(2) Duke 67 – (7) West Virginia 73
The announcing in this game made it tough to watch. My favorite part was towards the end when Bob Wenzel said something about the guys in the white uniforms having a lot of pride and tradition so we were likely to see a run (which was immediately followed by an easy backdoor cut for a West Virginia lay-up). I guess that means the guys in the dark, satanic uniforms love losing basketball games and killing babies. Luckily for the Baby Killers, Duke is a pretty bad basketball team that fell in love with the three. That’s not surprising, considering they were in love with the three all year. Alexander wasn’t shooting the ball well but his presence seemed to help the offense run. Mazzulla was obviously fantastic as well.
(3) Wisconsin 72 – (11) Kansas State 55
I realize it was a double-digit lead when it occurred, but the officials calling a double technical and essentially giving Walker a technical for flopping on a shove that shouldn’t have knocked him to the ground was outrageous. Wisconsin ended up winning fairly easily but this game could have been a lot closer had each team shot more like season averages from three point range.
(3) Xavier 85 – (6) Purdue 78
Xavier needs to get out of this habit of getting in huge early holes. That might be OK for Georgia and it might be OK for Purdue. That’s probably not OK once they start facing tougher teams. If they can come out of the gates a bit better they should be fine though. They’re tougher defensively and West Virginia will probably have trouble with the Musketeers.
(4) Washington State 61 – (5) Notre Dame 41
Harangody’s 22 rebounds sounds impressive until you realize he went 3-17 from the floor. I guess he had lots of opportunities for those 7 offensive rebounds. You just can’t expect to beat a team if you shoot under 25% from the floor. As it should be, clearly defense was the story for Washington State.
(3) Stanford 82 – (6) Marquette 81
God the Lopez twins make me actually physically nauseous. Yes, you guys are good; just shut the hell up. Marquette’s last possession and that thrown up jumper by McNeal was pretty stupid. They really gave Stanford all the opportunities they needed which is too bad because that means I have to watch Sideshow Bob and his stupid brother again.
(1) Kansas 75 – (8) UNLV 56
Although Notre Dame made UNLV look like a bunch of sharpshooters you still are not going to beat Kansas shooting 26.7% from the floor. In fairness to Kansas, they had an awful lot to do with the horrible shooting but it was one of those things that when UNLV did get an open look (and they did) they freaked out about it and threw up something horrible. If I’m a Kansas fan I’m happy that my team is advancing to next week but I’m not feeling all that confident in my team. They let a team that couldn’t hit anything stay in the game far too long despite shooting 58% from the floor themselves. Neither Villanova nor Siena is likely to struggle that much even with Kansas’s legitimately good defense.
(4) Pittsburgh 54 – (5) Michigan State 65
This game was extremely close until pretty late when Drew Neitzel hit three straight huge jumpers. In a game where offense was hard to come by the difference was that one team had Neitzel and one team did not.
(1) UCLA 53 – (9) Texas A&M 49
I feel the same way about UCLA that I feel about Kansas, only more so. The thing is that I trust Kansas more to get the bucket when they need it. Sure, Collison came up huge on those last two lay-ups, the last on in which he had Kevin Love running ahead as a lead blocker. Still, they couldn’t finish off the Aggies when I think Texas A&M went 3 weeks without a field goal and the Aggies were relying on their 43% free throw shooting? Texas A&M, by the way, is the worst lay-up shooting team I have ever seen. I know I need to credit UCLA for incredible interior defense but you gotta make one eventually or get fouled (although I’m convinced that Love had a lot of body on a lot of those blocks but that might only because Love has a lot of body period). And one last thing: if I am a UCLA fan and I ever see Love outside shooting a three I would walk over to Pauley, find him, and smack him. I don’t even care that he’s not terrible at threes. He’s just so dangerous inside and such a great offensive rebounder that he loses a ridiculous amount of value when he’s hanging around the perimeter.
0 comments:
Post a Comment