williams was worried about befuddling Vermont's attempts to game plan for the Tar Heels, just be honest with us next time, coach.
Norfolk State 86 - Missouri 84
Here it is, the game that torched countless brackets. As I mentioned on twitter, 41% of brackets lost their West region Final Four team when this one ended. The really amazing thing is, Missouri didn't play poorly. They put up 84 points. Norfolk State played out of their mind (shot better than 50% from behind the arc). Where Missouri will come under fire is Norfolk imposed their will on this game better than Missouri did. As a 2 seed, that's inexcusable. But Missouri wasn't able to generate the turnovers like they're used to (11) while Norfolk State used their size advantage to pull down 14 offensive rebounds.
It's only the 5th time ever a 15 seed has beaten a 2 seed. Hold that thought...
Florida State spent all of the postgame insisting they didn't take St. Bonaventure lightly. Florida State spent most of the game taking St. Bonaventure lightly.
Georgetown 74 - Belmont 59
Georgetown did what higher seeds are supposed to do. Overwhelmed their opponents. They shot 62% from the field and Belmont never seriously challenged them.
North Carolina 77 - Vermont 58
So much for John Henson being ready for the NCAA Tournament. I bet a lot of people would reconsider their brackets had the truth about Henson been known. Miles might even have decided to tank his Final Four dunk attempt if he had known. I can't imagine Roy Williams was worried about befuddling Vermont's attempts to game plan for the Tar Heels, just be honest with us next time, coach.
Norfolk State 86 - Missouri 84
Here it is, the game that torched countless brackets. As I mentioned on twitter, 41% of brackets lost their West region Final Four team when this one ended. The really amazing thing is, Missouri didn't play poorly. They put up 84 points. Norfolk State played out of their mind (shot better than 50% from behind the arc). Where Missouri will come under fire is Norfolk imposed their will on this game better than Missouri did. As a 2 seed, that's inexcusable. But Missouri wasn't able to generate the turnovers like they're used to (11) while Norfolk State used their size advantage to pull down 14 offensive rebounds.
It's only the 5th time ever a 15 seed has beaten a 2 seed. Hold that thought...
March Madness Day 2, Part 1
Cincinnati 65 - Texas 59
A Rick Barnes team came out flat in the tournament? I'm shocked. I've said it before, Barnes is a terrific recruiter, but not much of an in-game coach. Talent is enough to get a team to the tournament, but not enough to win enough to make a Final Four (or overcome a disadvantage in talent).
North Carolina State 79 - San Diego State 65
NC State simply destroyed San Diego State on the boards. NC State was bigger, and they took full advantage. Too often with SDSU got a stop, NC State got another chance and used it to keep San Diego State at bay.
Creighton 58 - Alabama 57
A close game! And better yet, a buzzer beater! This one came down to the little things, and Creighton did them better than Alabama. Alabama didn't do themsevles any favors with how they handled the last few seconds. Up one, Creighton used it's last non-bonus foul with 4.7 seconds left, giving Alabama the ball at midcourt with 1 timeout left. Alabama elected not to take it, but after inbounding the ball the players looked confused so their coach called time out with 2.6 seconds left. This left the with little time to get off a shot, and their three pointer was short, handing Creighton the game. After the game Alabama's coach said they were assuming Creighton would play a man-to-man defense and called a play based on that, then Creightion came out in a zone. I'm not sure calling the time out with 2.6 seconds was the right play (I think it was too late by that point), but it's a fair issue, and kudos to Creighton for doing well to get Alabama out of rhythm on their last possession with the foul and then the defensive switch.
Florida 71 - Virginia 49
Florida totaled Virginia despite shooting just 4/23 on 3-pointers. The 3 ball is an integral part of Billy Donovan's game (learned from Rick Pitino - play at a fast pace and take a lot of threes). That's a terrible sign for Virginia (I know, who cares, they lost). But if Florida was able to roll Virginia without any help from that facet of their game, then what was Virginia doing out there?
A Rick Barnes team came out flat in the tournament? I'm shocked. I've said it before, Barnes is a terrific recruiter, but not much of an in-game coach. Talent is enough to get a team to the tournament, but not enough to win enough to make a Final Four (or overcome a disadvantage in talent).
North Carolina State 79 - San Diego State 65
NC State simply destroyed San Diego State on the boards. NC State was bigger, and they took full advantage. Too often with SDSU got a stop, NC State got another chance and used it to keep San Diego State at bay.
Creighton 58 - Alabama 57
A close game! And better yet, a buzzer beater! This one came down to the little things, and Creighton did them better than Alabama. Alabama didn't do themsevles any favors with how they handled the last few seconds. Up one, Creighton used it's last non-bonus foul with 4.7 seconds left, giving Alabama the ball at midcourt with 1 timeout left. Alabama elected not to take it, but after inbounding the ball the players looked confused so their coach called time out with 2.6 seconds left. This left the with little time to get off a shot, and their three pointer was short, handing Creighton the game. After the game Alabama's coach said they were assuming Creighton would play a man-to-man defense and called a play based on that, then Creightion came out in a zone. I'm not sure calling the time out with 2.6 seconds was the right play (I think it was too late by that point), but it's a fair issue, and kudos to Creighton for doing well to get Alabama out of rhythm on their last possession with the foul and then the defensive switch.
Florida 71 - Virginia 49
Florida totaled Virginia despite shooting just 4/23 on 3-pointers. The 3 ball is an integral part of Billy Donovan's game (learned from Rick Pitino - play at a fast pace and take a lot of threes). That's a terrible sign for Virginia (I know, who cares, they lost). But if Florida was able to roll Virginia without any help from that facet of their game, then what was Virginia doing out there?
March Madness Day 1, Recap
And Day 1 is in the books. Normally for the first 2 days of the tournament, one day is relatively mild with few close games and fewer games that truly come down to the final buzzer. The other day features game after game that is in play until the dying seconds. Yesterday's slate of games definitely felt like the former (2/16 were upsets, 1 game truly came down to the buzzer), though we did get the bonus of seeing a #1 seed sweat out its initial game. Based on past history, I'd do what I could to keep an eye on today's slate of games, I think we'll see some excitement.
The game commentary is up, apologies for how little there is, between work, baby, and my weekly dose of anything resembling exercise (pickup frisbee), I didn't see as many games as I would have liked.
Shoutouts:
To Miles, for being the first person to finish his bracket (he finished on Sunday), and for being the youngest person in the history of the pool. For those of you wondering, yes, Miles did in fact "choose" his own bracket. This was a little bit more of a process than I anticipated.
My original plan was to take the three plastic cookies he got with a cookie monster doll, set them out, and designate two cookies the higher seed and the third the lower seed. Miles likes this toy so I figured getting him to grab a cookie wouldn't be a big deal. So on Saturday I laid out the cookies and encouraged him to pick one. He started at me for a few seconds, then started walking away to do something, anything else. Knowing I was going to have to get him to do this 63 times, I quickly racked my brain for another option.
For my next try, I decided to geek out. For those of you in the pool, this will come as no surprise, considering the official picks sheet is an Excel sheet full of drop-down menus and made to look like an actual bracket. Miles has a set of wooden blocks with letters, numbers, pictures, etc. on them. I grabbed blocks 0-9 and A-F and planned to set up the matchups hexadecimally (1v16 would be 0vF, 2v15 would be 1vE, and so on) and have Miles pick them. He was uninterested. I then made two little towers with the proper "numbers" at the top of each one and decided to see which one he'd knock down first (he loves playing godzilla). He looked at the towers, looked at me, and then (mocking me for putting the two towers too close to each other) knocked them both over at once. Progress, but not helpful. I re-stacked the towers, and he lost interest.
Yikes, on to Plan C (with a big assist to Celinda for the idea). For his first birthday a little over a month ago, he received a little "playground set" complete with a basket. The basket is a little taller than him, but he can easily reach up and dunk a basketball. So I decided that I'd have him try to dunk 63 times. If he made it, the higher seed would win. If he missed, the lower seed. It took two days (he'd usually dunk 5-6 times and then move on to something else), but he did it. And when I tallied up the results, he made 66% of his dunks (and threw the ball at me at least 3 times and then laughed). Likely a little upset heavy (see his day 1 results), but not bad.
Quick footnote: I decided I wouldn't interfere with his picks with one exception: the 1v16 matchups. I wasn't going to let my son pick something that had never happened before without trying to guide him away from it. He made the basket for 3 of the 1v16 matchups, but missed the 4th. I gave him a second chance on that miss and he made it, so I counted it as a win for the 1 seed. The game in question? Syracuse vs UNC Asheville. Maybe he's a savant? If so, look out for Notre Dame and New Mexico.
To Rachel G, for being the first non-Kofron to turn in a bracket.
To Zach and Lisa, for being the first official entrants.
To Ben P, for the funniest email submitting me a bracket.
To Corey H and Celinda, for correctly picking 15/16 games today, best of anyone. COrey missed on Wichita St-VCU, and Celinda missed on UNLV-Colorado.
To the current leaderboard. Unfortunately there are 35 of you in the top-3, so the sheet will have to suffice for listing you all out.
To Terri M, Michael F, and Susan G, for going big and picking a 9 seed to win the whole thing. Unfortunately, that 9-seed was UConn. Still, major props for being bold. Also a shoutout to Lisa A, the only other person to pick a non-top 4 seed to win it all (Gonzaga).
Condemnations:
To the NCAA, for needlessly complicating keeping tabs on the games on a computer. In the past, there was one location where you could watch any game, switching back and forth and it was all FREE. This year they changed the model. That central hub requires payment ($4 for everything, but still), but if you have cable, you can still watch the games for free...but only by going to the individual network's page. CBS.com, TNT.com, etc. To make matters worse, only CBS.com has the scores of the other games going on at that time. The other networks only show the games that will be on that network. So if you wanted to keep track of multiple games, you need to have multiple tabs open on your browser. Given what the computer viewing experience has been in the past, this year is a pain in the you-know-what.
To Jay Bilas, normally a good college analyst. He picked his bracket, and it was only available on ESPN Insider (costs money). It's billed as a thoroughly scouted, game-by-game breakdown. It's basically just him picking all the top seeds. Maybe he'll be right, but with only a couple sentences on each game, it looks like he just went with the chalk. Hardly worthy of "insider" status. I blame his Duke connections.
To Mario Williams (DE formerly of the Texans, #1 overall pick the year Reggie Bush came out, and best defensive player on the market), who just got paid an obscene amount of money but has now stuck himself in Buffalo. There's a reason Buffalo wouldn't let him get back on a plane once he took his first free agent visit there, it's Buffalo. Everywhere is more exciting than Buffalo. Have fun, Mario, your team stinks and, well, it's Buffalo.
To the Portland Trail Blazers. In 2007, they had the #1 pick in the draft. They selected Greg Oden over Kevin Durant, despite Oden looking like a 55-year-old. It's true that the traditional mantra is go big over small, but Oden's injury concerns destroyed his time in Portland, meanwhile Durant is one of the top players in the NBA. Why bring this up today? Portland released Oden, to make room for players brought in at the trade deadline. Oden was on the shelf yet again undergoing yet another microfracture surgery on his knee.
Enjoy Day 2!
The game commentary is up, apologies for how little there is, between work, baby, and my weekly dose of anything resembling exercise (pickup frisbee), I didn't see as many games as I would have liked.
Shoutouts:
To Miles, for being the first person to finish his bracket (he finished on Sunday), and for being the youngest person in the history of the pool. For those of you wondering, yes, Miles did in fact "choose" his own bracket. This was a little bit more of a process than I anticipated.
My original plan was to take the three plastic cookies he got with a cookie monster doll, set them out, and designate two cookies the higher seed and the third the lower seed. Miles likes this toy so I figured getting him to grab a cookie wouldn't be a big deal. So on Saturday I laid out the cookies and encouraged him to pick one. He started at me for a few seconds, then started walking away to do something, anything else. Knowing I was going to have to get him to do this 63 times, I quickly racked my brain for another option.
For my next try, I decided to geek out. For those of you in the pool, this will come as no surprise, considering the official picks sheet is an Excel sheet full of drop-down menus and made to look like an actual bracket. Miles has a set of wooden blocks with letters, numbers, pictures, etc. on them. I grabbed blocks 0-9 and A-F and planned to set up the matchups hexadecimally (1v16 would be 0vF, 2v15 would be 1vE, and so on) and have Miles pick them. He was uninterested. I then made two little towers with the proper "numbers" at the top of each one and decided to see which one he'd knock down first (he loves playing godzilla). He looked at the towers, looked at me, and then (mocking me for putting the two towers too close to each other) knocked them both over at once. Progress, but not helpful. I re-stacked the towers, and he lost interest.
Yikes, on to Plan C (with a big assist to Celinda for the idea). For his first birthday a little over a month ago, he received a little "playground set" complete with a basket. The basket is a little taller than him, but he can easily reach up and dunk a basketball. So I decided that I'd have him try to dunk 63 times. If he made it, the higher seed would win. If he missed, the lower seed. It took two days (he'd usually dunk 5-6 times and then move on to something else), but he did it. And when I tallied up the results, he made 66% of his dunks (and threw the ball at me at least 3 times and then laughed). Likely a little upset heavy (see his day 1 results), but not bad.
Quick footnote: I decided I wouldn't interfere with his picks with one exception: the 1v16 matchups. I wasn't going to let my son pick something that had never happened before without trying to guide him away from it. He made the basket for 3 of the 1v16 matchups, but missed the 4th. I gave him a second chance on that miss and he made it, so I counted it as a win for the 1 seed. The game in question? Syracuse vs UNC Asheville. Maybe he's a savant? If so, look out for Notre Dame and New Mexico.
To Rachel G, for being the first non-Kofron to turn in a bracket.
To Zach and Lisa, for being the first official entrants.
To Ben P, for the funniest email submitting me a bracket.
To Corey H and Celinda, for correctly picking 15/16 games today, best of anyone. COrey missed on Wichita St-VCU, and Celinda missed on UNLV-Colorado.
To the current leaderboard. Unfortunately there are 35 of you in the top-3, so the sheet will have to suffice for listing you all out.
To Terri M, Michael F, and Susan G, for going big and picking a 9 seed to win the whole thing. Unfortunately, that 9-seed was UConn. Still, major props for being bold. Also a shoutout to Lisa A, the only other person to pick a non-top 4 seed to win it all (Gonzaga).
Condemnations:
To the NCAA, for needlessly complicating keeping tabs on the games on a computer. In the past, there was one location where you could watch any game, switching back and forth and it was all FREE. This year they changed the model. That central hub requires payment ($4 for everything, but still), but if you have cable, you can still watch the games for free...but only by going to the individual network's page. CBS.com, TNT.com, etc. To make matters worse, only CBS.com has the scores of the other games going on at that time. The other networks only show the games that will be on that network. So if you wanted to keep track of multiple games, you need to have multiple tabs open on your browser. Given what the computer viewing experience has been in the past, this year is a pain in the you-know-what.
To Jay Bilas, normally a good college analyst. He picked his bracket, and it was only available on ESPN Insider (costs money). It's billed as a thoroughly scouted, game-by-game breakdown. It's basically just him picking all the top seeds. Maybe he'll be right, but with only a couple sentences on each game, it looks like he just went with the chalk. Hardly worthy of "insider" status. I blame his Duke connections.
To Mario Williams (DE formerly of the Texans, #1 overall pick the year Reggie Bush came out, and best defensive player on the market), who just got paid an obscene amount of money but has now stuck himself in Buffalo. There's a reason Buffalo wouldn't let him get back on a plane once he took his first free agent visit there, it's Buffalo. Everywhere is more exciting than Buffalo. Have fun, Mario, your team stinks and, well, it's Buffalo.
To the Portland Trail Blazers. In 2007, they had the #1 pick in the draft. They selected Greg Oden over Kevin Durant, despite Oden looking like a 55-year-old. It's true that the traditional mantra is go big over small, but Oden's injury concerns destroyed his time in Portland, meanwhile Durant is one of the top players in the NBA. Why bring this up today? Portland released Oden, to make room for players brought in at the trade deadline. Oden was on the shelf yet again undergoing yet another microfracture surgery on his knee.
Enjoy Day 2!
March Madness Day 1, Part 4
Iowa State 77 - Connecticut 64
Every time I looked up, UConn was getting killed on the boards. Few second shot opportunities and too many such opportunities for ISU. UConn also gave everything they had to make the game somewhat close (they were down by 22 at one point), and sometimes you simply don't have enough left to get over the hump in that situation.
Indiana 79 - New Mexico State 66 Ohio State 78 - Loyola MD 59 Colorado 68 - UNLV 64 I'm going to let Miles give the commentary for this section of games: *startles* Huh? Where am I...what's going on? I wonder if anyone is still awake. *cries* Oh hi Daddy, I don't know why I'm awake right now either, and it's kind of getting me down. How about you pick me up and...HEY! Don't try to leave, pick me up! Okay good. Yeah, I like cuddling........Wait, if you're here, how about we play some? Wait. What are you doing. Don't leave me here! I'm up, I want to be entertained! Come back!! I'm NOT going to sleep! You'll be back! (Which we were)
Poor little guy woke up about 11:30 and was discombobulated for about an hour, but on the plus side, he slept "in" until 7 AM this morning!
Indiana 79 - New Mexico State 66 Ohio State 78 - Loyola MD 59 Colorado 68 - UNLV 64 I'm going to let Miles give the commentary for this section of games: *startles* Huh? Where am I...what's going on? I wonder if anyone is still awake. *cries* Oh hi Daddy, I don't know why I'm awake right now either, and it's kind of getting me down. How about you pick me up and...HEY! Don't try to leave, pick me up! Okay good. Yeah, I like cuddling........Wait, if you're here, how about we play some? Wait. What are you doing. Don't leave me here! I'm up, I want to be entertained! Come back!! I'm NOT going to sleep! You'll be back! (Which we were)
Poor little guy woke up about 11:30 and was discombobulated for about an hour, but on the plus side, he slept "in" until 7 AM this morning!
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