March Madness 2022 - Deuces

Just five games left in this year's Madness after Saturday's action.  Less games means less possibilities and less possibilities means more clarity on who can win this year's pools.  You can find the current standings here.  Main Pool is down to five possible champs: Chubbs, Scott, Vince, Yarmela, or Andrew.  Gamblers Pool is down to two: either Vince or Tiny will take that crown.

Time to book some trips to New Orleans!  The South Regional was up first.  Villanova had gotten the bad end of the deal when it came to where they were playing their regional final.  It made sense for them to be in the East Region, but with the regional semifinals and finals slated for Philly, it would have been unfair to give the #2 seed home court advantage in a potential matchup against the #1 seed with a spot in the Final Four on the line.  (No, I'm not bitter that my beloved NC State women's basketball team lost a road game in double OT to UConn.  Why do you ask?).  Unfortunately for the Wildcats, every contingency doesn't get taken into account by the selection committee.  As the #2 seed, it was expected that Villanova would play in the South Regional Final, but the appearance of #5 Houston was a small surprise, given they would have to knock out higher seeds Illinois (#4) and Arizona (#1) along the way.  But the reward for taking down those opponents was that the Cougars would effectively get a home game in San Antonio in an attempt to advance to the Final Four for the second year in a row.  Sorry Villanova!

I mentioned in my recap of the Sweet 16 that Houston had spent almost no time playing from behind in this tournament and that it would be interesting to see how they would adapt should that scenario unfold.  We got to see that play out right from the opening tip in this game.  Villanova scored the first 5 points and it didn't take long for the lead to grow to 11.  Uncharted territory for the Cougars!  And if there was one team in this tournament that you didn't want to fall behind to, it's Villanova, as they are about to set an NCAA record for made free throw percentage in a season.  Houston would need to make up this deficit before they hit the final few minutes of the game to have any chance and they did a decent job of it.  They were only down 7 at the half.  They had drawn within 2 with just over 5 minutes left.  But the downfall for the Cougars in this game would be their inability to hit from deep.  They wound up a woeful 1 for 20 from three point land.  And this battle tested Villanova squad kept Houston from scoring inside late.  Unfortunately for Villanova, it wasn't all good news as the final seconds ticked off the clock.  The Wildcats were trying to run the clock down in the final minute when an incident happened that might affect their title chances.  Justin Moore, one of six players who routinely sees time on the court for Villanova, tore his achilles with 35 seconds to go.  He's done for the season, but his teammates are not.  #2 seed Villanova is the champion of the South Region, taking down Houston by a score of 50-44.

Even though I bet on horses regularly, I don't bet on sports very much.  I'm sure I could delude myself into believing that I had an edge, but my results in this pool over the years have kinda set me straight on how sharp (dull?) of a sports bettor I might be.  That being said, if there was one game I would have bet a lot of money on in this tournament, it was the West Regional Final between Duke and Arkansas.  And I would have let it ride on the Blue Devils.  Why?  Not because I believe there is some giant conspiracy to get Coach K a title in his final season.  There were two other reasons why I would have bet on Duke:

1. Arkansas just had this amazing high from taking out the #1 overall seed in the previous round.  Teams like that tend to have a bit of a letdown in their next game (Scott Brown will not let me call this a bounce).  Occasionally, a team like Arkansas will bump into another team coming in off of a similar situation and be able to find continued success.  But that wasn't the case with Duke.  Yes, they were happy that they survived their battle with Texas Tech, but they expected to win that game.
2. Arkansas was successful this season because of one specific strength that they had: free throw shooting.  Not just the ability to make free throws, but also the ability to get to the free throw line often.  No team shot more free throws than the Razorbacks this season.  In a game where a trip to the Final Four was on the line, what were the odds that Arkansas would get to the line more than Duke?  Zero.  Point.  Zero.

That's not to say that the refs swayed things in favor of Duke in this one.  I highly doubt you will ever see a game like North Carolina-Baylor where the refs didn't hide the fact at all that they were favoring the Bears.  Even Arkansas-Gonzaga had quite a few controversial whistles that impacted the game.  There was no controversy to be found in this one.  I'm just saying that if they played this game 100 times, Arkansas would shoot less free throws than Duke all 100 times.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The truth of the matter is that the Blue Devils were simply the better team in this matchup.  Duke held a small lead for most of the first half before scoring the last 8 points to take a 12 point margin into intermission.  In the second half, there was only one moment where Arkansas seemed to have a glimmer of hope.  They made a run to draw within 5, leading Coach K to call a timeout.  And say what you want about him (oh, I say plenty), but Coach K has been exceptional at drawing up plays for his teams out of the timeout.  Duke immediately scored, sparking a 19-6 run that put this game away.  The Razorbacks fall one step short of the Final Four for a second consecutive season as Duke heads to New Orleans.  The #2 seeded Blue Devils win the West Region with a 78-69 victory over Arkansas.

Two more spots available in New Orleans and I'll be back in Philly to see who comes out of the East.  Can a double-digit seed keep their Cinderella story going?  (Please let it be the Peacocks!). One more recap before the Final Four coming up.