Monthly Archives: March 2010

Well that was exciting, wasnt it? I feel like I watched one of those classic Stanley Cup Playoff multi-OT games given how late we all were up watching that fantastic game between Kansas State and Xavier. The classic theater thats become the 2010 NCAA Tournament gave us another killer act last night, with another favorite to win it all eliminated by a mid-major upstart, a battle of culture contrasts that I couldnt take my eyes off despite the seemingly lopsided score and, of course, the KSU/Xavier game, narrated by the inimitable Gus Johnson, which, frankly, was one of the best games I’ve seen in a few years. Through it all, the JCB didnt make any money, however. A great, great pick with Butler over Sryacuse, but my other two unit play on Xavier was just a push. And by losing both single unit plays, we ended with a 1-2-1 record and a loss of 0.20 Units. Sigh. But, it was worth it. I love college basketball. And I love seeing it the topic of such intense water cooler discussion the following day. It’s been quite a fun ride.

The second set of Sweet 16 games tonight promises more intrigue. Can St. Mary’s and Northern Iowas continue to buck the establishment? Can Duke carry the torch for #1 seeds? Can Ohio State and Tennessee match their 2007 Sweet 16 game, perhaps the best tournament game in recent years until last night happened? And, for me, can the Big 10 team get at least one win? I have a juicy wager on the conference going Over 7.5 wins. Through two rounds, they have 7. Tonight, with Michigan State, Purdue and Ohio State, I have three chances to get one win. I am so keyed up about this play, that I might not pick any other games. I wonder how many folks out there believe me when I say that? I dont know if I even believe it myself. Anyway, here’s a quick look, with links, on all four games tonights. Picks may or may not follow.

#2 OHIO STATE VS #6 TENNESSEE. LINES, OSU -5, O/U 134

These teams are more than familiar with one another after having played three times in the last four season. Those games were settled by a combined eight points. Three years ago, in the Oden/Conley year in Columbus, these teams played a Sweet 16 classic. The Vols lept out to a  17-point lead, but a furious Buckeye rally eventually caught and passed the Vols en route to a 85-84 win. It paved the way for the Final Four for OSU. For the Vols, it was a bitter defeat, ending what some felt was their best team and Final Four chance in years. The only way to ease the pain of that stining defeat for the Vols would be to extract some revenge tonight and beat the Buckeyes.

This will be a battle of Ohio State’s starting five versus the depth of the Vols. OSU rarely uses bench minutes. The Vols play 11 guys who catch double digit minutes. However, this is not your prototypical Bruce Pearl team that uses it bodies and athletes to press, press, press all day. This teams’s bones have been made this winter by playing stifling half court defense and using size matchup advantages on the inside to make it hard to shoot against. Pearl may press some, as a way of throwing wrinkles at the Bucks, but I would be surprised if they went away from what has been so positive for them over the last couple of months. Look for the Vols to go big with Wayne Chisolm and Brian Williams playing a lot of minutes together in an attempt to stfile OSU’s offense and get them in foul trouble by trying to check that size. Ohio State is 7th in the KenPom ratings in offensive efficiency and 4th in eFG%. The Vols are 8th in defensive efficiency and 29th in eFG% defense. Cue the something has got to give cliches. Read more »

I wont lie: I am a little drained. Next March, I may have to pace myself better if I’m too throw myself into double and triple posts a day during the month of March. I needed a short break as everything was blending together. There were pleny of pundits out there chronicling after the fact the crazy first weekend of the tournament, so I bowed out for a few days, caught up a bit on my real job and visited this place in town they call the ‘gym’ to decompress from the 24/7 that college basketball had become for me and this blog the second March 1 rolled around.

We are sitting hours away from the beginning of what I feel is the most compelling Sweet 16 in years. The bounty of mid-majors, upstarts and Cinderellas makes it so, but so too does their added strength in play compared to their brethern in past tournaments. Rarely do those teams advance this far but between the efficient explosions of Cornell, elite defense of Northern Iowa, inside/outside greatness of St. Mary’s  and the constant staying power of Butler and Xavier, there is a sense that these teams not only can give a good showing this round, but they arent far fetched contenders for Indianapolis. I havent been able to shake the feeling all week that one of these teams will survive this weeked. And, I dont care who it is. I’m cheering for them all.

The tournament has been spurred by these gate crashers, whose overall first weekend success has led to a Sweet 16 with the highest cumulative sum of the remaining seeds since 2000. This year’s sum is 80. Since 2001, the nine-year average has been 66.33, so stacked up against the most recent numbers, this has been one of the craziest tournaments in at least 10 years. Consider that last year, the sum of seeds in the Sweet 16 was 48.

The last time the seed count was this high this late into the tournament was in 2000 when the Sweet 16 seeds equalled 85. Like this year, there is only one Sweet 16 matchup in which the seeds held serve from the first weekend. Three six seeds advanced into the regionals as did a pair of eight and ten seeds.  But, the two eight seeds were North Carolina and Wisconsin, both from power leagues and hardly true form Cinderellas. Both did advance to the Final Four, but lost to Florida and Michigan State. The 10 seeds included Gonzaga, who had made a run to the Elite Eight the previous year, and the Tommy Amaker coached Seton Hall team out of the Big East. So, we had some shocking seeds advance deep into the 2000 tournament, but there wasnt the true little guy feel to the Regionals that we have this year.

The better comparison to this season might be the 1999 tournament. The sum of Sweet 16 seeds that year was a whopping 88. It included an amazing five double digits seeds: a 13, 12 and three 10-seeds. While the 13-seed was an out-of-place looking Oklahoma squad with Edward Najera,  and one of the 10-seeds was the Big 10′s Purdue, the rest were decidedly little guys. The world first learned about Gonzaga during this tournament and fellow mid-majors Miami Ohio and Southwest Missouri State also made the Sweet 16 as double digit seeds. Only the Zags advanced another round, so hopefully the 2010 tournament can at least separate itself from 1999 and continue with at least a couple of these great stories into the regional finals.

I am stoked to see if any of these storylines can continue. If all breaks well, we can still have a mid-major Final Four. As unlikely as that might still be, its out there as a legit possibility. And something I am pulling for. I can live with a Final Four with Cornell and Northern Iowa.  Billy Packer will be rolling over in his grave. And thats a good thing. Onto the previews for tonight’s games. Read more »

Well, yesterday was interesting. We saw a 1, 2 and 3 seed all lose. Northern Iowa wrote the story of the tournament by taking out Kansas, by far the consensus favorite to win this tournament before it began. Want a stat to make you think? Yesterday, we mentioned the sum of total seeds in the second round this year wasnt much higher than last year, despite all the wackiness during the first round. Well, that will change in the regional round. Last year, the sum of seeds in the Sweet 16 was 49. This year it’s already 47 and we only have half the field booked for next week.

 Six leagues already have representation into next weekend’s Sweet 16.  One league doesnt have a qualifier yet is the Big 10. No worries. At least not yet. My local 11 has four chances today to build on their 4-1 2010 tourney record and get teams into the Sweet 16. Ohio State and Wisconsin are solid favorites. Michigan State and Purdue are coin flips. I need four wins combined from these teams the rest of the way to win toe Over 7.5 bet. So, I am already more than interested in half the action today. Here’s a quick peak at the quartet of Big 10 games today with picks on the whole day at the bottom of the page.

ACC/BIG 10 CHALLENGE

The Big 10 won the challenge for the first time ever in November. Now, two of its three regular season co-championships will have to carry that momentum against ACC foes. The final spots in the Midwest Regionals are up for grabs when Ohio State plays Georgia Tech and Michigan State play Maryland.

NBA Draftniks love this OSU-Georgia Tech game. All it does is include Evan Turner and Derek Favors, only the number 2 and 3 players on most draft boards, behind John Wall. Not to mention potential first rounders William Buford and Gani Lawal. A lot of folks are already saying the biggest winner of the weekend are the Bucks, who have seen their Region of Death turn into the one that has blown up everyone’s brackets. Kansas is now out of the way, but with all due respect to the Buckeyes, the are hardly a sure thing for this game, let alone next week in a regional semifinal game against Tennessee. I think the Jawhawks loss opens this whole bracket up for everyone still standing. Including Georgia Tech, a team whose roster is as talented as just about anyone else in the land. With Favors and Lewis, they have a big edge over the Bucks on the interior. The difference today is that Ohio State has more perimeter weapon than Oklahoma State did in facing Tech the other night with similar matchup issues inside. If Tech can find a way to harass one of Diebler, Buford or Lighty into an awful night, they might have a chance to steal it in the end. This is also the worst free throw shooting team in the ACC, yet they were near perfect in milking the win the other night. Can that keep up?

The Kansas loss also opens up the bracket for the winner of today’s Michigan State-Maryland game. The winner was supposed to grab next with Kansas, so there is a chance to do something special in this tournament that previously not might have been expected. But, do you know what? I think the winner here has to play about as excellent against Northern Iowa as they would have against Kansas to advance. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  Dont you think there should be a lot more buzz over a game between the Big 10 and ACC regular season champions? I am juiced for this one. Some clutch, but perpetually up-and-down, players in this one like Greivais Vazquez, Raymar Morgan and Kailon Lucas. These teams played last year in the Old Spice Classic and the Terps, thought to be undermanned and not as good as this year’s crew, flat dismantled the Spartans, shooting close to 50-percent in an 18-point win. Does Williams have Izzo’s number as a result? The difference today might be Morgan. He and Izzo werent getting along during that holiday tournament. Morgan was even benched for a time during that weekend. When he wasnt in foul trouble, that is. Well, we’re 16 months removed and the two are more than on the same page. I sense a big game out of him today, it might be the difference. Numbers to keep track of include how does MSU, sometimes turnover prone, handle the Terps pressure D that can cause a lot of miscues. It seems when the Spartans give us a head scratching loss its because they havent valued the basketball. But on the other side, track how many second chances the Spartans, always a terror on the boards, against one of the weakest defensive rebounding teams in the nation in Maryland. When Maryland has struggled this season its because they’ve been crushed on the offensive glass. Not many teams in the ACC can do that, however, so I expect this to be a major consideration in favor of MSU this afternoon. Maryland has had a big man emerge down the stretch with Jordan Williams, but we’ll see how he holds his own banging with the always physical and deep Spartans front line. MSU has struggled at times with post players who can score, if Williams can elevate his game he will give the Terps an X-factor that MSU might not be able to match. Read more »

St. Mary’s was a big win. Gives us house money at the start of the day. Murray looks good. Ohio look bad. Still a long way to go in those contests. Here are my picks in the third window:

Northern Iowa +12 (-120) Northern Iowa/Kansas Under 128 (-120), Half Unit…….We’re going to find out in a pretty hard core way how an elite defense from a mid-major level will fair against an elite offense, not only from a power league, but also at the top of the national polls. It’s the fifth ranked scoring offense of Kansas vs the second ranked scoring defense of Northern Iowa. It’s Kansas’  top ranked efficiency offense in the KenPom ratings going up against Northern’s 18th ranked efficiency D.  It’s also a battle of pace. Kansas will want it to be aggressive. Northern will bleed the clock on offense and work hard to force you to use every second on offense. Northern Iowa games play out a pace of less than 60 possessions a game. Jawhawk games are much faster with 10 more possessions on average.  The thing is, Kansas can D it up as well. In many instances KU’s D stats are better than Northern’s. Their offensive numbers arent anywhere near the Jayhawks. I dont know if you cant count on them for a lot of points. They’re 21-11 ATS, so I’ll take a chance that they have some hot stretches behind the arc, hit all their free throws and hit the defensive glass hard.   As for the Under bet, well, consider it a hedge on the Panthers literally not being able to score on the Hawks. They could lose this 74-58 and it would sound about rights. Also,  the Under is a combined 21-39 in their games this season. Both went Over on Thursday, so we’re playing the percentages here. First total play of the tournament. What could go wrong?

Old Dominion +5 over Baylor, 1 Unit….the Bears have look great in two outings against Texas this month. Otherwise they’re 3-7 ATS in other games since the start of February. I dont need any reason to take a Colonial team catching points in out of conference games. This is another battle of pace as ODU will want something slower, more deliberate to take advantage of their slew of frontcourt players in the half court. Baylor will want a faster game to take advantage of its quicker guards. Between Gerald Lee, Frank Hazell and Epke Udoh, we have three of the best forwards in the country.  You cant convince me that the Monarchs are outclassed in this one. This reminds me a lot like the VCU/Pitt second round game three years ago. VCU almost one. ODU has a great player in Lee that it can milk, the way VCU had Maynor. I think ODU makes a serious run at this game outright, so I’ll take the 5 point head start.

New Mexico +3 over Washington, 1 Unit….i think people are overreacting to what they saw in Round One. If the Huskies can take down Marquette from the Big Bad Big East, certainly they can take a team from the MWC. I dont know about that. This team hung 88 points on Cal, the only Pac 10 team they played this year. The Lobos can play. They’ve been in the top-20 virtually all season. They have 30 wins. They are the third seed. I dont think they should be catching points. They should be favored by a possession, not the other way around. The Huskies defense lets them down in this game and their runs ends. Both teams bring a lot of offense. Only the Lobos have a defense you can trust. New Mexico will slow the game down, thwart the Huskies tempo, drill treys and advance into the Sweet 16.

There have already been eleventy-billion words spilled wrapping up the first round. Why not another 1,000 or so, but JCB-style before the second round gets too busy. It was back-to-back 3-3 days for the blog, so we’re looking for a run today.

Will that run include the pupsters? Underdogs went 20-12 ATS in the first round. But after seeing the puppies go 11-5 on the first day, the chalkChalk is another name for the favorite team to win. did  bite back a bit yesterday by going 9-7, including 5-3 as double digit favorites. The favorites bounce back day included Cal covering as -1 on the closing line against Louisville. That doesnt make feel one ounce better about taking a bath on the Cards earlier in the day when it was Pitino’s boys laying the single point. Today the underdogs who made puppy betting so profitable on Thursday are back in action, most of them catching points again. Will they carry the day? Or will teams like Villanova, Tennessee,  Kansas and Baylor, who won, but didnt cover in Round One cash winning chalkChalk is another name for the favorite team to win. tickets today?

For the total trackers, the Under has won 18 times to the Over’s 14 hits. The Over profited slighty with a 9-7 mark on Saturday. Defense carried Friday and the Under carried Friday with an 11-5 mark.

CONFERENCE SCORECARDS

In the conference comparisons, Pac 10 boosters have already won. They’re crfowing this morning and telling us ‘we told you so’. Washington and Cal’s 2-0 record already cashed the Over 1.5 win total set by the oddsmakers. I went 0-2 betting against them. Sigh.

At least my Big 10 bet survived some plucky upstarts yesterday. The reports of depleted Purdue’s demise were greatly exaggerated. Dominating at critical stretches, Purdue gutted out a win over Siena and showed they wont go out without a fight. Wofford didnt miss a shot the first 10 minutes of the second half and put a mean scare into Wisconsin, but Jon Leuer saved the day as the Badgers advanced. Michigan State survived and thrived against a New Mexico State that was relentless. Jon Deibler caught fire and Ohio State cruised by UC Santa Barbara. With four wins, we’re half way to winning the Over 7.5 win bet. Tomorrow will obviously be a big day for that play. Michigan State and Purdue are +1 to Maryland and texas A/M respectively in their games, Wisconsin is -4 over Cornell and OSU is -6.5 over Ga Tech. If the two favorites win and we steal one of those coin flips, I’ll feel real good about things. It might make up for the Louisville loss. Maybe.   Read more »