The Elite 8 today gave us the best game of the tournament so far after a bunch of blowouts in the sweet 16. Villanova and Pittsburgh played a beauty at Boston today. Nova won 78-76 after almost giving it away. The long-range, in-bounds play that Nova guy tried with the game on the line was one of the craziest things I have seen in a long time. Goes to show how these guys are still college kids who can do really dumb things. How do you throw that pass at the point in the game? Thats what makes up good drama I guess. So Pitt ties the game up with 5.5 secs to go. Nova then ran a great in-bounds play as if to erase the horrible previous effort and Scottie Reynolds drove all the way to the paint and hit a tough shot. Game over for Pitt and one more blow to my bracket.
Big East is dominating the elite 8 this year with 4 teams with the Big-12 sending 2 and one each from the Big-10 and the ACC. The Pitt-Nova game was a great advertisement for the Big East and U-Conn made it a great day for the conference when they handled Missouri. That game was close at times, but U-Conn really had this one covered for the most part. I am really excited for the NC-Oklahoma game tomorrow. What makes this game unique is that it has almost NBA-level star-power with Blake Griffin and Psycho-T and all the other Carolina names. Hope it lives up to the hype. Louisville on the other hand should handle Michigan state rather easily and send Rick Pitino to the Final-4 again. Speaking of Pitino, Kentucky apparently found out Billy Gillespie was not Pitino as they got rid of him amidst some weird drama after just 2 seasons. I was surprised how quickly this thing went south.
I was hoping for a photo-finish in the NBA playoff race, but the Suns are trailing Dallas for the 8-Th spot by 3.5 games with 9 games to play. Looks like it's over. I would have liked to have seen them play under the new coach and the old system with a healthy Barbosa and Amare. They have been playing better lately, but the Porter era put them in a big hole they couldn't get out of. Then the injuries happened and now I am not even sure if I want them to make the playoffs just to get eliminated by the Fakers. I would rather let some other team suffer that ignominy. At least if Amare and Bobo were healthy, we could kid ourselves that the Suns have a legitimate shot at an upset, but this group will have issues in the first round of the playoffs. Lets hope Dallas screws up the last 2 weeks, but at this stage it's nothing more than a hope and a prayer.
Good game tomorrow on ABC as the Mavs visit the Cavs and the King. Anytime LeBron is on TV, it's becoming must-see TV. He is fast becoming a phenomenon much like MJ was. LeBron had better numbers last year, but he is blowing up this season because of where his team is and how he is playing lesser minutes because of the blowouts and home dominance. In other news, Gilbert Arenas stopped blogging and started playing today after a year. He started off in style by hitting his first 3. But he needs to put in a couple of solid years to erase the last few to avoid being remembered as the next Penny Hardaway or Grant Hill. Both those guys played for the Suns well past their prime and I hope I don't see Gilbert Arenas in a Suns uniform in 2014 making 20 mill a year.
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