Morehead State (urge to...nevermind) had one reason for you to know who they are, just one, Kenneth Faried (aka, the next Dennis Rodman...or, if you're veyr young, the next Kevin Love). I even read a feature article about Faried about a month ago...and I still had no idea who Morehead State was. Turns out, neither did Louisville. It took Rick Pitino's squad over 6 minutes to score, always a bad omen, but they did come storming back behind the usual Pitino team strengths, turnovers and 3-pointers. However, they never pulled away. It didn't help that one of their starters (Knowles) went down with an injury, or that another (Siva) gave them 3 whole points all game. But Siva had 3 straight possessions down the stretch with brilliant assists, giving Louisville the lead. Then MSU hit a 3 with 4 seconds left, and Louisville's last second attempt was stuffed, something you rarely see.
Then we came to Penn State-Temple. Penn State is from the Big Ten, so I naturally assumed they don't play basketball well. Well, they at least have one guy who can ball: Talor Battle, who hit a 3 from over 25 feet to tie the game with < 20 seconds left. Temple didn't really do much with their last possession, but Juan Fernandez hit a ridiculous off-balance shot to send Temple on.
3 buzzer beaters in 3 games. THIS, Jim Nantz, is March Madness.
When I switched over to Kentucky-Princeton, the first play I saw was a Kentucky player throw the ball off of a Princeton player while falling out-of-bounds. Normal play in a basketball game, but it got me thinking. When you trick a Princeton player, do you feel embarassed, that as a basketball giant you need to resort to things like that against a minnow like Princeton? Or are you overly proud of yourself for tricking an Ivy Leaguer? I think it's more pride. Princeton hung around till the end, but Kentucky made the last play and advances for a rematch of last year's regional final with West Virginia.
Pitt ended up beating first four graduate UNC Asheville by 20+, but that game was within 5-7 for almost 30 minutes, which doesn't make those who have supported Pitt in the face of their doubters since the bracket was published feel that great. Pitt-Butler could be interesting, as Butler plays great defense and Pitt has never been mistaken for an elite offense.
Florida must have heard everyone openly questioning their #2 seed, as they rocked UCSB. Incidentally, Celinda made a very good point, what are the odds of 2 G-mascots playing each other (Gators vs Gauchos)? Are there even other G-mascots? Yeah, this game was boring.
The other 2 seed who played in this slot was San Diego State, who quietly took care of business, sitting up by low double digits for a good portion of the game. Never quite ran away with it, but never seemed in any danger either. Northern Colorado? Thanks for playing.
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