Then there were 16

The first weekend of March madness was fun as always. Between the first round and the second round and the unexpected high of an upset to the disastrous low of a season-ending loss, the tournament can be a dangerous roller coaster ride for some of these cinderellas. Northern Iowa rode this roller coaster hard and learned the harsh lessons of March the hard way. They probably hit the best buzzer-beater of the NCAA tournament so far to win their first round contest against 6th seed Texas. Not a huge upset seedings wise, but definitely an upset and the relative size of the schools and the programs made it a more impressive as well. Northern Iowa was suddenly a fan favorite and then they took on the 3rd seed Texas A&M on Sunday. They were leading by 12 points with 44 seconds to go and probably their traveling assistant was looking for hotels to stay next weekend for the sweet 16 games. Then a series of unfortunate incidents made sure the UNI kids blew this lead away inexplicably. They did weird things like trying to throw the ball off of a defender right underneath the basket as they were falling out of bounds and twice, gave the ball and a layup to a Texas A&M player on a platter.  It was indeed sad to see the small town kids blow a 12 point lead in regulation and then lose in double OT, but thats how the cookie crumbles in March sometimes.

The other cinderella that had the opportunity to make a big noise was 14th seed Stephen F Austin. They had 6th seed Notre Dame on the ropes in round 2, but lost on a tip-in at the end. While the UNI guys were blowing their lead away, Wisconsin hit a buzzer beating 3 to punch their ticket to the sweet 16. That was a fun 7 over 2 game. Gonzaga, a 11,  is the lowest seed left in the tournament and are looking good. They get to play Syracuse, who eliminated Middle Tennessee State, another cinderella that shocked the world by upsetting Tom Izzo's highly favored Michigan State. The sweet 16 field is set and for all the attention and excitement that the upsets and cinderellas generate, the higher seeds always seem to bubble up to the top. The only question then becomes things like which 5th seed goes deep versus which one goes home. In some ways, March madness is the most unpredictably predictable event. It was a fun weekend with a lot of close games, buzzer beater, upsets, and one ridiculous comeback. Now the games are fewer and the stakes are higher. Lets hope the level of drama stays the same.

In the pros, the Warriors are 63-7 and the chase for 72 is getting very interesting. They lost to the Spurs and the way they lost was more of a news than the loss itself because the Spurs needed this game way more than the dubs. The Spurs forced Curry into a horrible shooting night and the Warriors scored a mere 79 points. Coach Pop and the Spurs definitely know what they are doing on the defensive end, The Warriors, to their credit, stayed close and almost stole the game despite the horrible offensive performance. I don't know if we learned a whole lot from this game except that if these 2 hookup in the playoffs, the series is going to be legen ...wait for it.... dary as Barney Stinson would say. Both teams showed they can play defense. Both teams showed they are true contenders. Curry showed he can have bad games too. He had another mediocre game yesterday to wrap up the road trip and there is a lot of talk about tired legs right now. The record is indeed putting undue pressure on the team. 72-10 is too cool to ignore and at the same time, these guys can sure use some break before the playoffs. Lets see how Steve Kerr plays this. The Warrior season continues with another great Western Conference matchup against the Clippers tomorrow.

March Madness

March madness is a lot of fun. One of the things in my bucket list is to take both Thursday and Friday off during the first week of the tournament and park my rear-end in a Vegas sports book all weekend. Just the ability to wake up and start watching basketball games at 9 AM is priceless. And then the games come at you one after the other. You get a mix of everything. Low scoring basketball followed by high scoring ball. NBA bound stars in one game. No name shorties in another. Upsets followed by blowouts, not necessarily in the games you expect them in or in the ways your bracket want them. It goes on and on and ends past 10 PM Pacific time. What can be better than this? I usually don't have any dog in this fight and ASU rarely gets into this fight anyways. But the fun part is, you can root for a different dog every 2 hours. The highlight of today was a couple of 12 seed over 5 as always. Both Yale and Arkansas-Little Rock won thrilling games and two 11 seeds won as well with Wichita State getting extra credits for beating up UofA. A little disappointing for me as a Pac-12 honk, but I just can't bring myself to cry over the Wildcats losing.

I was impressed watching Brandon Ingram of Duke as I have an added vested interest in following the top NCAA talent this year. With the Phoenix Suns firmly headed to NBA lotteryville, I am motivated to keep an eye on the top college talent coming out. Suns' record is on track for the 3rd pick and it's very crucial they pick up a stud to pair up with Alex Len and Devin Booker who are both giving us Suns fans a lot of hope lately. Of course the ping pong balls will decide that in a couple of months more than anything else. For now, let's hope for more fun on day 2 of the tournament and into the weekend. The weekend also features Golden State Warriors at the San Antonio spurs. If ever there was a time to bust out the overplayed cliche "irresistible force versus an immovable object," this would be it. The dubs and the Spurs are 61-6 and 58-10 as of today and are 32-0 and 34-0 at home respectively. Will the home team Spurs win this game and if they do, how easily do they win? Can't wait to find out amidst all the basketball binge watching on tap this weekend.

Final Four Homecoming

The NCAA tournament so far has been mediocre at best. It is always interesting and worth watching, but some years are better than others and this year is not one of them. It took a turn for the bizarre last Sunday during the elite eight when Louisville's Kevin Ware suffered the most horrific injury I have ever seen. CBS didn't really have it's act together and ended up showing two replays of the injury before realizing this was not fit for TV. I had the misfortune of witnessing both the replays and was in shock much like his teammates. The instantaneous look of disgust and tears on his teammates' faces showed you how bad the injury was and how disturbing it was for them to see one of their brothers suffer through that. Even coach Rick Pitino couldn't control his tears. I can't imagine how much pain Kevin was with his broken legs, but he still mustered enough courage to implore his teammates to go, win the game, and get to the final four. Duke's fate was sealed right there. Louisville is now going to Atlanta for the final four and Kevin Ware will be there on the bench in his hometown. I can't wait to see this guy there. It will be good to see him there after what happened last Sunday.

Wichita State crashed the final four party meant for the big boys to join Michigan, Syracuse and Louisville.  For all the excitement about the upsets and the madness, it's incredibly hard for lower seeds to go all the way to the final four. We love the tournament because there are upsets, though we just don't know who gets upset. For every major program that makes it to the final four, couple of them lose along the way to lower seeds. Secondly, there is way more madness through the elite eight and  there is at least one Wichita State or Butler sneaking into the final four every year. Upsets are fun, but the mainstream programs are not bad either for business. This year's tournament has gotten good TV ratings despite mediocre games because of the bigger programs from larger states like Ohio State, Duke, North Carolina, Michigan, Syracuse, and Indiana making relatively deep runs. Florida Gulf Coast was the story of the first couple of weeks, but the bigger programs seem to move the needle better. Speaking of FGCU, their head coach will take his coaching skills and his super model wife to USC. His salary just went from 157 K a year to more than million a year. What a tournament for this guy! Our tournament will never be as good as his, but a Louisville-Michigan classic can make it better.

Rutgers head coach Mike Rice has been relieved of his duty after a disturbing video surfaced showing him pushing, kicking, and throwing the basketball at his players during practice. I have no idea how he assumed he was going to get away with that in this day and age. He proved that some people are not just bad, they are also stupid. I am surprised the players let him pull this garbage. Goes to show that these players are still kids and the coaches need to be teachers first and foremost. The corrupt NCAA system often obscures this fact, but we should at least pretend to maintain a semblance of teacher-student relationships between these coaches and players. Rutgers is a state school too, which necessitated a comment from the popular New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on the topic. I don't have a problem with Mike Rice getting fired, but what if he was really working on changing and improving his behavior? There is always another side to punishment. As Mike Rice lost his job, Rick Pitino's kid got one. Richard Pitino is now the head coach at Minnesota at the ripe old age of 30. Never hurts to have a recognizable last name.

Day after Manning

March Madness is in full swing, but it is getting squeezed a little bit this year with all the other things happening this march. Because of the off-season lockout, the NBA trade deadline slipped into mid-March and the tiring Dwight Howard saga dragged on and on. Finally, there were a few interesting trades, but nothing earth-shattering happened. But the Peyton Manning courting really is the news of the season and it made the NFL free-agency infinitely more intriguing than usual. Not only was he the big name on the market, but he was also blocking many other QB signings since every team that needed a QB and some that didn't went after him with gusto. Finally, he has made the decision. He has decided to suit-up for Denver. The Niners were a late entrant - at least officially, as they clandestinely worked Manning out and now are caught up in a drama involving Alex Smith. Denver is the winner here as they get Manning despite having a phenomenon named Tebow on their roster. Manning is going to cost way more than what I would have originally guessed for a 36 year-old guy coming off of a neck injury. But he is still going to excite the Denver fan-base and the other suitors can only wonder what might have been if he had picked them.

The Niner situation is interesting. Denver had a good, choir boy QB under contract and if Manning had flaked out on them, they just had to kiss and make up with Tebow. He is the type who would have said all the right things and played his rear-end off as always. The problem with the Niners is, they didn't have a starting QB under contract. Alex Smith was a free-agent himself. So they were going after both Manning and Smith after a season of love affair between coach Harbaugh and Smith. Hence the secret workout with Manning that eventually leaked. It did stay a secret rather long for this day and age. The fact that they did it in secrecy tells you they wanted to hide it from someone and Smith is the only possible target of this secrecy. Ordinarily, going after Manning is a great PR move for the team and thats something the team would want on the front pages. So the assumption here across the bay is that the Niners wanted to hide it from Smith. The only reason I am not entirely sure about that is that Manning and Smith also have the same agent - another nice twist to the story. I can't imagine Smith's agent helping the Niners double-cross him like that. Either Tom Condon is the worst agent ever or the Niners kept Condon out of their courtship of Manning as well by dealing with Manning directly and asking him to keep his own agent in the dark so that Smith is in the dark too.

We may never know what happened behind closed doors and how much Alex Smith knew or if he was upset about the whole drama. But it is providing an interesting sideshow to Manning's free agency. Now, the focus is on what happens to Alex Smith and the Niners. There is a 3-year, 24 million contract on the table and he may have to settle for it eventually. The leverage has been shifting every 6 hours in this story and right now, since the Dolphins signed David Garrard, the Niners seem to have the upper hand again. This should be resolved in a day or two. I almost want Alex Smith to sign with another team and stick it to the Niners. He can also fire Condon while he is at it. But I don't think any of that will happen. Also, I like both Alex Smith and coach Harbaugh and want them to continue their marriage by the bay for at least one more year. It will be interesting to see what they do next season with that defense back in full strength and with Randy Moss and Mario Manningham added to the receiving core. The Niner fans are in a funny situation here too as they desperately wanted their team to go after Manning. I guess they were not careful what they wished for. The Niners did chase Manning and lost. Now the fans are reduced to sweating the Alex Smith signing and understandably so. Hope all ends well for them. As for Manning, the next steps are about figuring out the number of zeroes in his contract. There will be many, but the details will be interesting. Then the Tebow trade drama can begin in earnest.

In the NCAA tournament, we have the sweet 16 all setup. For all the talk of madness, all four 1 seeds, two 2-seeds, two 3-seeds and three 4-seeds are still dancing. There is a 6 and 7 seed in the mix, but the interesting ones are 10-Th seed Xavier, 11-Th seed NC State and 13-Th seed Ohio. There are also 4 teams from the state of Ohio - the first time any one state pulled that off. There is also the remote possibility that Xavier and Cincinnati - the two teams that had an ugly fight earlier in the season, may end up meeting in the championship game. There are enough 1 seeds that will prevent that from happening, but keep an eye on that. The best day so far in the tournament was the Friday when Lehigh and Norfolk State took care of two 2-seed including the hated Duke. Unfortunately, both those 15-Th seeds got blown out on Sunday in the round of 32. Thats how the tournament rolls. You never know who's going to win and when. Thats why you watch it and watch it closely. As for my bracket, Missouri shredded it when they lost to one of the aforementioned 15-Th seeds, but I can take solace in the fact that even President Barack had Missouri going pretty deep.

March Madness is here

Fun times are here again. The 2011 NCAA tournament kicked off in style today with some tremendous games early. It was amazing to watch these kids hit great shots in the clutch with time running out. For some reason, it feels like these guys do better in the clutch than their NBA counterparts. There are a few buzzer beaters here and there in the NBA, but there are way more in college, especially in March. It should be the better defense in the NBA or something. Also, the number of NBA teams and the player pool is pretty small and players know other players' tendencies and goto moves pretty intimately. In the tournament, schools that have never crossed paths in 20 years meet and anything can happen despite the best efforts by the coaches to prepare their players for the specific opponent. Not sure if it's real or just an illusion, but I thought these college games today featured a lot more big shots than your typical NBA games. I was totally thrilled to watch the fantastic finishes and amazing shots this morning and afternoon.

There were 6 really close games, though UCLA took a blow-out and unnecessarily made it close at the end. Brandon Knight sealed the deal for Kentucky against Princeton with a drive and a shot, though it's a credit to Princeton that Kentucky needed that to win. The better game-winner today belongs to Temple's Juan Fernandez against Penn State. He was stopped cold by the defender, but somehow found a way to use his pivot foot to jump away, create some space and hit that shot with the defender all over him. It was not quite "Kemba Walker against Pittsburgh" good, but a great shot nonetheless. Butler won on a buzzer-beater, but that one should be rough on Old Dominion because Matt Howard won it on a rebound and a put-back after the defense played good D and forced a bad shot. 13-Th seed Morehead State sent Rick Pitino and Louisville packing behind Demonte Harper's game winning 3. I think some of these kids should coach LeBron James and Dwayne Wade. In the same bracket, 12-Th seed Richmond got Vandy for the usual 12 over 5 upset. Thats becoming so common, I am surprised if 5-Th seed win these days. How did Utah State and Clemson lose?

Sydney Johnson, Princeton's head coach and Kalin Lucas, Michigan State's senior guard, both teared up at the post-game presser showing us why we love this event. The single-elimination, sudden-death format is thrilling, but it should also be heart-breaking to the players and coaches. Their entire season and in some cases, their college basketball careers come down to one shot and a few plays here and there. It's real tough. These guys still stay cool and focussed enough to take and make those game winners. Just the potential of ending some senior teammate's careers with a miss should put immense pressure on these kids. It's all part of the allure of the tournament. Speaking of the allure, Kemba Walker and Jimmer Fredette had big days and did nothing to hurt their star status. Jimmer's range is just incredible with some of his shots. The kid is going to need some help soon, but I will be watching him as long as he is playing. The "watching" was really fun today with the coverage across 4 channels. It's a brilliant idea and you never miss anything. Especially with the way they stagger the start time of these games, you get to enjoy the last 5 minutes of every game on a different channel and the action was continuos all day. This is exactly why I love the first weekend of the tourney more than the rest. Of course, the "first round" on Tuesday and Wednesday didn't do much for me except confuse me a little with the bracket. Anyways, can't wait for more of this tomorrow!