Friday, March 20, 2009

Day 1 Tourney Thoughts

Due to a facist work policy that says I must devote my time in the classroom towards "testing in my trained subject area" and not to the NCAA tournament (even though both me and my students understood that's all we really cared about yesterday), I was unable to do any sort of live blog throughout the day. In restrospect though, I am able to put these thoughts to paper:

1. Yeah, I'll take your thanks now for both calling the UCLA-VCU game and the Western Kentucky upset of Illinios. Once again, Bruce Weber demonstrates that he was the reason Illinois made it to the 2005 Championship game, and not that he just inherited a winning team from Bill Self that was basically coaching itself. Bruce Weber is fast becoming the Larry Coker of basketball coaches, minus the champsionship ring. Pretty proud of my Maryland and Michigan picks as well, but I got Big 10 greedy in putting Minnesota over Texas.

2. Never, ever, ever ask me to pick an 8-9 matchup for you. Dear lord, one 9 and one 8 win, I guess one 9 and one 8 would win, and I still manage to get them wrong. You'd be better off asking Stevie Wonder for his Oscar picks for "Best Cinematography" than asking me to predict the 8-9 games. Sorry, Oklahoma State, but I am the equivalent of the SI cover jinx for you today.

3. Are you kidding me Memphis, Gonzaga, and Villanova??? I know every year one team has a scare where it looks like some unreal upset is going to happen before the vastly superior team realizes that it needs to start playing (the basketball equivalent of Julia Roberts marrying Lyle Lovett for a month), but yesterday was insane. Memphis was down with under 5 to play, while Gonazaga and Villanova were both down double digits mid-way through the second half. I cannot tell you how many times I wished I had a tack hammer and tickets to their game, so I could attack their coaching staff and starters during a timeout. And yes, I have both advancing to the second weekend, Nova in the Elite 8 and Memphis in the friggin' championship game. Brilliant picks.

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