Pool standings up front as promised. It's good to be the King. More specifically, it's good to be Tommy King, as he leads the Gamblers Pool and is tied at the top of the main pool with Chubbs. Lurking just behind them is Dwight, only one point out of the lead. Full standings can be found here.
There are some patterns that seem to sustain over time when it comes to March Madness. There's almost always a 12-5 upset in round one. There's typically a team that wins a major conference tournament that falls flat as soon as they show up for the Big Dance. And if Day 1 includes a bunch of upsets, then Day 2 restores balance in the universe. That last phenomenon might just be a reversion to the mean. After all, it would be true madness if upsets just continued non-stop throughout the tournament. But I tend to think of this trend a little differently. I believe that some of these bigger schools aren't all that concerned about their opponents until they see a St. Peter's land a right cross flush to the chin of Kentucky and watch one of college basketball's bluebloods crash down to the mat. Even Gonzaga got a bit of a standing 8 count in round one and they're the #1 overall seed. That must have had an effect on all of the favorites who took the floor on Friday for their games. They knew that any team could be sent home immediately, no matter how unlikely it looked on paper. And as a result, we had a bunch of games that were completely lacking drama. Rather than waste your time with recaps of each of these blowouts, here's a list of favorites that triumphed by at least 15 points on Friday:
- #1 Arizona def. #16 Wright State 87-70
- #2 Villanova def. #15 Delaware 80-60
- #2 Auburn def. #15 Jacksonville State 80-61
- #2 Duke def. #15 Cal State Fullerton 78-61
- #3 Purdue def. #14 Yale 78-56
- #3 Texas Tech def. #14 Montana State 97-62
- #9 TCU def. #8 Seton Hall 69-42
(Yes, I know that last one technically doesn't count as a favorite winning, but #9 seeds have historically won more than #8 seeds in their first round matchup. Plus I don't feel like writing about how Seton Hall watched UConn the night before and thought "hey, we can do that!")
That left nine other games on the Friday schedule. Spoiler: just because a game didn't make the list above, doesn't mean that it was compelling television. Case in point: the opening game of the day between Loyola-Chicago and Ohio State. The Ramblers have become a March darling in recent years due to a Final Four run and the spunkiness of their #1 fan, 102-year-old Sister Jean. This team wasn't expected to do as well as they had in previous seasons now that they were operating under a new coaching staff, but the Ramblers upset the Missouri Valley Conference tournament as the #4 seed and made their way into the bracket. They seemed like a team no one would want to face and the unlucky team to draw them was Ohio State. The draw might have been unlucky, but the Buckeyes were fortunate enough to catch Loyola-Chicago on a day when they were just plain bad. This was not expected to be a high scoring game as both teams leaned mostly on their defense, but I've seen better shooting in CYO games. The Ramblers missed a bunch of layups and their open threes tended to clank off the side of the rim or thud off the backboard. On one possession, a Loyola-Chicago big man attempted a baby hook just a few feet from the basket and somehow airballed it short. Ohio State wasn't exactly Loyola Marymount on the other end, but they were doing enough to make this feel like a blowout in the same way that New Mexico State had done to UConn the night before. Once the Buckeyes reached 40 points, this game felt over. Essentially it was. The Ramblers were lucky to reach 41 before the buzzer, but that was not nearly enough to advance. Ohio State moves on with a 54-41 victory.
Sadly, that was the closest of the four early afternoon games. Things got a little better in the late afternoon set. USC and Miami met in a 7-10 battle that was much more competitive than you would have thought if you followed college basketball throughout the year. USC was a team that was ranked in the top 25 pretty much all year long, while Miami finished 4th in the ACC in a year where that conference was much weaker than it typically is. The Hurricanes nearly lost their opening game in the ACC tournament to 13-20 Boston College, before falling in a tight game to Duke in the semifinals. Miami certainly didn't play like they were the underdog in the first half, using a 16-2 run en route to an 11 point halftime lead. The Trojans found their offense on the other side of the break, starting the second half with a 17-2 run to move ahead by 4. The game would be tight from that point until the final minute, when the Hurricanes built a seemingly insurmountable 7 point lead. But it's hard for any team to close out a game in March and USC came roaring back, tying the game with 14 seconds to play. Miami played for the last shot, drove to the lane, and got a whistle. USC was called for a foul with only 3 seconds to go. The Hurricanes made both free throws, but the Trojans would have one last shot. Needing to go the length of the court, USC managed to complete a pass to mid-court and they were able to get a fairly clean look at a long three-pointer. There were shades of Gordon Hayward and Butler in the title game against Duke as the ball hit the backboard and then the front of the rim before refusing to go down. Heartbreak for USC as Miami heads to round two after a 68-66 thriller.
More ACC you ask? Even though they only got 5 teams into the tournament, 3 of them were playing at the same time. The late afternoon window also featured Jenn's beloved Alabama Crimson Tide playing the likely inebriated Notre Dame Fighting Irish. It was hard to imagine that the Irish wouldn't be somewhat fatigued after their late night win and then cross-country flight to San Diego on Wednesday night/Thursday morning, but they didn't look any worse for wear in this game. Notre Dame put up 41 in the first half to lead by 5 at intermission. Alabama would trim the margin to 2 early in the second half, but Notre Dame found another gear, putting together a 17-5 run to blow this one wide open. The Crimson Tide showed promise early in the season with a surprising win over Gonzaga, but as the season went on, they seemed to sputter. The gas tank officially hit E in this one, as the 11th seeded Irish easily handled Alabama by a score of 78-64.
The last of the ACC teams playing on Friday afternoon was Virginia Tech. Like Richmond in the Atlantic 10, there was no chance of this team getting an at-large bid when they showed up for their conference tournament. And they were one second away from being knocked out in their first game there. But they hit a game-winning three in overtime to beat the 10 seed Clemson. Then they took out that now-invincible Notre Dame team I just talked about above. Didn't North Carolina win by 32 yesterday? They sure did, but they were no match for the Hokies in the ACC semis. And the cherry on the sundae was denying Coach K one last ACC tournament championship to punch their ticket to the Big Dance. It was an extremely impressive run over 4 days and it made many people select them to move past Texas in round one on Friday. The only problem with runs like the one that Virginia Tech made in the ACC tournament is that you have a few days off, the momentum goes away, and it's hard to bring things back to a 10 again. Richmond was a bit lucky with their draw because their opponent, Iowa, had also made a run through their conference tournament, meaning the "bounce factor" (horse racing jargon) was in play for both of them. Texas, on the other hand, had been knocked out of the Big 12 tournament in their first game, so they had a chip on their shoulder. This game was very competitive in the first half, but the final play before the break might have shown the writing was on the wall for the Hokies. Down by 1, Texas threw up a desperation heave from beyond half court that went on, giving the Longhorns the lead at the half. In the second half, it was all Texas. They would go on a 25-9 run to break it open. The Hokies put up some garbage points late to make the score look a little nicer, but Texas was never threatened over the last 15 minutes of action. Virginia Tech will always have the ACC tournament championship and one of the best celebrations to Enter Sandman that you will ever see, but this is where we have to bid them adieu. The Longhorns move forward to play Purdue after an 81-73 win.
Could we finally get a big upset during the evening games? Chattanooga seemed like a real upset possibility as they took on Big 10 regular season champion Illinois. The Mocs were one of two very good teams to play in the Southern Conference. The other team was Furman. These two played in the championship game of the conference tournament and, with only one spot on the line, battled in what was the best game of Championship Week. A winner couldn't be settled in regulation, so they put 5 more minutes on the clock. Furman grabbed a two point lead with only 4.3 seconds to play. Chattanooga inbounded the ball and frantically dribbled from one side of the court to the other, barely getting past the midcourt line. A three was launched right before the buzzer and it went in. Neither team deserved to lose, but it was the Mocs who would go dancing. Like any good upset candidate, Chattanooga showed they weren't going to be intimidated by the favored Illini very early on in this game. They jumped out to a 13 point lead in the first half. That lead would eventually evaporate, but the Mocs once again put together a run to establish an 11 point edge in the second half. Illinois, meanwhile, was having Kentucky-like problems. They too had an All-American big man who they were relying on completely once times got tough. And when I say Kofi Cockburn is a big man, I mean that he looks like 12-year-old Andy Reid in that old Punt, Pass, and Kick footage. Just a man amongst boys. He was intimidating on the defensive end. He cleaned up on the boards. Everything ran through him on the offensive end. Just as Tshiebwe seemed like he was willing Kentucky to victory, Cockburn was shouldering the load for the Illini. His jumper put them up by 1 with 46 seconds to go. The two teams would each knock down a couple of free throws before Chattanooga had one last chance to win it. Make that two last chances. They missed a shot with a few seconds to play and got the offensive rebound. But the second shot didn't fall either. So much for big upsets on Day 2. Illinois barely survives by a score of 54-53.
The best we were likely to do in terms of an upset was seeing an 11 seed advance. Notre Dame had pulled off the trick earlier in the day by taking out a 6th seeded team from the SEC and Iowa State was looking to replicate that feat in their game against LSU. LSU was playing their first game under a new head coach after their former coach, Will Wade, was fired for illegally paying recruits. Not exactly a momentum builder going into March. This game was a strange one in that it was close throughout, but one team basically had the lead the entire way. LSU hit a three pointer two minutes into the game to take a 5-4 advantage and then never led again. And it wasn't like the Cyclones dominated for the remaining 38 minutes. Their largest lead was 11, but the Tigers would claw back to within 2 with less than a minute remaining. Iowa State did not panic. In fact, as they had done throughout the game, they responded with a basket to make sure LSU could not get in front. The Cyclones knocked down a three with 20 seconds to go and that was all she wrote. Another 6 seed from the SEC goes bye-bye in round one as Iowa State takes this matchup by a score of 59-54.
The late evening session included the aforementioned TCU blowout and a 10:45pm tip-off time for Wisconsin and Colgate. I was secretly wishing that Wisconsin would be up by 30 at halftime so I could go to bed, but that is not how March Madness works. Before we get to that game, let's touch on two others. Houston didn't meet my arbitrarily picked blowout margin of 15 points, but they came as close as you could in dispatching 12 seed UAB by a score of 82-68. That left Michigan State vs Davidson as the last pre-10:45 tip-off game of the first round. This game was expected to be close and it did not disappoint. Davidson was the regular season champ of the Atlantic 10 conference and they made it to the conference tournament final before falling to the white-hot Richmond Spiders. They were also getting a bit of a home game in this matchup with the Spartans as this contest was taking place in South Carolina. They would need all the help they could get in this very evenly-matched battle with tournament stalwart Michigan State. The Spartans got off to a quick start, jumping out to an 8-2 advantage, but neither team would hold a lead larger than 4 for the next 30 minutes of the game. A Wildcats 8-2 run put them up by 5 with seven minutes to go, but Michigan State would respond by scoring the next 10 points of the game. The Spartan lead would get as large as 8 with just under a minute left, but Davidson would not go quietly. The Wildcats would score 14 points in the final 49 seconds of the game, but they needed 15 to send it to overtime. CBS is overjoyed to get Coach K vs Izzo in round two as Michigan State holds off a pesky Davidson squad by a score of 74-73.
Game 32 in 48 hours. Wisconsin vs. Colgate. The Raiders were easily the best of the 14 seeds in this tournament and Wisconsin has a history of going ice cold from the field in tournament games, so if Colgate just get hot for a few stretches, there was a real chance that we could be losing our first 3 seed of the tournament. Unfortunately for Colgate, this game was taking place in Wisconsin, so even though they held the lead for most of the first half, the raucous crowd kept coming alive to help the Badgers get back into it. At halftime, the game was tied at 28. About 10 minutes into the second half, Colgate was back in front by 4. But over the next 7 minutes, it was the Raiders who couldn't make a shot. While they were stuck at 54 points, the Badgers turned a 4 point deficit into a 6 point advantage. Colgate tried to catch up from there, but the dagger came on a Wisconsin three pointer that gave the Badgers a 9 point margin with less than 90 seconds to play. 11-seeds advancing was as good as it was going to get on this Friday. Wisconsin moves on to play 11-seed Iowa State after a 67-60 first round win.
Dave complaining on behalf of North Carolina? What is the world coming to? It actually happens in the Day 3 recap, coming later this afternoon.
Horses don't bounce, they just sometimes regress to the mean.
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