By: Justin Jacobs
I’m not sure why Chad or I haven’t been talking about the NCAA tournament on this site. Between spring break and my fantasy baseball draft I just haven’t had much time to pontificate on some of the terrific basketball that we’ve been graced with recently. But really, isn’t March Madness always terrific? I’m happy to announce that all of my final four teams (North Carolina, Kansas, Texas, UCLA) have survived the first four rounds, which is more than I can say about Chad’s bracket. How about that Georgetown/Davidson game buddy? I’ll tell you one thing that Stephen Curry kid can play. He’s my early pick for most outstanding player of the tournament.
(Curry working on his 30 pt. game vs G-Town)
Besides Georgetown, Duke is the only other team from my elite eight that has been eliminated, which is fine by me. Everyone was so quick to describe their offense in terms of the Phoenix Suns style. I don’t think a team of slow white guys can be compared to an NBA team with phenomenal athletes. Leave it to a guy like Bob Huggins to bring great athletes to a college like West Virginia. I’m sure he won’t graduate half of them, but he’ll always have a good team. Either way they beat Duke, and that makes me a fan. You see what happens Duke? You see what happens when you rely so much on the three!
(West Virgina celebrating after beating Duke)
My favorite game so far would probably be a tie between the Western Kentucky/Drake game that went into overtime and the Stanford/Marquette game, which coincidentally also went into overtime. The way the Western Kentuckygame ended reminded me of the famous Vandy shot from all those years ago. Ty Rogers three pointer from over 25 feet away with three guys in his face was fantastic. I’ll remember the Stanford game for Brook Lopez’s leaner in overtime and Marquette stupidly tanking a three at the end of regulation instead of going for a lay-up. The score was tied, why take a three? The UCLA/Texas A&M game was also fantastic, everything should end with an eff you dunk.
Looking ahead we still have the top four seeds playing. I like North Carolina to advance if for no other reason than their home-court advantage. They have been killing teams so far, given they have been bad teams, but they’ve been playing well none-the-less. I’m hoping for a North Carolina/Tennessee match-up in the elite eight, that would be one hell of a game and the over/under would be 220 points. I think the best game of this round will probably be Stanford/Texas, especially the Brooks brothers vs Augustine/JJ Abrams match-up. I think the winner of this game will be able to beat Memphis and go on to the final four. Kansas got a little lucky with Clemson and Georgetown being upset so I think they have the easiest route to the final four and UCLA should be able to advance, but Xavier could be a tough elite eight test. Although I can still honestly say I don’t know the name of a single Xavier player.
(North Carolina has made it look easy so far, but can they win it all? I think so)
Well that about does it for my first round of ramblings about the tournament. I could go on all day talking about the stuff that we’ve all seen over the last week, but you’ve gotten the highlights. Look back to TOUTS in the upcoming days for more tournament coverage as well as a review of MLB 2K8 for the Xbox 360, a NBA update, opening day coverage and much, much more. Enjoy the rest of your Monday everyone.
