Tag Archives: March Madness

March 27, 2010

Doin Elite Lines

By chappy81

I know, last week's half naked Will Ferrell aka Jackie Moon picture was a disappointment, so this week I give you, body paint!

I did about as bad as I could have on my picks for the Sweet 16, but you just like Jesse James I’ll have to dust myself off and move on. Maybe I underestimated Tennessee, and I definitely gave the double digit seeds a little more credit than I should have. I thought they’d be close enough to cover a spread or two, but that wasn’t the case. I guess the last two days truly were separation days. The Cinderella’s went down, and the true contenders are headed to the Elite 8 with the Championship in sight. There was one thing I pondered while watching Duke tonight, did anyone get screwed more by the making of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy than Scheyer? He must hear so much hobbit trash talk on the court every game I wish we could hear him mic’d up. I know I’d be getting my punches in… Anyways, here’s my picks for the weekend games, and who will be making the final four.

Kentucky (-3.5) Over West Virginia

This is a tough one for me. I will be pulling hard for West Virginia, and huggy bear. But as much as I want them to win, I know they won’t. They need to pick up the defense, and if they can somehow stop/slow down Kentucky from running up and down the court, they have a shot. I just think Kentucky looks too good to be beat. This will be the first truly good team they’ve faced, and we should be able to tell if they are going to be able to walk their way to a Championship after this game. I thought Cornell would put up a little fight, but I was completely wrong. I think I’ve now forced myself to not pick against Kentucky again in fear of being eaten by Demarcus Cousins. Is it just me or is anyone else curious how much bigger he is going to get  when he hits the pros? Christ, he already looks as big as Al Jefferson out there. Ok, ok, maybe that was an exaggeration, but agianst Cornell’s twiggy center, and most other players he’s come across he looks like a man amongst boys. The guy is going to be huge after he hits the weights for a couple years.

Butler (-3) Over Kansas State

I’d really like to see Pullen have some more cracks at game winners, the guy is nails when it matters most. My biggest question for this game is, how much does K-State have in the tank after that double OT marathon. I’m impressed with how many minutes those guys have played, and maybe Gus Johnson made them seem a little longer, but it has to catch up to you somewhere along the line. Maybe they are just young and can shake off the soreness or are in that good of condition. I think adrenaline could get them through this game, but Butler is playing out of their minds right now. Never bet against the team with the longest winning streak even if you really want to win the bet. This should be a good game. I’m REALLY looking forward to this one! Continue reading

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

March 23, 2010

Doin College Lines

By chappy81


My outlook heading into the sweet 16; Two brackets gone miserably wrong, and one with plenty of hope. I never expect to win in the pick’ems, so I usually just root more for entertaining action. In the midst of all these games I realized I hadn’t done a preview for the Vegas lines in awhile, and what better time than during the always entertaining March Madness. Anyways, here’s how I see the eight games playing out.

Cornell (+10) Over Kentucky

Kentucky has cruised through the tourney so far beating both teams they played to a pulp by 29 and 30 points. They have the most “NBA” talent of any team left, and have shown why they are a #1 seed. They destroyed a sixteen seed, and a slumping nine seed. Their reward is to play the Cinderella Cornell squad who has one less tourney win (6) than Kentucky has championships (7). I could see Cornell covering the spread if they keep raining threes like they have, but their main concern will be to not let Kentucky run wild. This is much easier said than done. If their zone somehow slows the cats down, then we could see this Cinderella make some noise. I can’t believe some of the “experts” are picking them to win. I wouldn’t go that far, but maybe a single digit win for Kentucky.

Said it before and I'll say it again, Evan Turner's game reminds me of Brandon Roy's.

Ohio State (-4.5) Over Tennessee

I’ve been repping the Buckeyes pretty hard since I have them winning it all in my one bracket of hope. I probably just jinxed them, but watching Evan Turner nearly put up a triple double in their last game has me thinking there’s a chance he could single handedly get them to the final four. The Buckeyes will need to avoid making the silly turnovers like they did against Georgia Tech which was the sole reason the game even close. The Vols don’t boast a high powered offense, so it’ll be interesting to see if they can create some easy hoops with Ohio States’ mistake prone lapses during games. If this game is close, it will be because Turner was held in check, and that should be priority number one for the Vols.

West Virginia (-3.5) Over Washington

Although I’ll be rooting for an upset in this game, it’s pretty tough banking on that to happen. West Virginia is a MUCH more physical team than the Huskies first two opponents. I think the physical play will give their shooters a rough time. If Washington has any chance they will need Isiah Thomas and Quincy Pondexter to play flawlessly. West Virginia is somewhat offensively challenged, but there’s good news for the Mountaineers, the Huskies are ranked 295th in free throws conceded. I see the Mountaineers being too much for the Huskies to handle.

Syracuse (-6) Over Butler

Continue reading

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

March 19, 2010

March Madness the Best Day 1 EVER!

By chappy81

Easily the most time I've spent on CBS's website...

I’m not even going to try and recap the amazing day that happened yesterday. Personally I thought it was far and away the best 12 hour stretch of basketball I’ve seen in my lifetime. There were buzzer beaters, overtime, comebacks, cinderella stories, the whole enchilada! I’m hoping that today will bring just as much excitement, but am somewhat skeptical that the games will live up to yesterdays excitment… I don’t even know what my favorite moment was from yesterday, because there were so many of them. If there was ever a time when Sportscenter needed a top 20 plays list, yesterday was the day for it.

  • 7 of the 16 games were decided by 3 points or less
  • 11 of the 16 games were decided by single digits
  • 4 of those games were decided by a shot made in the last five seconds

Quincy Pondexter’s performance was something out of Steph Curry’s book, leading a storming Washington Husky team back from a 14 point deficit making every shot he took over the last six minutes including the game winner. Murray State, Ohio, and Old Dominion all gave us reasons to believe there could be another George Mason, although I don’t see any of them making it to the elite 8, but then again, after yesterday’s action anything is possible. It was good to see St. Mary’s get their first tourney win and rep the WCC. If you liked buzzer beaters Ishmael Smith, Pondexter, and Danero’s will all be highlights for the rest of the tourney. I’d write more, but the games are about to start, and I’m at work, so it’s time to start streamling again! If today is anything like yesterday, then every basketball fan won’t want to miss a minute of the action! Feel free to let us know what your favorite moment was from day 1.

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

March 15, 2010

What March Madness Could Have Looked Like

By chappy81

With the upcoming March Madness tourney about to start, I thought I’d do a “what if” post. What if college basketball players were like their football counterparts and had to stay in college for all four years!?! Think how much different the brackets would be! Would it be a no brainer to pick the Texas Durantulas? Probably not, but I’m going to run through the teams that I think would be in mix based on guys they’d still have. I’m not completely sure who the champ would eventually be, but it’s always fun to debate, and I’d have to give it to Senior Kevin Durant!

Memphis – No they wouldn’t have Derrick Rose, because he would be deemed ineligible from that whole cheating on his SAT thing. They would still have Tyreke Evans and Shawn Taggert though. Having both of these guys back would improve their defense. They already showed they could score without them, but they’d just be that much better by being able to shut down the opponents key players. I’m 99.9% sure they would’ve added to their impressive winning streak, and pushed it over 70 games. Continue reading

8 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

December 15, 2009

Should the NCAA Tourney be Changed?

By cali4dre

Today we got in a solid e-mail chain argument on this Wall Street Journal article. It basically states, that we should expand the March Madness to 96 teams instead of the normal 64, and that would be a “no brainer”. It also states that they should have a first round bye for the teams in the top 32, and have the rest duke it out to play with the top 32 adding an extra round for all the teams that MIGHT have made the Tourney…

Cali4Dre: So what happens to the NIT?  This really dilutes that tourney to barely any decent teams, do they still hold the NIT any more or just cancel it in this scenario?  I think this dilutes the talent in the NCAA Tourney and extends an already really long event…

Chappy81: I agree, it’s waay too many teams. I could care less about the teams ranked 65-96… They should’ve won more games if they wanted to guarantee themselves a spot!

Dyslexic: Fair enough…although his additional field of teams that would get on the left were all pretty decent teams….wasn’t like USF was in there

Chappy81: I think March Madness is one of the best events in sports already. I don’t think they need to change for the sake of change!

Cali4Dre: I agree about the NCAA Basketball, it’s already pretty all-encompassing and very fair, even including a 65th team.  I think the NCAA should spend WAYYY more time figuring out how to make Football more like the good thing they have set up in basketball.

Dyslexic: Of course it’s fair already….the entire idea of expanding would be to gather more money for the schools and the NCAA itself, if there wasn’t money being left on the table they wouldn’t consider this.

Cali4Dre: In the article, I was turned off from the second paragraph where the guy states that expanding the NCAA to 96 teams “is the biggest no-brainer in sports”… really????  Why not expand it to 128 teams and add a full round???  Why not 196 and add a round and a half if there’s so much left on the table?  Why? Because it dilutes the tourney and brings in the rifr-raff instead of making it a tournament for the ELITE teams in College Basketball… Conference Champions, Top Ranked teams, and those teams that scheduled tough non-conference schedules and one some of those games.

This guy is crazy to think this is more pressing than changing the BCS system to a playoff.

Dylsexic: what money would they be leaving on the table?

I mean, I just work at LoopNet, so I can’t give you a detailed breakdown….But one example I can think of is the contract the NCAA signs with ESPN or CBS coming up will be highly leveraged on the additional games and higher advertising prices either company could charge for advertising during those games. Ticket sales will bring in more money because the NIT are home games for teams and they pocket more money… Heck, many of the first games of the regional NIT games aren’t even televised, if those games are wrapped into the NCAA tourney and they are all on TV, and national TV at that, it would certainly bring in a boat load more money.

Cali4Dre: But like I mentioned, they earned the right to play with the nation’s very best schools by winning their conference, as humble as it may be.  They didn’t finish in the middle of the pack in their conference and happen to schedule a bunch of non-conference powder-puffs because they could afford to buy the games and bring in slaughter house meat to roll over on their floor.  That’s all, I’ve exhausted my argument.

Dyslecix: Exactly…so they can add to the field, let those smaller teams who’ve earned their way in, and still be a part of it…still make as much money…and at the same time roll in more of those major conference schools that were middle of the pack (and have big names), all the while the NCAA still rakes in the dough, and more of it.

I think this will be highlighted even more this year after the Pac-10 only get’s in two schools….I’m sure the NCAA would love it if they could still find ways to bring a UCLA, Arizona, Oregon, despite the fact the programs are down for a year or two.

I’m just playing the other side of the coin. Either way it goes I wouldn’t objective…I’d like to say this isn’t the biggest “no brainer” in sports to the average sports fan. He must have been catering to the rich WSJ readers!

Cali4Dre: One last comment… it seems as though you might be describing the Major Conference Championship Tourneys.  That’s where, on National TV, the major conference teams that were middle of the road, and didn’t play the best non-conference schedules can either add to their win total to get back in the argument for a bid or win the auto-bid themselves.  If they don’t do either, why invite them to the Big Dance at all??  Just cause they are in a Major Conference?  Major Conferences already get like half their teams (for instance the Big East usually has like 10 of their 14 teams), you want teams from the bottom half as well?

Dylsexic: I played college basketball I get what the Major Conference Championships are all about 🙂

Again, I don’t know how to boil my point down any more. The NCAA would love to bring in as many Major Conference Schools as they can (I assume with at least a winning records) and leverage the hell out of them in every aspect to make more money. Florida, UCLA, Oregon, Arizona, LSU, Indiana, Michigan: You guys had a down year, worry not! They want excuses to bring schools like the ones I used as examples and there big names into the fold each and every year they might be down, and leverage the hell out of expanded fields for money,  ticket sales and what not.

Harvard, Alcon St, Weber St, San Diego, USF, Rider, Fordham you guys one your super small conference tourney? Awesome, that’s great, you can still come and join the big dance…were just going to make sure we can make as much money from all of the bigger schools that would have missed out.

Cali4Dre: Making the tourney 128 teams would be better numbers-wise than 96, or seeding teams from 1-24 makes sense as well… it’s just lame to have half a round imho.  And absorbing the entire NIT pool isn’t a bad idea, but that’s the whole point, to have a champion of the riff-raff, the “other guys”.  I think the mid-majors and smaller basketball schools in big conferences (football schools per se) like the idea of still being able to win a championship against their equals.  Why scale back the hardware to just one trophy nationally?

I don’t know man, it’s just messing with tradition jacks everything up.  Look what the BCS did, JUST BECAUSE THERE WAS MONEY ON THE TABLE.  The ordinary fan, and student, is the first to lose out when money enters the conversation.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Sports