Great finishes to the games. I had FSU a couple games in the tourney, but not a big deal.

+1

Cleveland State wasn't fooling around tonight. They just played a really good, solid game. They didn't shoot particularly good- 47%. But only had 6 turnovers and that offset the fact that Wake blocked about a million of their shots (13!)

So, I think they're going to give Arizona a really good game if not do the same as they did to Wake and just stomp all over them.

SI

+1. Wake was sloppy but Cleveland State was there to take advantage at every turn, they really played a solid game from start to finish. Very impressive.

Small school, good game for them but to be fair it was only a 9 beating an 8.

Damn.

As long as the team stays together the next couple years should be fun to watch for us Buckeye fans though.

I'm pretty sure I said it somewhere in this thread....

Badgers need Hughes to step it up. He didn't do it until the second half, but he stepped up big for the Badgers. Not only that, but JBo went lights out a few times there! Woo! I'm so pumped right now.

On the road though.

VCU nearly beat UCLA. Akron and American gave Gonzaga and Villanova tremendous scares. ETSU got within two of a #1 seed with 5 minutes to play.

Maybe not as many upsets as you'd like to see, but it's been a very entertaining first round all the same, IMO.

No more perfect brackets on ESPN...

Let's not forget CS-Northridge giving Memphis way more than expected too. It didn't end well for them but all things considered they acquitted themselves pretty darned well.

Didn't see that game, but Northridge is about as close to a 'hometown' team as there is for me in the NCAAs (just a few miles from where I used to live). Would've been nice to see them advance.

Maybe one of these days UW-GB will get in.

It was a good tourney for higher seeds. 1 13-seed, 3 12-seeds, 1 11-seed, and 3 10-seeds. Plus a small school like Siena knocked off a power conference.

I think it doesn't seem like there were many upsets because they didn't put in many mid-majors. Your 10, 11, and 12 seeds are typically mid-majors that are surprising to see knock off a top school. It's not much of an upset in our heads to see it come from power conference schools.

Zags and Nova games had me nervous yesterday (they're key teams in my brackets) but by the 4 minute mark, both of the favorites had taken leads and Gonzaga was up by like 10 at that point. If you're going for the upset and not up by the 4 minute mark, you're probably done (not guaranteed, but you know how the ebb and flow of the tournament goes).

Oklahoma St-Tennessee came down to the last shot, but it was an 8-9 and, frankly, when I filled out my bracket with that one, I might as well have flipped a coin to pick it. LSU and Butler was also fun, but, again, 8-9.

If Maynor had created some wicked shot and beaten UCLA at the buzzer- that might have gotten me excited last night. But, again, it was not to be. All the upsets were predictable as they all were coin flips going on- I think all were on the ESPN Beat the Streak game which means they were 50/50 games. Western Kentucky was even favored out of the 12, I believe, and all the other games were under 2 point spreads. Even VCU was everyone's trendy upset.

But, then we got to tonight and all is forgiven. We get the first upset that wasn't on everyone's bracket with Cleveland State. Then a pair of great OT games with game-tying, leading, or winning 3 pointers and it was fun

EDIT: I forgot to give Dayton credit. Not many people had them in. WVU was a trendy upset pick in the second round to knock off Kansas (I had us losing to them) and no one really gave Dayton a chance to pull the upset. That's the second biggest upset of the tourney- not by seed- but by expectation.

SI

Where did you live? Before I got married I lived in a house right near campus.

Just over the hill from Six Flags. I think we were ~10-14 miles from the '94 epicenter.

I was just over the hill by six flags today with a friend/classmate to observe a school.

When the Quake happened, I was in Canoga Park.

I'm still wide awake from that win. I have to go to bed though, gotta get up early.

Just a reminder that the women's tournament tips off tomorrow at noon on ESPN 2.

Here are the odds of the upsets so far:
Tenn/OkSt 2
*Ariz/Utah EV
USC/BC 2
OhSt/Siena 2
*Wisc/FSU 2.5
TexAM/BYU 2
Mary/Cal 1

These two were more modest
Clem/Mich 4.5
*WKy/Ill 4.5

And then the "real" upsets
Dayton/WVU 8.5
CleSt/Wake 9

Those 5/12s everyone knew was a mismatch- why else did they have lines under 3. Even Western Kentucky had a lot of buzz going in. The only perceived "safe" 5/12 was Purdue who was favored by 8.5 over a down MVC champ Northern Iowa.

I'm just saying- any good gambler with a little luck could have gone 30 for 32 in these games. It just hasn't felt like a tourney with a lot of excitement and a lot of upsets even if the numbers say differently.

But those other 2 (Dayton, Cleveland State) came from out in left field and, even better, the OT games were downright fun.

SI

It may be time to re-define the term "mid-major" when it comes to D-1 basketball. It is nice to look at the size of the school or conference when it comes to deciding if a team is a mid major or not but I think that is getting to be disrespectful to many of those smaller schools. Gonzaga is a national title away from being an elite program IMO. Butler is a high quality program. Same with Xavier. Even though they were not selected for the tourney this year, Creighton is a very good program.

Compare that to some of the teams in the "major" conferences and without the names I would not be able to tell you who were the "majors" and who were the "mid majors". I like a lot of the stuff Frank Haith is doing with the Hurricanes but that is a mid major program at best right now IMO. Is Seton Hall a major program? Colorado? Ole Miss? Oregon State? I consider all of those programs to be much more fitting of the mid major profile than a school like Gonzaga, Butler or Western Kentucky.

There is always great debate about how a Gonzaga or St Mary would do in the Pac-10 or some other BCS conference. How would the teams I mentioned do in the Horizon, West Coast, or Missouri Valley. I would go as far as saying that if any of those schools were in the Horizon League this year, none of them would have won the league. To me, if 12th seeded Wisconsin beats 4th seeded Xavier, the cheers should be just as loud as if a 12th seeded Xavier beat a 4th seeded Wisconsin. To do otherwise is an insult to quality of the Xavier basketball program.

I think where we may be at with Gonzaga is that "mid-major" is actually shorthand for "team from a mid-major conference". The others, eh, still probably fall into the mid-major category to me albeit the top end of the m-m's. Gonzaga minus a few seasons sort of thing.

I do think you make a pretty good point about the existence of some m-m type teams that are part of major conferences though.

Like those scrappy Memphis Tigers from little Conference USA;)

Fixed.

I hate it when some random comment makes me curious about the actual numbers. In this case the "shooting under 40%" comment from Rainmaker that MBBF quoted. I'm not looking to bust on Rainmaker here, I'm just curious figured I'd share and let people make of the numbers what they will.

Here's yesterday's teams in action (if you want to do Thursday have at it, it was tedious clicking through the box scores)

The numbers are their FG% & 3P%, the parenthetical is number of 3PA of Total FGA not made of attempted. After watching Tennessee crank up 3's all day I was curious about other teamsand decided to note while I was doing this.

SFA 24.7 & 09.5 (21 of 73)
Syracuse - 45.5 & 12.5 (16 of 55)
Tenn - 42.9 & 33.3 (33 of 56)
OkState - 56.6 & 33.3 (21 of 53)
Utah St - 41.5 & 30.4 (23 of 53)
Marquette - 36.2 & 26.3 (19 of 47)
ND State - 41.9 & 41.7 (24 of 62)
Kansas - 50.0 & 33.3 (12 of 64)
Temple - 37.3 & 35.3 (17 of 51)
Arizona St - 51.3 & 57.1 (14 of 39)
ETSU - 30.7 & 18.2 (22 of 75)
Pitt - 43.6 & 36.8 (19 of 55)
Dayton - 46.3 & 40.0 (10 of 54)
WVU - 36.7 & 25.0 (20 of 49)
Cornell - 35.9 & 28.6 (21 of 64)
Mizzou - 47.5 & 25.0 (20 of 59)
Morehead St - 38.5 & 36.4 (11 of 52)
Louisville - 58.0 & 41.7 (24 of 50)
Arizona - 54.5 & 33.3 (12 of 55)
Utah - 42.2 & 25.0 (32 of 64)
USC - 52.9 & 44.4 (9 of 51)
BC - 32.7 & 26.1 (23 of 55)
Portland St - 47.8 & 38.1 (21 of 46)
Xavier - 53.7 & 42.1 (19 of 54)
Siena - 33.3 & 25.0 (24 of 72)
Ohio St - 40.0 & 28.0 (25 of 60)
Cleveland St - 47.7 & 40.0 (15 of 65)
Wake - 52.0 & 38.5 (13 of 50)
Robert Morris - 41.0 & 29.4 (17 of 61)
Michigan St - 45.9 & 30.8 (13 of 61)
Wisconsin - 40.7 & 33.3 (27 of 54)
FSU - 43.5 & 30.8 (13 of 46)

By my count 8 of 32 teams playing yesterday shot under 40%. That looks to be the same number that shot over 50%.

Teams that shot under 40 went 2-6 yesterday, teams that shot over 50 went 7-1 (not surprising).

edit to add: And just because of MBBF's Big 10 note, their Thursday FG% were
Illinois 49.2, Minnesota 40.7, Michigan 39.2, and Purdue 41.2. Only 1 of 7 B10 teams were under 40% shooting although most were right at it, and the one that shot below that mark won their game.

NCAA® Weekly Rankings
The median FG% for all teams this season looks to be 43.8%, just to put some sort of baseline in there somewhere.

I think major conference means a lot more than just basketball. Two of those teams you mention (Col and Miami) have plenty of national titles in football so I don't see them moving to the horizon conference anytime soon. Oregon State and Old Miss would probably fit that bill also.

Panerd's mid-major definition: If you don't field a football team you are at best a mid-major.

Ready for many more people to be pissed off when Wisconsin beats Xavier tomorrow? I love it.

I am not sure where you are going with this. I am just talking about D-1 basketball. What do football national titles have to do with how D-1 basketball teams should be evaluated? Butler, Georgetown and Villanova all field football teams at the FCS level. Butler is considered mid major in basketball while Georgetown and Villanova are definitely majors. Conversely, I don't think of Memphis football as a major college football program despite the great success of the basketball program. My point is that many of the "mid-major" conferences have teams that have moved beyond "mid-major" status and should no longer be looked upon as such. In turn, many "major" conference teams are more fitting of "mid-major" status based on the current state of their basketball programs. The Miami Hurricane basketball program is MUCH more worthy of mid major status than any of the programs that I mentioned before IMO.

Should be an interesting Mizzou - Marquette game tomorrow!

The song "One Shining Moment" sucks. I love everything about the tournament except the amount of airtime this song gets.

We talk about the home court advantage but the women's pod system is really fucked up.

#6 seed Arizona State is playing #11 seed Georgia at the Gwinnett Arena in Duluth, GA. That's 45 minutes or so from Athens but it's considerably closer than playing in Atlanta would be. I know the thought is to help attendance but they're playing in a nearly empty building, as UGA doesn't even draw well at home (unless Tennessee comes to town) and this particular mediocre squad inspired pretty much zero interest. Why on earth anyone thought it was actually a good idea to try to screw over a significantly higher seed like that just amazes me.

And in the second round it gets even worse, as #2 seed Auburn faces a matchup with #7 seed Rutgers in Piscataway.

I'm enjoying Villanova's great early performance in this game.

One of my favorite things about Jay Wright is that his team don't seem to have a fixed style. He's really good at taking his best 8-10 guys, fitting a system around their skills and finding a way to be competitive with the opposition.

Welp, pretty solid performance by Nova in the first half. I'd give the first ten minutes a score of 9, but the second ten minutes only a score of about a 6.

Just like Villanova played into American's hands during the first half of their game, UCLA played Nova's game thus far today. It's not that the Big East is "physical", but it's playing "smart physical". I don't know that much about Pac-10 basketball, but it appears that UCLA's big men (Avoya in particular) were caught off guard and had fouls on behind-the-back plays and such.

So long as we keep driving it in the lane and not settle for jump-shots, Nova should be fine.

The good news for the Bruins is that Villanova has developed a tendency late in the season to let up in the second half with a big lead (see @ Providence and Louisville in the conference tournament).

Marquette also but it didn't cost them...

So is it cool for me to rip on Howland now without people getting all over me because of all his gaudy accomplishments?

This awful performance has his hands all over it, from his style of play to his recruiting choices to his overall skill at developing certain attributes of his players.

I think UCLA has pretty much given up. Cunningham got that last rebound completely uncontested.

I agree. There was a play a few minutes ago where Fisher hit an open, uncontested three, and it pretty much came as a result of Collison and Shipp giving up on the play. They have quit on the team, and it's obvious.

I always knew Shipp didn't have the same sort of moxie and mental toughness of Farmar, Afflalo, Mbah a Moute and Love, but I thought Collison was exactly Howland's type of player. Fact is, he's not either. He's more like Shipp. He's a good auxillary piece, but he's not the take over and dominate type. He's not an in your face leader like some of those others had been on past teams.

And this team, which basically had the three seniors and a super-hyped freshman class, needed the seniors to be there for the frosh, to show them how it's done and get them into the program. But they haven't done that, and this is the result.

As a result, we'll be even worse next year, because the freshmen--sophomores to be--won't know how to act as the new team leaders, and they won't be able to pass it along to the new freshmen class (another top class) coming in behind them.

And that's above and beyond Howland's issues.

I think it's hard for a Collison to develop leadership when there's a bunch of those sort of guys in the locker room. For three years he's the #4 banana, now they want him to be #1 on and off the court.

Oh, and if anyone says, "What about Aboua?", look I love Alfred to death. It's not possible to have that guy on your team and not love him. And he has the mental toughness needed, the same sorta guts past Howland players have had.

But to be the actual tone setting leader, you also have to be a guy who can really take it on the court and dominate. Afflalo, Farmar, Love and even Mbah a Moute, with his D, were game changers, and Collison with his quickness, and Shipp with his versatility, are the same sorta way. Aboya gets what he gets off of effort and toughness, and that's not enough to lead a team that otherwise lacks mental toughness.

Aboya needs to be able to say "This is how it gets done" and then goes and does it. Since he can't do that, we are where we are.

To be fair, they took guys #6 (Collins) and #8 (Aldrich) on KU from last year and told them to be #1 and #2 this year with a pile of freshmen. It's mostly worked but obviously, they aren't nearly as good a team as last year as they lost parts 1-5 and 7 to the NBA and/or graduation. But they're going to be one heck of a team next year, provided everyone stays as that pile of freshmen become sophomores.

Didn't UCLA (and Memphis, for that matter) have a similar problem where they lost a lot of guys last year and you just aren't going to rebuild on the fly no matter how many times someone says "they don't rebuild, they reload"- you just can't replace experience. Then again, I think all of last year's Final Four teams could beat any team from this season...

SI

I believe that UCLA has already gotten on the plane. I think we're going to see 100+ the way this is going.

You may have a point. Plus, when those guys had their moments of weakness, they could turn to those others. If Farmar had a bad moment, Afflalo picked him up, and vice versa. If Love was frustrated, Mbah a Moute got him back on focus.

I like to think, though, that in a situation like that, you watch and learn and relish the opportunity yourself to take on that role. And maybe Collison didn't take enough ownership of it.

It's a shame these guys (the seniors) have to go out on a performance like this.

And I am not trying to belittle Nova's performance. They have played fantastic today. But it really is about UCLA not being good at what they need to be good at to succeed. On matchups/talent/developed ability/coaching approach alone, Nova was going to win this (and that difference is a Howland problem). I don't think anyone who watches this thinks this is UCLA playing at its best. This is a UCLA team with flaws being openly exposed by a tested, quality opponent.

I think the thing with Collison is he's a senior. You have 3 yrs of not being a voice in the locker room, now they want you to lead...and you don't really stand to benefit from it if you do. I think Collins and Aldrich are gonna be the beneficiaries of taking the throttle at Kansas.

UCLA last year got Kevin Love and it countered all losses...Memphis has had a lot of their core for a 4 yr run, it seems like Calipari likes to take one guy who he knows is a one or two year player and inject him into a solid core.

I agree. Last year's F4 teams were amazing.

And KU is one of the teams that come to my mind for a comparison, because you're exactly right. Collins and Aldrich were asked to do the same thing, replacing guys like Chalmers and Rush as leaders of this team, and they had the mental fortitude to accept that role and put it to use. For that reason, KU will be much better going forward, because they will have that instilled leadership and knowledge of the importance of representing a historic program like KU.

Right now, I have no idea what UCLA will be like next year. No idea at all.

J'mison "Bobo" Morgan in the game now. He's the guy we got late from LSU last year who was supposed to at leats help offset Love's departure with his sheer size, but he was too big and out of shape to get on the floor. Hope he dedicates himself this offseason.

Congrats to Nova and good luck in Boston. I'll certainly be rooting for you over Duke if it comes to it (although I probably lean toward Pitt in the E8, nothing personal). Great game for them and well played.

As for UCLA, I am hoping--praying--Howland saw something in this game which will break him from some of his worst stubborn habits. He needs to be more flexible in just about everything he does, because not every team he has is going to fit neatly into his little perfect box.

My only concern for Nova is that they may have peaked. That was probably the best overall game performance (offense and defense) I've seen this season.

If there were more midmajors we would have had all #1 seeds lose in the first round around with 15 other upsets...

Shut up, it's still up upset when a 12 beats a 5 regardless of what conference they come from.