THE GOOD
- ETSU versus Pitt, one of my favorite games that I watched. If you didn't see it, don't be deceived at all by the final, Pitt winning by 10. This one was close for 38 minutes. A few times in the second half, it looked like Pitt was finally going to pull away, but Eastern Tennessee State showed as much heart as anyone in this tournament because they kept coming back. They were shooting with confidence, and crashing the offensive glass with a crazy vigor. Number one seeds are now 100 for 100 in the first round of the NCAAs, but I definitely thought ETSU could pull this one off.
- Day 2, which made up for a sort-of boring day one. Western Kentucky-Illinois was a great game, but other than that, Thursday lacked the typical drama we come to expect from March Madness. Friday, on the other hand, was just ridiculous. Oklahoma St.-Tennessee, Ohio St.-Siena, Marquette-Utah St., Pitt-ETSU and FSU-Wisconsin were great nail-biters.
- The fact that anything above a 4-13 is basically a crap shoot. It seems that this has become the trend, and I like it. Every year, there seems to be one upset in the 16 games played by seeds 1-4. A two-seed going down happens about once every six or seven years, but it seems every year now either a three or a four is going to go down. That's definitely the line, though, because the other 16 games are anyone's guess. Three five seeds fell, and Purdue wasn't comfortable with their win. Only one six seed won, but both UCLA and Marquette were taken down to the wire by VCU and Utah St., respectively. Cal, BC, and Clemson all tanked as seventh seeds. BYU and Ohio State both lost as 8 seeds, and Oklahoma State was forced to sweat. It makes filling out your bracket impossible.
THE BAD
- The ACC, which absolutely embarrassed itself on Friday. It had a strong show Thursday, with Maryland pulling the upset over Cal, and UNC and Duke taking care of their opponents. The only team to fail was Clemson, but hey, they always fail. Then Friday happened. Wake looked like the 13 seed playing when they were positively clobbered by Cleveland State. Tyrese Rice apparently forgot he was good, and USC blew the game open against BC. FSU somehow figured out a way to blow a 12 point lead against a Wisconsin team who actually makes you cringe as you watch their offense. Oh, by the way, all four ACC teams that lost were higher seeds than their opponents, and there were only ten higher seeds to lose in the first round.
- TV timeouts, which are the most maddening things ever created. Games lose all momentum because of them. There's one every four minutes, plus coaches get a full timeout and three 30-second timeouts per half. Add in the fact that CBS sees one 30-second timeout equal to one 30-second commercial, and games take entirely too long.
- The fact that every single game is on CBS. Yeah, yeah, I know they're online. And I know nothing will be done about this because obviously CBS was the highest bidder. But come on. With so many close games all at the same time, it's impossible not to miss a crazy ending because you're watching another one. Not only that, but sometimes CBS makes some questionable decisions as to when to switch from game-to-game. As Maryland and Cal were battling back and forth during the second half on Thursday, CBS thought it was necessary to show the end of the Northern Iowa-Purdue game. Fine, fine, even as the most die hard of all Terp fans, I can accept that. However, CBS needs to learn that when a team is up by four points with two seconds remaining in the game, THE GAME IS OVER. It doesn't do anything for my blood pressure either to see that apparently the network thinks my time is better spent watching players shake hands than players on other teams battle it out on the floor. Just saying.
That was obviously a bit of a stretch, but hey, I like balance in my posts. Here's hoping the endof the weekend is as good as the start of it.
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