The tournament rolled on last weekend with some fun games and great names. The games were tight and a lot of fun. Kansas won by 3 against the Salukis, UCLA won by 9, Memphis by 1 and Ohio State by 1 on Thursday. That's some March madness folks. The Suck-eyes (luck-eyes if you want to go with a classier approach) won by a point against Tennessee after trailing by 17 in the first half. Vols basically choked this one away and the Suck-eyes are living dangerously. Greg Oden was in all kinds of foul trouble in this one, but he put the exclamation point on this game with a block on the final drive of the game. Ramar Smith's shot probably wouldn't have gone in, but Oden blocked it anyways. Suck-eyes move on.
By the way, I don't hate this OSU basketball team. In fact, I like this team and their 42-year old freshmen Greg Oden, but it's just that the Suck-eyes stole my Arizona State's only real chance at a football title in the 1997 Rose Bowl. They scored a TD on multiple pass interference calls after Jake the Snake drove us to what we thought was a game winning touchdown drive with less than 2 minutes to go. Anyways, coming back to Oden, doesn't he look like he is 42 years old? Rick Pitino had the famous rant as the head coach of the Celtics when he said his team was young and improving and the fans should be patient. He said "Larry Bird is not walking through that door, fans. Kevin McHale is not walking through that door, and Robert Parish is not walking through that door". Guess what, if the Celtics end up drafting Greg Oden, I guess Robert Parish will be walking though that door. Oden looks exactly like Parish, only older!
On Friday, Oregon beat UNLV by 4 and Georgetown beat Vandy by a point. Georgetown's game winning bucket from Jeff Green could have easily been called a travel, but it was not and the Hoyas move on. North Carolina and Florida had relatively easier games as they dispatched USC and Butler respectively. So here are the scores from the Sweet 16.
UNLV - Oregon - 72-76
Texas A&M - Memphis - 64-65
USC - North Carolina - 64-74
Pittsburgh - UCLA - 55-64
Vanderbilt - Georgetown - 65-66
Southern Illinois - Kansas - 58-61
Tennessee - Ohio State - 84-85
Butler - Florida - 57-65
The Elite 8 featured 4 1-seeds, 3 2-seeds and a 3-seed. I have never seen a tournament stay this true to form. Very few upsets and the seeding stay true. The committee should be patting itself on the back for it, though some experts criticized them for not picking enough mid-majors and also for slotting the few mid-majors they did pick against each other in the early rounds like Old Dominion and Butler. That took away a lot of the upset potential and the David-V-Goliath feel away from the early rounds. In any case, you can't really complain if you have a Kansas-UCLA match up in the Elite-8. The Bruins got to play this one in San Jose, and it was a home game pretty much for them. They put away Kansas pretty easily behind some great D. This game featured more steals than a busy shopping district in LA during a race riot. UCLA had 15 and Kansas had 17. A hard-fought, high-energy game and Ben Howland jut has his guys playing hard and D'ing up.
The suck-eyes took care of Memphis with a late run and a good 17 point night from Oden to get to the final four. They'll meet the Hoyas who beat the Tar heels on Sunday with a late surge. They got back from 11 down to tie the game and won it in overtime by 12 points as they saw the heels miss shot after shot after shot. The Heels missed 22 of their final 23 shots to lose this one in shocking fashion. The Hoyas have some size and their bigs were clutch late in the game. For the heels, Psycho-T - Tyler Hansbrough was unstoppable with 26-11, but even he went cold at the end. I am glad John Thompson III is going to the final four. I always liked his dad the "towel" Thompson.
Florida beat Oregon in the other game to setup a re-match with UCLA. Oregon's guard Tajuan Porter let them down with a 2/10 shooting night. They did get 27 from Aaron Brooks, but they needed everybody against this tough Florida team.
These are the elite-8 scores for the record.
UCLA-Kansas - 68-55
Memphis-Ohio State - 76-92
Oregon-Florida - 77-85
Georgetown-North Carolina - 96-84
My Final Four predictions, not that my bracket was any good :-)
UCLA beats Georgetown in the finals.
No comments:
Post a Comment