NCAA and WIAA

It's good to be back on the blog after about 5 days without a post. It's been a hectic week in both the basketball world and with me personally. I just finished watching the Gonzaga/Texas Tech game and am preparing to watch Washington take on Pacific while checking in on the WIAA Division 2 Championship game every once in a while. After Randolph won in Division 4, my picks to win each division championship are still applicable. I have Racine St. Catherine's in D2 (although they are losing to Seymour right now), and later today I have Whitefish Bay Dominican and Milwaukee Vincent in D3 and D1, respectively. I will tell you that the D1 game tonight should be an outstanding game. Madison Memorial and Vicent may give us one of the best championship games in recent memory. If you can, check it out.

As I am preparing for the UWM game (after which you will read my diary of the game), I can't help but wonder who came up with the schedule for games today on CBS. We saw the Gonzaga/Texas Tech game in its entirety, but no other game will be on today without another game starting during it. Couldn't the NCAA have scheduled the games to start at 12:20 when they did, and have another game start at halftime of every game afterwards, wouldn't this have been a better idea to maximize viewership for the eight games? Oh well.

The upset of Gonzaga was a continuance of what we saw at the end of last night. People actually believed in Gonzaga this year, so it is surprising to see them out of the tournament this early. Even though last season some analysts had Gonzaga in the Final Four or even winning the whole thing, most of those predictions were taken with a grain of salt. However, this season Gonzaga wasn't really talked about as a National Championship threat for most of the season, but were very impressive none-the-less. They have a tough team and a great inside-out combo in Ronny Turiaf and Adam Morrison. Morrison is the kind of player who can take over a game when needed (see 10 straight Gonzaga points today), but unfortunately for the Bulldogs, it still wasn't enough. Maybe the Big 12 was tougher than we all thought it was...

...What? Kansas lost?!? Wait! Wasn't Kansas playing a 14 seeded Bucknell team which had never won an NCAA tournament game before, and came from a conference which hadn't won a single tournament game before (0-14)?!? Kansas, a team which was ranked number 1 in the country earlier this season, lost to a team which had to rent (for $150 for pizza and tee shirts) the Northern Iowa pep band because it doesn't have a pep band itself? But, the Jayhawks had three great seniors who had played in two previous Final Fours and three Elite Eights, they can't be out. Oh, but they are. It was a great game and ended with a Christian Laettner-esque shot, except Wayne Simien forgot to do the most important thing, and make it. I'll be completely honest, I'm cheering for Bucknell against the Badgers. I'll take all the crap people want to dish out, but I'm cheering for the biggest underdog since Hampton in 2001, and the first 14 to still be playing since 1999. I won't be disappointed if the Badgers win, but I am cheering for Bucknell. Plus, I still have UWM to cheer for (and will still have them to cheer for after today). One final note on this game. I was thoroughly disappointed that CBS did not switch coverage to this game until there was just over 1 minute remaining in the game. I had to watch Michigan St. and Old Dominion for most of the Kansas/Bucknell thriller. Although the St./Dominion game was close for awhile, you could tell that Michigan St. was about to pull away, and it was a number 3 seed losing to a 14 in one of the other games. I understand that CBS wants to show us games of teams from our region (Michigan St.), but wouldn't it be more of a concern of theirs to show us teams from our regional, especially when Wisconsin is playing the winner of the other game (Kansas/Bucknell)? Why wouldn't we be more interested in seeing the team which we are going to play in the next round, even if the game isn't close and isn't the biggest upset in 4 years? I don't understand this.

Syracuse also went down in round one, losing to Taylor Coppenrath and Vermont last night. I didn't see much of this game becuase, well, I fell asleep. All I have to say is that I won't sleep on the Cattamounts again. While this game wasn't quite as shocking as Kansas going down, it was still an upset. Syracuse was a team which many people thought could make a run back to the Final Four and possibly even win the title. I guess they were wrong. On a side note, I want Gus Johnson to do commentary on my life. I wonder how much it would cost to have him follow me around every day just announcing every thing I do. Man, that would be great!

By the way, here are the conference standings (at least the conferences I care about):

ACC- 5-0
Big 10- 3-2
Big 12- 4-2 (5-2 including the T. Tech win today)
Big East- 4-2
C-USA- 3-1
Pac 10- 2-2
SEC- 3-1

Is there a reason why the ACC is always considered the premiere basketball conference in the nation?

-Until next time...