March Madness Day 1, Part 2

Marquette 88 - BYU 68 Last year's VCU amazing run excepted, there's a reason teams that play in the First Four are stuck in the First Four.

Syracuse 72 - UNC Asheville 65 Syracuse thought they'd cruise through this game, that's the only explanation here. Greg Anthony was absolutely right at halftime. Charles and Kenny Smith were talking about how Syracuse should have abandonned their zone and played man-to-man defense to take advanatage of their superior athleticism. But Syracuse ALWAYS plays zone, and like Anthony said, if you're the 1 seed in this game you don't make adjustments, you make them adjust to you.
In the end, as my grandfather used to say, UNCA simply didn't have the horses to take down Syracuse. It didn't hurt that they got a couple of shady calls (a phantom lane violation and a terrible directional call). UNCA didn't make enough plays to win and cannot point to the calls as the difference, but the game would have been much more interesting had the refs not inserted themselves like they did.

New Mexico 75 - Long Beach State 68 I didn't see enough of this one, instead I was chasing Miles around the house and pretending to eat his books (which he loved). This isn't the first year I've gone through March Madness with a baby, but a 13 month old is harder to keep entertained than a 1 month old. The 1 month old may cry, but he'll also sleep and just sit there. It's easier to keep an eye on the game when the baby is also stationary. Now when I catch 30 seconds of the game, I look back down and Miles is across the house finding something new to grab/throw/eat.

Vanderbilt 79 - Harvard 70 Anyone who calls this the brain bowl didn't watch the last 4 minutes of the game. Vanderbilt put on a clinic of how not to hold a safe lead during that time. Not coming back to the ball after Harvard made baskets and pressed them, leaving their point guard to bring it up alone against the press, taking quick, wild shots, and fouling Harvard needlessly. Check. Check. Check. Check. For a prestigious academic university, kind of disappointing. Harvard fought valiantly to come back, but they were down by so much that they had to be practically perfect, and they fell a little short of that mark.