Random Thoughts and Brutal Honesty- Tournament Edition
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by user DRE-LO
After three days of a full blown dosage of college basketball tournament drama, let's get down to being brutally honest.
- The NCAA Tournament is one big proverbial party as we all know. Yet even in the best parties one finds a turd in the punchbowl or those few individuals that choose to sit in the corner and watch to see what everyone else is doing. Then you're left to wonder why in the blue hell they were invited in the first place. In this case, it was 18-12 Stanford who got their behinds handed to them on a paper plate by Louisville. You could even throw in the Arkansas Razorbacks in that category after their drubbing by USC. The selection commitee had to feel like turds themselves for selecting both of these teams at large while giving teams such as Syracuse and Drexel the shaft. Allow me to be the first to take them to task.
- I know that announcers such as Mike Breen, Jim Nantz, Joe Buck and Al Michaels get most of the accolades as far as commentating is concerned. But allow me to bring up another name which is one day {and it will be damn near soon} be on that list. Gus Johnson. Every time it's a close game and Gus is either on 1050 ESPN radio or on MSG Television in New York or especially the NCAA Tournament on CBS, I turn up my volume three notches. He captures the drama, significance and purity of the game better than anyone else in my opinion. It just seems to be a point during his call of the games that he drops the script the producers give him and shoots straight from the hip the rest of the way.
- Saturday was an exciting day throughout with three overtime games {1 double OT as well as many close games throughout. Xavier gave Ohio State a run for it's almighty dollar and nearly screwed up my entire Final Four as well as many others. It's no wonder they're a sure-in as an at-large bid every year from the A-10. They always end up winning a game or two and never go quietly. But at the end Ron Lewis and the OSU cast saved Greg Oden from having college basketball's last memory of him being a controversial foul. If they hope to go to the Final Four, they must eliminate these scoring dryspells that they seem to have at inopportune times. This gets them in deficits and has them playing catch-up. The same goes for Wisconsin who had to play catch-up against Texas A-M CC. With better defenses to come, playing from behind is not something they should get used to.
Georgetown has the tools to play with anybody in the country and can match different styles and tempos. They can play a tough, grind it out game with the likes of Roy Hibbert or a fast-paced versatile game with the likes of the talented Jeff Green and Patrick Ewing Jr off the bench. I think they're the darkhorse in the national title picture, don't you?
Texas A&M pulled off a gutsy victory over Louisville in which they were literally playing a road game since they were in Kentucky. Acie Law IV showed why he is the best player in the tourney with the game on the line in the final 2 minutes, whether it'd be on the FT line or with the ball in possession. A win like this in a partisan environment and an early test in the first half from Penn can make this team one of the more battle-tested teams headed into the Sweet 16.
Finally, a shout-out to Reggie Theus. The former All-Star Guard, TNT analyst and actor {"Hang Time" Saturdays on NBC in the Late 90's} has turned the New Mexico St Aggies from a 6-24 team 2 years ago into a blossoming 25-9 team that gave Texas a good run in a losing effort.
