Who ya got?
#7 BYU vs #10 Florida, 12:20 PM
#6 Notre Dame vs #11 Old Dominion, 12:25 PM
#2 Villanova vs #15 Robert Morris, 12:30 PM
#4 Vanderbilt vs #13 Murray St., 2:30 PM
#2 Kansas St. vs #15 North Texas, 2:40 PM
#3 Baylor vs #14 Sam Houston St., 2:45 PM
#7 Richmond vs #10 St. Mary’s, 2:50 PM
#5 Butler vs #12 UTEP, 4:45 PM
Breathe….
#8 UNLV vs #9 Northern Iowa, 7:10 PM
#1 Kentucky vs #16 East Tennessee St., 7:15 PM
#6 Marquette vs #11 Washington, 7:20 PM
#3 Georgetown vs #14 Ohio, 7:25 PM
#1 Kansas vs #16 Lehigh, 9:30 PM
#8 Texas vs #9 Wake Forest, 9:35 PM
#3 New Mexico vs #14 Montana, 9:40 PM
#6 Tennessee vs #11 San Diego St., 9:45 PM
Like so many people I picked Baylor in the Final Four because it was the chic dark horse pick everyone was jumping on. Sam Houston St. could end up screwing a lot of people today.
Anyone interested to see Chas McFarland vs Dexter Pittman? McFarland is easily the dirtiest player in the ACC(yes, even ahead of Ryan Reid now) the question is how dumb is he? Jumping ugly with Dexter Pittman might not be a good career move for him.
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maybe Pittman can transfer here and not dunk for us.
***
Williams, no! ugh. you cant move on the throw-in.
I know I’m not supposed to say this since I went to Illinois, but you know Bruce Pearl’s guys love playing for him.
why was McFarland even IN this game? 3 points?
no…freakin…way. they were dead in the water. wow.
Rick Barnes? buh bye!!
***
4 missed Texas FTs in the last :49.
Are you kidding me?
Ish Smith!
Man, I had given Wake up for dead. Unbelievable.
****
Damn, HTTE, now you’re in my head!
umm, anyone think there are MAJOR chemistry issues between Gaudio & Smith?
This Montana-New Mexico game is a good one. I’ve been following the ticker, and saw Montana keep fighting, and hanging in there. It might go to the buzzer.
what happened, big game? missed the postgame.
it was 76-68 with 3 left. Texas outscored 13-4 from there.
Excellent first day.
-7 games decided by 3 or fewer points
-3 OT games
-2 games decided on last second shots
-ACC 1-0, Big East 1-3
-5 double-digit seeds advance to second round
^^they were standing side by side on court after the game, apparently waiting for an interview. Smith was still amped and looking around the court, but Gaudio was stonefaced (not even a hint of a smile)—the entire shot, neither looked at, or spoke to the other.
I noticed Dino had called him over to the sideline with Texas on the line, just before Smith’s game winning shot. The tension was positively unmistakable if you saw it. Maybe this was just that play-related, but I think william referenced one time that there is trouble behind the scenes in WS–that would help explain how this group of excellent talent has so underachieved the last two seasons. I don’t dig into other blogs/sites, but I’m sure this subject will come up on the other Wake boards.
^I’ve heard that there were problems with Dino and Aminu, too. You have to wonder if this is a similar situation to the one UNC faced with Doherty. Young/talented coach who is also very high strung and get put into a position that he might not have enough seasoning for.
that very well could be CM, but probably equal possibility that you have one rogue player playing the pied-piper to the rest. Just on the surface Dino seems like a nice guy–his players otoh seem to play pretty undisciplined at times.
IF, that is the case, imagine how difficult a job it would be if a player like Smith goes against your instructions, and then nails the game-winner. Purely speculation, but something is going on for sure.
just heard–Fess Parker RIP—Dan’l Boone lives forever!
^Yeah, I have to admit my first instinct about Dino was to really like him, too. Seemed to be a perfect guy to follow in Skip Prosser’s shoes. I hope for his sake (and the ACC’s) it is just a personnel problem.
THF – noted your twitter observation regarding CBS and I wanted to lay claim to my CBS trademark – Can’t Broadcast Shotclock.
I can always count on them to throw it up at some random point, 11 seconds, maybe 10 but certainly nine and always by eight. It just helps to have a sense of the time so you can be mindful of where the players are on the court for a play or if they are just lost in time or hammered by a defense. It is a complete ripoff – just put it in a tiny window somewhere on that little bar. People watching on a TV smaller than 32 inches don’t care, they are thinking about an oil change for their Buick.
^Hard to tell about Dino, he does seem like a nice guy. If they aren’t following his instruction during the game then he’s just there for the ride and that’s enough to throw you over the edge. Super competitive coach with players making decisions on the court against your instructions. Not making the best of what they were given but doing it alone. Wow. Discipline is always a key to success. You want to take Tarawa, well it’s going to take some discipline because after the 100th guy dies trying to get a grenade into that cave it’s not going to work out well if man 101 decides he’d rather go back to the landing zone.
Dino clearly had issues with Teague last year, maybe there’s some hangover with some of the other players. I think come tournament time you have to lay it on the line with your players and in the case of Aminu – “you want to make big money in the NBA – make some noise in the tournament big boy. We can do this together. Aside from Ish I assumed Aminu might step up for the tournament and that’s how I decided they would beat Texas. At least there was some logic involved, faulty at best. I think he’s in a tough spot as well since everyone is going to compare him to Prosser and there’s no telling what would have happened if he had lived. He recruited a super set of players but sometimes you just can’t get what you need from your players, note to self – UNC 2010.
Good games, enjoy listening on the radio and watching the highlights later. Too bad they don’t just run the full clips of the final two minutes without timeouts for the viewers. You get the feeling that quantity trumps quality and I guess that’s how we will get another powerful sports new source one day. MTV had VH1, someone please compete with ESPN.
Yesterday was an awesome day for the first round. Hope today is just as good. Maybe we can finally get a 16 beating a 1 seed, say in the South region.
It will be fun to pay attention to the upset watch today. So far, 5 double-digit seeds have made it to the second round, and the tournament is on track to have a high number though maybe not the record. I don’t have any numbers for how many have advanced in the first, or second, half of the opening round games, but 5 may not be that rare. FWIW, at least 5 DD seeds have advanced from the first round 20 of the last 25 years.
Here are the numbers for double-digit seeds making it to the second round since the 64-team format was introduced in 1985:
9 – 1 time (2001) – 3 DD Seeds in Sweet 16, 1 in Elite Eight
8 – 5 times ( ’89,’91,’98,’99,’06)
7 – 2 times (’02, ’07)
6 – 4 times (’87,’95,’96,’08)
5 – 8 times (’85,’86,’90,’92,’94,’97,’03,’05)
4 – 2 times (’88,’93)
3 – 2 times (2000, ’04)
2 – 1 time (2007)
-At least two double digit seeds have been able to advance to the second round every one of the last 25 years.
-Taking this statistical wonkishness even one step further, of the 700 first round games that double-digit seeds have played in, over the last 25 years, they have won 143, or slightly over 20% of the time. (An average of 5.7 times per year)
^The 2001 tournament was crazy. That was the year Gonzaga burst on to the scene. In the second round you had a 12/13 and a 10/15 match-up. I was down at the UK for a conference the first Thursday-Sunday of the tourney and I have to say that that was a pretty crazy place to watch the tourney, especially when the brackets are getting turned upside down. They take fanaticism of college basketball to a different (and probably unhealthy) level, but for the first weekend of the tourney it can be kind of fun.
(Fortunately my plane left about 20 minutes after UNC lost to PSU, so I didn’t have to deal with any UK fans. I suspect my opinion would probably be different…)
GT players are going without cell phones, as they did for the ACCT, where they made the finals.
they got down to the old school basics…talking.
i believe we were on that line of thinking here, for our guys.
mhm.
^^ 2001 was also, basically, John Cheney’s last hurrah with Temple going to the Elite Eight as an 11 seed. It was also their last NCAAT win. Maybe that will change today.
^Temple-Cornell was one of the hardest games for me to pick. I would have taken CU over any of the other 5-seeds in a heartbeat, but not Temple. IMO, Temple and Pitt should switch seeds.
^Me too. I’ve got Temple in that one, and even though I don’t have them picked, I’d love to see them in the Sweet 16.
It was entertaining hearing Jay Bilas defend his Cornell-to-the-Elite-Eight pick to his fellow analysts, when they gave him a hard time for picking such a long shot. He basically said “Well, you guys said this was the year to deviate from chalk, then I pick non-chalk and all of you end up going with chalk. At least I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.”
Yeah, Temple is arguably Cornell’s worst case scenario in their bracket. I think Bilas has a point about Cornell further in, but playing against your mentor, and one of the top 3 point defending team in the nation versus your top 3-point shooting status, well, defense wins championships, right?
Cornell is up with 3 minutes left in the half, presently, but scoring has dropped off significantly from the first 5 minutes. That plays into Temple’s hands.