Day 4, middle 2 games

Rick Barnes (Texas coach), once said the following:

We would love to win a national championship, but we're not obsessed with it because we're obsessed with these guys trying to live their NBA dream. What's happened to Kevin Durant , LaMarcus Aldridge , T.J. Ford - I'd give up a national title for all our guys to be able to live their dream.

That's good for Rick, because he's a (say it with me now Charles) TURRRRRRRR-IBLE in game coach. Want proof? Texas, having forced Arizona's best player (Derrick Williams) into a turnover with 14.5 seconds remaining, were then called for a 5-second violation. Yes, much of that blame falls on the player, but if Barnes were a better coach, they would have a better play down cold for this situation, or would be better schooled to call time out before it gets that close to the time limit. I'm not saying Barnes isn't good for a program, he attracts elitle talent. If you're hopes are consintent tournament berths in strong conferences, Barnes will give you that. Your teams will be exciting and talented. However, teams with this large a weakness in the x's and o's category will not contend for national titles. It just won't happen.

Williams didn't disappoint with his second chance, not only making a bucket to tie the game, but getting fouled and making the free throw to take the lead with ~9 seconds left.

Was the Texas player fouled on the putback attempt that the other end as time expired? Yes, except that time expired before he was fouled, so a no-call was the right call by the officials.

Then came VCU-Purdue. I don't have any reason to root for Purdue, except I just feel awful for Robbie Hummel, and to a slightly lesser extent his team. For thos of you who don't know, Hummel has torn his ACL in each of the past 2 seasons. Last year Purdue could have made a Final Four run, but Hummel went down. This year he went down before the season started, and Purdue still won 25+ games. Perhaps their depth was suspect, but they were run off the court by VCU's speed. VCU's point guard was very impressive. Could they beat Notre Dame (if you listen to Charles Barkley, probably, as the Big East is so overrated, per Chuck).