Month: March 2014

RIP Duke, and today’s March Madness picks

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lord-have-mercer-t-shirt1There are always upsets in March Madness.

How tickled are we that Mike Chevrolet is out of the tournament? Mercer did not lose their cool, and that is why they upset Duke. It was a great moment.

What’s the connective thread between the teams that are coming in with the upsets? They all have a team full of seniors. Mercer, North Dakota State, Dayton, Stanford, Harvard: these teams are playing seniors who’ve been playing for four years together. They’re not a one-and-done, star-player team. They’re mature, and may I remind everyone it was the same thing when Butler swept the dance a few years ago.

In my bracket, we have won 22 games out of 32. We’re probably not in the lead, but usually people have lost 14 games or more. When you’re above the 20-game win mark, you’re doing pretty good. Almost everyone lost the Duke vs. Mercer game, as well as Dayton vs. OSU, and Harvard vs. Cincinnati, and maybe North Dakota State beating Oklahoma. It happens.

Today we’re picking Florida over Pittsburgh, but that’s going to be one tough game. Pitt is playing better, and their coach knows how to get him going. It depends whether Florida can hold it together. Syracuse should be able to hold it past Dayton because they have a lot of height, but again, Dayton’s seniors are used to playing together. It’s worth noting that Eastern Kentucky’s seniors lead the first half against Kansas, then fell apart on the second half.

I’m also picking Michigan State over Harvard, Villanova over Connecticut, and this hurts me to say, but I’m choosing San Diego State over North Dakota State. SDS has seniors and Steve Fisher, who was the coach at Michigan when they won the NCAA in 1989. He’s been at SDS for 7 or 8 years, and he knows how to coach.

Also, I’m taking Wisconsin over Oregon, Michigan over Texas, and Louisville over St. Louis, obviously.

Tomorrow, I’d like to see Wichita State beat Kentucky. It appears in their win over Kansas Sate, the Wildcat freshmen have decided they need to look good for the NBA scouts. (I wouldn’t choose Randall as a first round pick, but I’m not a pro.) These NBA guys won’t pick Russdiculous because of his height, but he’s not afraid to go against tall guys, which leads me to why college basketball is so wonderful.

There’s no finesse in the NBA. It’s all run, shoot, and let the tallest guy get the rebound. Nobody assists. Pretty unremarkable. March Madness really is the most exciting time of the year.

And a note to people who write on the internet: watch your spelling and grammar. [Editor’s note: 😐 ]

My picks for the first day of March Madness

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It’s almost upon us! I enter a pick-as-you-go bracket, and I’m not going to share an entire bracket, so here are my picks for the first round of games tomorrow.

I have the following teams advancing to the next round tomorrow: Florida, Pittsburgh, Ohio State, Syracuse, Cincinnati, Michigan State, Connecticut, Villanova, North Dakota State, San Diego State, BYU, Wisconsin, North Carolina State, Louisville, Arizona State and Michigan.

The field is wider than people think. I think Louisville can come through again, and of course, Florida plays good. The West is the easiest quadrant up there, the hardest is the Midwest — where Louisville is. We’ll just have to see!

Until tomorrow!

My PRELIMINARY thoughts on the NCAA brackets

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[Editor’s note: Puff has laid a glance at the brackets, and she awaits the newspaper tomorrow to deliver her in-depth analysis this week.]

Southern quadrant: Florida has a breeze.

The Eastern bracket will have upsets, but I don’t think there are any great shake ups. Michigan State is really beginning to play. Iowa State can come through, too.

As for the Midwest — what a terrible, lopsided quadrant! Louisville can take St. Louis. Mercer is playing Duke… It would great to see that upset, (NFL: Never Forget Laettner), but I doubt it.

And how did BYU end up at the dance? More on the The West seeds soon. In the meantime, I’m off to buy my math-enhanced brackets from the geniuses at myBrac8.com* because we can all use a little sharpness when determining our brackets.

[Editors’ note II: Please enjoy some newspaper quotes you’ll probably see after the first and the Friday conference rounds courtesy of Puff’s husband, Puff Daddy.]

Losing coach: “If you don’t do what you do, you’re gonna come up short.”

Losing coach: “I told our guys at half time, with the nine turnovers we had, why don’t you go out there and give them the ball nine more times and let them shoot. They took me literally, so we went down 18 more points.”

Player on winning team: “Coach pulled me out and kind of put the ball in my hands and told me, ‘Now go back out there and see if you can find your team mates. So, I found them, just like he said I should.'”

* Full disclosure: Puff’s granddaughter is a consultant for this company. But she’s really buying the brackets anyway because it’s just $3 and who knows anyway, right?

Dear college basketball network announcers…

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We are getting close to the crazy part of March Madness. Excitement will not be scarce. As you think about your brackets, don’t miss the opportunities to pick some of the lower-budget schools that will surely upset some of the bigger teams in the earlier rounds.

I’m not picking on the referees this week — I promise — but I want to address my advice to the network announcers. (Well, all of them except Mike Emrick.)

Please call the games as the action rolls on, and leave out the dribble (no pun intended) about how YOU would have done it. Please do not wax on about players and their families, coaching advice, celebs in the stands, and other non-event narrative. Just stay focused on the action taking place on the court. That is all you are paid to do, and we don’t need information overload to distract us from the action on the court. Save that for timeouts and half-time shows.

While you fans are drowning in basketball mania, don’t forget take an advance glance at the horses, because the Kentucky Derby is right around the corner.

Ramping for March Madness

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When you see a highly-paid coach sitting there with his mouth open, after losing three games in a row, and all he can say is, “I’m disappointed,” THREE TIMES, what are we to think?

His team is supposed to be made up of really good players. Three of them are the best, the top picks. His team was ranked 1 when they started; on Tuesday, they’re likely going to be pushed out of the top 25. And in order to get into the NCAA tournament, they have to win the SEC — and they’ve already been beaten by all the SEC teams.

Can you guess which coach’s thrice-used defense is, “I’m disappointed?”

This March Madness, it’s not going to be a top seed that takes it. As the college basketball teams go in to their tournaments — some of whom have to win to even get to the big dance — watch those little teams play their hearts out. Witchita State hasn’t lost a game yet. They’ve played some big teams, but now all their games are in their league. They didn’t play anybody “big” last year and made it to the final four. They’re well-coached. I’m just saying, you can’t count on the big dogs and the top seeds as you enter your bracket-picking.

On a related note, the NBA should absolutely make the age minimum 20 to enter. Staying in school a few more years is never a bad thing.

Lastly, a word about the PGA Honda Classic currently being played in Florida. Poor Rory McIlroy. I hope he keeps it together. Tiger Woods withdrew because “his back was bothering him.” He happened to be so far down it wasn’t funny… I can’t wait until the Master’s in April.