Family matters ruled, so I missed most of the action on Saturday.
No Surprise
#1 Duke decimated #8 Seton Hall. I heard some commentators mutter how Arizona would have been better against Duke. Right.
#2 UConn blows away a tired #7 DePaul in the first half, and then coasts. It was no contest, and expected.
Big Upsets
#1 Stanford blows it against #8 Alabama. A bracket buster if you had Stanford beyond the Sweet 16 (I didn’t). Stanford has become what Indiana and Knight were in the late 90s. A good team that crumbles in the Tourney.
Unless Pacific shocks everyone today, the only double digit seed in the Sweet 16 is #10 Nevada which blew through #2 Gonzaga. Pardon a little partisan glee at seeing this overrated #2 seed get whupped.
Not an Upset but People Act Like It Was
#3 Texas handled #6 UNC. Again, reputation and everyone liking Roy Williams, caused the pundits to completely ignore a far deeper Texas team. UNC has a sixth man and that’s about it. Texas goes 11 deep. Everyone liked UNC, though, because (1) it’s UNC; (2) it’s an ACC team; and (3) Roy Williams is the coach.
Not on the scale as UNC-Texas, but #1 St. Joe’s prevailing over #8 Texas Tech, was greeted with mild shock. It’s a Bob Knight team! He hasn’t done anything in the Tourney since his teams had to play Conference Tournaments.
Correlation does not equal causation, but has anyone else noticed that the coaches that have railed the most against the conference tournaments — Knight, Olson (Arizona), and Montgomery (Stanford) — have had some of the most underachieving teams in the NCAA? Meanwhile coaches that seem to embrace and try to win the conference tourneys — Krzyzewski, Calhoun and Smith (Kentucky) — actually make it deep in the NCAA? Just a little theory, but it might be that denigrating the conference tourney allows the players let up a little and then fail to get back to their previous intensity once the NCAA gets going.
All of their criticisms of the conference tourneys may be valid — reduces the importance of the regular season, is totally for TV and more money, takes the players away from even more class time and wears them down a little more — but it comes off as whining and excuse making in advance.
Keep Getting By
#4 Wake Forest survives another close one against #12 Manhattan. Given the game was in Raleigh and Wake won the first two games against a #13 and #12 seed by a combined 5 points, it seems logical to invoke the spirit of Jim Valvano who declared that the key to the NCAA was to “survive and advance.” That is what Wake is doing.
Minor Surprise
I expected a close Syracuse-Maryland game, with Syracuse winning. Maryland, though was the darling pick the way they charged through the ACC Tourney and seemed red hot. Syracuse, until the bump in the Big East Tourney with BC, was as hot. Syracuse prevailed.
