Well, one game into the tournament and we already got an overtime game. As Jim Nantz said (in one of his cuter hard-sells) "March Madness is upon us!" Well...kind of. I mean, this was 2 16-seeds "slugging" it out, and one of them didn't make a field goal for the last 6 minutes of regulation or the entire 5-minute overtime period. And still the other team a) needed OT and b) only won by 4. Did it get the juices flowing? Yes, a close tournament game is a close tournament game. But it felt kind of like Jim Nantz trying to get us psyched up for the Masters a month early during a close basketball game.
As for the second game...hey, that's Mike Davis coaching UAB. You may rememeber him as the guy who succeeded Bobby Knight at Indiana and took a 5-seed Hoosiers team to the final game back in 2002. Best moment of that tournament? Indiana leads #1 seed Duke 74-70 with less than 10 seconds left, and one of their players fouls Jason Williams while he's shooting a 3...which goes in! Mike Davis essentially collapses into his chair yelling "What are you doing!!!" while crying. But Williams misses the free throw and Indiana hangs on to continue their run. (I tried to find a clip, but the only clip is the entire archived game here: http://vault.ncaa.com/?game=306SR140_s01&seconds=4870
This game (Clemson-UAB) was awful. Around halfway through the first half UAB had more turnovers (8) than points (7). They were decimated inside defensively by Clemson's superior size.
Remember back in 2006, when many (most notably CBS lead analyst at the time Billy Packer) crushed the NCAA committee for letting too many mid majors in like George Mason, who then made the final four and made everyone look stupid? Yeah, well this situation with UAB is the exact opposite of that: people said they didn't belong...and they didn't.
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