I walked into the student lounge on Thursday afternoon to check scores during an afternoon reprieve, and walked right into one double overtime game and another that was about to the first overtime- between a 2 and a 15. And the rest of that day did not disappoint. Here are my top 3 thoughts from the first round, as well as the 3 I'm most looking forward to for tomorrow.
- Michigan State, whom for some reason I decided in my bracket was going to beat Kansas in the Sweet 16, proceeded to look terrible in a near-second-half collapse against New Mexico State tonight. The Spartans have been disappointing during the regular season largely because of their difficulties scoring the basketball, and tonight was no different, as they went for long stretches without getting any good shots, including seemingly missing 1 of every 2 free throws. Never count Tom Izzo out, certainly, but if I could go back and redo my bracket, I might think about it.
- It's always a little difficult to make generalities about the tournament in the first round, because the best teams are inevitably in blowouts against overmatched teams. But if you're looking for a darkhorse contender who proved something in the opening round, how about St Mary's or Butler? Butler drew a tough 12 seed in UTEP, which spent some time in the top 25 this season, but proceeded to turn a halftime deficit into an 18-pound thrashing. Likewise, St. Mary's shrugged off a lot of ESPN.com's darling pick Richmond with another impressive second half. I'm not implying that either of these teams is going all the way, but I wouldn't be surprised to see either of them dancing deep into the second weekend. Which, of course, is exactly why I picked both to lose in the first round.
- What has happened to Villanova? Scottie Reynolds put up a 1-14 effort during regulation and the Wildcats, top 3 in the country about a month ago, found themselves down 5 with a minute to play against 15-seed Robert Morris. 'Nova has a lot of experience back from last year's Final Four team, but they've been downright mediocre over the past 3 weeks, losing 5 of 7 before finally getting it together for about 6 minutes at the end of this game. I still feel OK about my pick with them, mostly because their draw is absurdly weak, but they've got to get it figured out soon or the aforementioned St. Mary's Gaels are going to give them everything they can handle tomorrow.
3 for Saturday:
- Wake Forest-Kentucky. Not sure if any of you stayed up to watch the Deacs knock off Texas in another OT game last night, but if not you missed this clutch shot from Ish Smith. If you haven't seen it, click on the link- it's pretty strong work. But the reason I like this matchup is that there are two legitimate reasons why Wake could pull the upset here- first, Kentucky is a streaky-at-best outside shooting team, and they depend on John Wall driving the basketball to create a good portion of their offense. Wake, however, employs a version of the "Pack Line" defense, which is built to keep drivers out of the lane- and they have the bigs inside to really make it work. UK is going to have to knock down some 3's, and they don't always do that. Second, Ish Smith is going to make John Wall work on the defensive end of the floor with his speed, and that could wear the star freshman down just enough to make him less effective on offense. It will be interesting to see how Wall handles playing against a guy with the transition speed of Ish. I still think Kentucky will win, and probably pretty handily, but if they struggle just a bit, Wake is the type of team that could give them trouble.
- Old Dominion-Baylor. If for no other reason, I just want to figure out what all the Baylor hype is about. I know that section is weak (see above, re: Villanova), but I just don't see the Bears as a Final Four team. Maybe they'll come out and thrash the Monarchs and show me why I should think otherwise. Then again, my wife picked them to win it all, and she's beating me in our bracket pool. Maybe I should reconsider...
- St. Mary's-Villanova. See above. The Gaels are playing with a ton of confidence right now, and you have to know that they firmly believe they're going to win this game. Villanova, on the other hand, is living on the opposite pole of the confidence scale. If you're a fan of the mid-majors, this is probably your number 1 game to watch tomorrow.
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