Saturday, March 26, 2022

March Madness 2022 - Pandemic Pandemonium

Bracket chaos was a given.  But pool chaos?  Before the Sweet 16, it wasn't looking particularly likely.  Now it's anyone's guess who will win either pool.  To see the current standings, click here.  There was one result on Friday night (come on, you know which one) that took Vince's big advantage in potential points away and brought everyone back into the fray.  Chubbs still leads the Main Pool by 1 with Vince and Scott right behind him, but it's time to start looking at some names further down the list who might swoop in and steal the crown.  Among them are several members of Scott's family.  Yarmela is hoping for Kansas to beat Duke in the title game, while Andrew likes Duke to beat Kansas.  And longtime participant John Baxindine has Villanova beating Duke for the championship.  Any of those outcomes would jump their respective brackets towards the top of the standings.  Vince remains on top of the Gamblers Pool, but the biggest threats are coming from Nate Heffner and Tiny Bellmore, who will both be Kansas fans for the next few games.

I went to the East Regional last night in Philly and before I recap the action there, along with what we saw from the Midwest Regional on the Jumbotron, I have to explain why I was even there.  Back in early 2020, my friend Lu was talking with me about going to the March Madness games being held in Albany, which is more or less my hometown (explaining where Rensselaer is never resonates with people).  He bought tickets and then, ya know, the pandemic.  No March Madness in 2020.  No March Madness with fans in 2021.  So the opportunity for replacement tickets wasn't available until this year.  The good news for Lu (being a Philly native) was that one of the regionals was taking place in Philly.  New tickets were procured, Lu invited me along, and that's how I ended up in section 207 of the Wells Fargo Center last night.  Instead of seeing 4 first round games in 2020, I had a seat to see St. Peter's try to rewrite history as the first 15 seed to get to the Elite Eight.

The Peacocks were playing in the first game of the night and the arena was buzzing.  If you haven't been to an NCAA regional before, you should know that each school gets a section of tickets.  In the far right corner from where our seats were, you could find the St. Peter's contingent.  To our near left was the Purdue rooting section.  There was also a conspicuously empty section to our near right that we assumed was for fashionably late UCLA fans (nope, that turned out to be the UNC section).  Aside from that section to the near left that was filled with black and gold clad Midwesterners, everyone else in the arena was rooting for the Peacocks, whether they had any affiliation to the school or not.  St. Peter's probably never imagined they'd have a home game in the Sweet 16, but that was basically how it turned out.

To me, it felt like there were two types of tension in the arena.  The first type was the "oh man, I really hope we get to see history" tension.  The second was the "oh man, I hope St. Peter's doesn't remember they're a 15 seed and lose this game by 30".  Early on, that second type of tension dominated.  Not because Purdue was blowing out the Peacocks.  It was more because the size differential between the two teams was so apparent.  When a 7'4" dude is on the floor, he makes the other teams' forwards look tiny.  And Purdue had a 7'4" dude.  The scariest part about the skyscraper named Zach Edey is that he is only 19 years old, so in theory, he might have some room to grow.  The Boilermakers made it clear that the early game plan was to dump it in to Edey and let St. Peter's try and figure out a way to stop this giant.  The Peacocks didn't have much success on that front.  The good news for St. Peter's was that Edey is apparently a no for cardio.  He came out at the first 4 minute break, made another appearance between the 2nd and 3rd TV timeouts and that was all we saw of him in the first half.  His replacement, Trevion Williams, was finding much less success in the post.  And St. Peter's very active guards were frustrating Purdue's best player, Jaden Ivey, out on the perimeter.  The first 20 minutes weren't all that pretty, but St. Peter's had dissipated the "lose by 30" tension from the arena.  They only trailed by 4 at the half.

It's hard not to notice the effect that St. Peter's aggressive defense has on their opponents.  They don't necessarily play a press against teams as they inbound the ball, but they play defense the entire length of the court.  That means an extra 4-5 seconds of pestering before the ball even crosses half court.  It frustrated Kentucky.  It frustrated Murray State.  And it clearly frustrated Purdue in the opening minutes of the second half.  The Boilermakers began to force passes and force shots.  It all resulted in empty trips.  Purdue didn't score for the first 6 minutes of half number two.  St. Peter's wasn't lighting up the scoreboard, but a 4 point deficit became a 4 point lead.  And the energy in the arena began to build.

With Edey a non-factor during his limited minutes early in the second half, Purdue turned back to Trevion Williams.  Williams clearly made some adjustments at halftime, because he became the Boilermakers' dominant player in the second half.  Shortly after Purdue's dry spell ended, Williams scored 8 in a row.  Boilermakers up 4 once again.  But the clock always favors the underdog because the longer they hang around, the more the pressure builds on the favorite.  After St. Peter's made a few threes, they regained the lead.  Purdue went back to Williams, who continued to have his way down low.  Purdue back in front, four minutes to go.  

By this point, the entire crowd was chanting "DEFENSE" on every Purdue possession.  We were trying to stay in our seats, but the "holy shit, this is really happening" vibe made everyone keep standing up during those last four minutes.  St. Peter's Daryl Banks III hit a jumper to tie it.  Then he hit another one to put the 15 seed back in front.  A foul by Williams after trying to rebound a layup he had missed gave the Peacocks two free throws, which they knocked down.  1:43 to go and it was a two possession game in favor of the underdogs.  The two teams traded free throws and a minute came off the clock.  20,000 fans screaming "DEFENSE" in unison.  Purdue missed a three, but got the putback.  Then they looked like they had St. Peter's trapped twice, but the Peacocks escaped both times, forcing a foul.  Could they keep making all of their free throws?  Banks made two more to keep the lead at 4 with only 14 seconds left.  This was really happening!

Purdue scrambled down the floor in desperation mode.  Ivey, their star player who had struggled all game, rushed down and pulled up for a three.  And of course he made it.  Lead down to 1.  Oh crap.  Don't mess this up Peacocks!  They got the ball in again and escaped the first attempt at a foul.  For a brief moment, it looked like they might run out the clock.  But the Boilermakers fouled new Buffalo Wild Wings pitch man, Doug Edert, with 4.1 to go.  He drained the first.  He drained the second.  Three point lead!  Purdue had no timeouts, so they couldn't call a play.  I figured that the Peacocks would employ their typical pressure on the ball and foul once the dribbler got near half court to prevent Purdue from taking a shot to tie it.  But for some reason, St. Peter's didn't even pressure the ball.  Ivey took the inbounds pass, dribbled straight up the middle of the court and launched it from the logo.  NOOOOO!  We were sitting behind the basket he was shooting at and the shot was definitely on line.  It hit the front of the rim, bounced up, and then it was hard to tell if it went in.  But when the crowd lost their minds a fraction of a second later, we knew that it didn't go in.  We had witnessed the unimaginable.  St. Peter's was the first 15 seed playing for a shot at the Final Four, having beaten Purdue by a score of 67-64.

It was party time in Philly!  We went to the bar closest to our seats to grab beers.  Honestly, the second game didn't even really matter at that point.  There was nothing that could happen that would be nearly as captivating as what we just saw.  But while we were enjoying our beers, we got to watch the end of the Kansas-Providence game.  During timeouts, they would show some of that game on the Jumbotron and what we saw of the first half was that the Friars couldn't score.  They only had 10 points with just over 4 minutes to go in the half and Kansas seemed to be cruising.  They were able to raise their total to 17 by intermission, but they still trailed by 9.  When the next update that we saw showed the Jayhawks up by 13, we all figured that Providence was done.  But during one of the last timeouts in the Purdue-St. Peter's game, Lu tapped me on the shoulder and said "Providence is only down 1".  The scoreboard in the arena showed them down by 7, but when I looked at my phone, they were really only down 1.  And in the next snippet on the Jumbotron, they were up 1.  Yes, more chaos!  6 minutes to go and the final #1 seed was trailing.  

Unfortunately, we all couldn't chant "DEFENSE" and have Providence hear us.  After what we had just witnessed, I was convinced that would have helped them.  Instead, Kansas went on a 10-2 run to put the game out of reach in the late stages.  One #1 seed is still hanging on.  The Jayhawks move on to the Midwest Regional Final with a 66-61 gut check victory over Providence.

Reluctantly, we headed back to our seats for the announcement of the lineups in game #2.  Normally a game between two of college basketball's powerhouse programs would generate a lot of excitement.  But the crowd was relatively dead for this one.  UCLA's fans never made much noise at all.  North Carolina's section was more vocal, but all they tend to do is repeat the world's worst chant over and over again.  Some folks yell "TAR", and then other folks yell "HEELS".  It's like a game of Marco Polo where you hope everyone drowns.

This game started off with much better action than we had seen with the Peacocks and the Boilermakers.  There was crisp offense and these teams were showcasing better athletes.  It was 10-8 in favor of the Tar Heels less than 4 minutes into the game.  This was gonna be a high scoring affair!  Or not.  It's funny how the people sitting near us were saying how superior this game was to the opener when both teams were scoring, but when both teams started missing a bunch of shots, there was silence.  For all of the offensive fireworks that were supposedly coming, the first half of this one ended with UCLA up 31-28 (game one was 33-29 at the half).

UCLA was pretty balanced offensively in the first half, but UNC got most of their points from ejected-in-round-two Brady Manek.  He would go cold in the second half, but the Tar Heels wouldn't need him to shoulder the offensive load.  That's because Caleb Love was about to go off.  Love had opened the scoring in the game with a 3, but that was all of his output in the first 20 minutes.  He made the first bucket for UNC in the second half and just kept on shooting.  In one stretch, he scored 12 straight for the Tar Heels.  That doesn't mean he wasn't missing.  He just seemed to be the only one shooting for North Carolina.  There were definitely a couple of wild heat check threes that were off the mark.  But without him, the Tar Heels would have been in deep trouble.  The Bruins were hanging around, continuing to get small contributions from everyone on the floor.  And when Love missed a couple, they found a way to go up by 4 again.  After two free throws by a Tar Heel not named Love, UNC got a stop and went back to an open Manek, held scoreless to this point in the 2nd half.  He nailed a three and momentum (and the lead) was back with North Carolina.  They led by a point with 4 minutes to go.

UCLA scored after the timeout and after three misses by the Tar Heels, the Bruins made another shot to go up three.  Then came the key possession of the game.  Desperate for scoring, UNC went back to Love and let him shoot a three.  The shot missed and the ball was headed out of bounds.  Armando Bacot of North Carolina dove out of bounds to save the ball and hurled it towards half court.  The ball landed in Love's hands and he didn't hesitate to fire again.  The second attempt was pure and the game was tied at 64.  UCLA came down and tried to respond with a three of their own, but it was off.  Back down the court came the Heels and you knew what to expect.  Love put up another trey and once again was rewarded.  It was still a one possession game, but that shot felt like the dagger.  The Bruins were denied one more time at the other end, North Carolina tipped in a missed shot to extend the lead to 5 and it was CU UCLA.  Love had gone from 3 points at the half to 30 for the game.  The buzzer sounded and North Carolina advan...wait!  The refs were desperate to leave their stamp on this game.  Both teams had shook hands and hugged it out, but the refs decided that a foul occurred with 0.4 seconds left and made both teams come down to the other end of the floor for meaningless free throws.  UNC made them both and UCLA began to walk off again.  The refs told them they had to inbound the ball and run the 0.4 seconds off the clock.  The Bruins complied with this dickishness, but they weren't happy about it.  Let's hope the refs aren't this awful the entire tournament.  North Carolina continues their march towards a Final Four duel with Duke after eliminating UCLA, 73-66.

Last game of the night was supposed to be the mandatory "sending a double-digit seed to the Elite Eight" game, but St. Peter's had already checked off that box.  Nevertheless, it was still cool to see two schools, both of whom weren't given much of a chance to go far when the tournament started, playing for a spot in a Regional Final.  Miami scored the first 7 of the game, Iowa State responded with the next 8, then Miami went on a 9-2 run.  Iowa State had the lead ever so briefly, but they would not see it again the rest of the game.  The Hurricanes only led by 3 at the half, but in the early minutes of the second half, it would grow to 8.  And then eventually it increased to 14.  That would turn out to be the final margin as Miami ends the Cyclones' feel-good story of going from 2 wins to the Sweet 16.  The ACC stays hot as they send three teams to the Elite Eight.  Miami will face Kansas in the Midwest Regional Final after taking down Iowa State by a score of 70-56.

We're down to the Elite Eight.  Can Coach K go all the way?  Will we get Duke-UNC in the Final Four?  Can the ultimate Cinderella make it all the way to the Final Four?  Two tickets will get punched on Saturday and two more on Sunday.  Enjoy the games!

1 comment:

  1. It's like a game of Marco Polo where you hope everyone drowns. -- I just drowned, good stuff as always, awesome you were there for the St Peter's win.

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