Day 1, late games

The late set of games started out about as ho-hum as the majority of the first set, as Texas jumped out in front of Minnesota early and never looked back. The late games with #2 seeds (Duke and Oklahoma) were even less competitive. The Oklahoma game did feature the early front runner for cheap shot of the tournament, as Morgan State's Ameer Ali finally got tired of Blake Griffin dominating his team, so he took him down WWE-style (the Undertaker would have been proud).

Villanova and Gonzaga both ended up dispatching their lowly-seeded opponents by 13, but both were trailing in the second half as well. Villanova was actually down 10 points to American at the half. It looked like Nova was so used to being the smaller team in the Big East conference that they didn't realize how much of a size advantage they had against the team from the Patriot League (aka the Ivy League without the academic presumption). For the entire first half, they were taking (and missing) jump shots while American was raining 3's. Finally, in the second half, they started driving to the hoop, picking up points and fouls on American's players. It also took away their opponent's legs, and thosejumpers that were falling for the underdog in the first half stopped falling late in the 2nd.

Gonzaga didn't leave it quite as late, but the Zags also fell behind by not banging down low with the Zips of Akron, then stormed away with the game by going back to their considerable advantage. After their season's over (quite possibly on Saturday if the Zags come out that flat again) I doubt Mark Few will bring the tape of this game with him when Arizona wants to interview him.

I do not undertsand how Michigan's coach can avoid stress-induced ulcers. Whenever I watch one of his teams play, they always shoot (and make) a lot of three pointers and they always get dominated on the boards. According to the game's commentators, Michigan wants half of their shots in any game to be a three pointer. This basically means everyone on their roster needs to be able to shoot. Well, if your big men can shoot, their likely not willing to bang bodies under the hoop back at the other end. In the first 5-6 minutes of this game, I think Clemson got 10 offensive rebounds. But, if their shots are falling, I guess it doesn't matter. I'd go crazy watching the other team get that many second chance points though.

The last 2 games of the day were also probably the best ones. UCLA-VCU was gritty right down to the end. Those of you who hate Duke will remember VCU and its guard Eric Maynor for eliminating the Coach K's in the first round 2 years ago by hitting a jumper over Crabbe. Well, it came down to Maynor taking a jumper over UCLA's point guard (Darren Collison) this year too, but Collison played incredible D on Maynor, and the shot was short this time. Ben Howland may want to consider bringing in an offensive assistant coach to help him out, though, because for the 3rd year out of the last 4, he has a team that's very talented defensively, and looks like a train wreck trying to put the ball in the basket. Sure every team will miss a few shots, but how many will blow 6-8 layups?

Western Kentucky-Illinois looked like a blowout in WKY's favor for most of the game. Then Illinois started coming back with full court pressure than Western Kentucky couldn't handle. Illinois got within 2 with about 10 seconds left, and then we learned why coaches call time out after made baskets towards the end. Illinois didn't have any, and WKY threw a homerun pass over the head of the defense, which helped them take all but 0.9 seconds off the clock before Illinois had a chance to foul. WKY also hit all four of their free throws down the stretch (which Memphis showed us was kind of important last year, right Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts?) Illinois fought hard, but a team responsible for this abomination didn't deserve to see the 2nd round this year. I'll say it again, the Big Ten is a football conference (sorry, Michigan).

I said before that the opening Thursday tends to be without drama. Well the opening Friday usually more than makes up for that. Hopefully today won't be any different.