Sunday, March 18, 2007

Continuations

- Somebody please make a free throw.

- So Louisville's down by one point, Pitino calls a timeout to set up the last shot, and the best they can come up with is a freshman point guard tossing up a fallaway three-pointer from NBA range, with plenty of time to spare to boot?

- I've got no butterflies for Vanderbilt/Washington State since I didn't have either team getting this far in the first place. And seriously, ever since Vandy got rid of its athletic department a few years ago, they've been on a steady rise sports-wise. The women have always been good, but now the men are winning, the football team's getting respectable ... maybe more schools should try it.

- That block on Byars in the last minute of regulation was sick. Carter came from halfway across the court.

- Looks like Tyler Hansbrough was right about his face mask messing with his head. You know who's good is Ty Lawson.

- Drew Neitzel shot 9 for 27. That's Iverson-esque on a bad night.

- Georgetown and UCLA cut it much too close for my liking. What was with the halftime score for UCLA/Indiana being 20-13? That's a high school halftime score.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT!

- The one thing you don't hear (or, at least, I haven't heard) as much about Greg Oden is how well he runs the floor. You don't see guys who are as good in the post as he is with that kind of mobility also.

- I'm amazed that Xavier's even in this position considering Lavender and Burrell haven't arrived at the arena yet. It's because of their bench and their other wing players knocking down three-pointers.

- They actually chant "DAR-RYL" at D.J. Strawberry? That's hilarious.

- Matta really mismanaged Oden's foul situation down the stretch. He should have come out after picking up his third foul, and he should have come out immediately after getting his fourth with five minutes left, just to get some rest if nothing else. Did you see him at the end of the game? He looked exhausted.

- Did Hunter foul out too? I must have missed it.

- Lavender and Burrell: 3 points combined, I believe. (Edit: Actually, it was eight. Even so.)

- Let's put this out there in raw numbers: The score went from 59-50 to 72-64.

- Where was all this drama the first two days?

Chalk

- I think all the wind we got tonight was the sigh of relief coming from Badger Nation. That shouldn't have happened.

- Did I really pick Arizona in all three of my brackets?

- I'm having trouble remembering a year where so many of the 8/9 and 10/7 games were total coin flips. I mean, they usually are anyway just by their nature, but five of the eight games wwere decided by one late run and one went to overtime.

- So few upsets. Meh. And yes, I'm still mad about Illinois not closing out an overrated Virginia Tech squad. VT was probably a 7 (and Duke an 8), but there were so many teams with 9-11 losses that they had to go somewhere.

- Villanova really missed not having Nardi at 100 percent.

- Completely Unrelated Aside: What, exactly, is "getting your grown man on?" I'm hopelessly out of the loop.

- Anyone notice how the NCAA secretly went back to "East", "South", "Midwest" and "West" without making a big deal out of it? They also ended up bringing back the "ghost game" (6:31 p.m. entry), which was Oregon/Miami (Ohio) and sounded like it might have been the best game of the day. Plus the Ducks have an Aaron Brooks who's actually worth a damn.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Day Two, Part I

- I also missed on Texas Tech last night - my sources led me to believe Boston College wasn't any good.

- Today's early games: Georgia Tech/UNLV and Winthrop/Notre Dame, it looks like.

- Remember Winthrop lost in the final seconds to Tennessee last year on that jumper from the corner by Chris Lofton.

- "THAT'S A MAN'S JAM!"

- This is a sick run Winthrop's on right now. They're up by 20.

- Is Tennessee gonna break 110? Is Wisconsin gonna make a shot?

- The Irish are fighting back with a run of their own.

- I've got Virginia Tech going down tonight. Can't explain why. Just got a feeling they're seeded too high as a 5.

- Big three-pointer for Winthrop just now.

- This one's over! DING And a surprisingly subdued celebration afterward. It's like they expected to win.

- 4:39 p.m.: Tennessee's up to 107. Alando Tucker just hit a three for Wisconsin - he's going to have to put the Badgers on his back.

- And here we go; Wisconsin's cut the deficit to six.

- Make that four.

-I'm off to work. I'll be back after tonight's games.

Thursday, March 15, 2007

The Commonwealth of Virginia

- Tonight's games: VCU-Duke, Wright State-Pittsburgh.

- Anybody besides me think Kevin Harlan would be a good wrestling announcer?

- Is Virginia actually a commonwealth? I know Pennsylvania officially is.

- I always thought Drew Lavender was taller. He's only 5-7?

- Duke was going to lose to Pitt in the next round anyway. Still, though. If Jon Scheyer doesn't do his Gerry McNamara impression, we're not discussing this.

- And nice defense in the last 15 seconds of that game, huh? How does that happen?

- We're getting a healthy dose of Gonzaga-Indiana now.

Our Games Today

- Daivdson/Maryland, then leaders up to Penn/Texas A&M.

- How is the Washington State game already over? It's 4:25.

- FOR: The A&M cheerleaders.

March Madness Day 1, So Far

- No live blog this year. I'm leaving that to a trained professional.

- I'm pretty sure Syracuse and Drexel watched the Louisville game thinking, "Hell, we could've done that."

- In my money bracket, I've got Oral Roberts going over Washington State after Much Deliberation. Something off the board happens every year, and the Cougars haven't been in the tournament since 1994, so it eventually looked like the move to make.

- I think one of the best small-college gigs out there is Davidson. It's a consistent winner, you get exposure and face competition that most schools that size and level don't (either the annual Duke or UNC game is usually televised), and you can luck into a guy from your backyard like Stephen Curry once in a great while.

- There's gotta be something Jones from A&M can take for that, right? Something semi-permanent?

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Digging Up Sludge

- So I'm beginning to think that Butch not only rigged our Fafarazzi league, but is somehow pulling strings on the outside. He grabs Britney in the first round and not three days later she goes plummeting off the deep end. (Who ever imagined the day would come where Kevin Federline would look like the stable, dependable one?) Meanwhile, I finally dumped Simon Cowell after three weeks or so because he somehow only got me two points in three weeks while American Idol is on the air. Thanks for nothing, you hack.

- There's a slight outcry here because the Eagles aren't bringing Jeff Garcia back. But looked at another way, Garcia > Feeley, but Heather > Carmella, so it's pretty much a wash.

(By the way, I'm so going to catch hell for that from the usual suspects.)

Also, if this is the most off-the-field drama this team has this year, I'll be doing a jig.

- Clint Malarchuk. Tim Krumrie. Dave Dravecky. Napoleon McCallum. Tom Browning. Shaun Livingston. Did I leave anyone out?

- Randomly heard the other day: "Counting Blue Cars."

- This may also be a good time for me to try to rally the Jersey girls of the world to execute a full-scale beatdown on Antonella. She's not helping your cause, ladies.

- And finally:



Because sometimes, Spam is just too highbrow.

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