1.) It makes perfect sense that after a disaster of a 1st round, with few upsets, even fewer competitive games, and the fewest opening day(s) drama that I've ever seen, we get an uber-competitive second round full of well played games (if again few dramatic finishes) and a nice set-up for a Sweet 16. I've long said that a great tournament is so rare to get from start to finish. There have been numerous great opening rounds with top seeds falling everywhere. We didn't get that here, with all sixteen Top-4 seeds getting out of the first round, but we got a few nice upsets in the 2nd round and a lot of fun ahead.
2.) Quick continuing tip of my cap to the NCAA for reducing the shot clock to 30 seconds two years back. The game is just immeasurably better with the reduced shot clock. So many games with scores into the 80's if not even higher. Maybe this is a confluence of a few different events, such as a lot of offense heavy teams still being alive but the tournament has been offense first and the teams themselves have executed with more sense and planning than normal.
3.) The East Region was shaping up to have a great finish, with a potential Elite 8 matchup of the defending champs at the #1 seed, and Duke at the #2 seed, battling it out in Madison Square Garden. Of course, both of those two teams get knocked out and we are left with absolute madness. Wisconsin after for years disappointing with Bo Ryan, is now a run of Final 4, Runner-Up, Sweet 16 (as a #7 seed) and Sweet 16 (as a #8 seed). A year after knocking out #2 seed Xavier, they played so well to knock off a team I really thought was impervious to an early upset. Wisconsin is really good (the Big 10 as a whole had a great first weekend), but now they get Florida (who just held a decent Virignia team to 35 points, and then get the winner of South Carolina (we'll get to Duke's killer in a bit) and Baylor, who continues to be the least respected team to make a handful of good tournament runs in recent years. I have no idea who will escape this region. I would favor Florida, but really, who knows?
4.) The West bracket is chalk city with the #1, #2 and #4 seeds all alive (Gonzaga, Arizona, West Virginia), and the only intruder is Xavier, who was a #2 seed last year and is the definition of a live dog. By the way, one of these four will be in the Final 4, and if you combine these four with the four I just mentioned in the previous point, one of them will play for the National Championship. If ever there was a year for either Mark Few's Gonzaga or Sean Miller's Arizona to break out, it is now when they have a clear path to not only the Final 4 but likely the Title Game. Even Xavier actually would be a great 'Cinderella' story for one of the most well respected programs to finally make the Final 4 as a disrespected #11 seed.
5.) I still can't get over both Villanova and Duke going down. For Duke, it was not an unfamiliar loss, as it had many similarities to their loss to Arizona in the 2011 Sweet Sixteen, when Duke got run out of the gym by a more athletic unit. The one difference is that team had a monster in Derrick Williams (before he turned into an uber-bust). I still can't fathom Duke giving up 65(!) points in teh second half. Frank Martin has done a really nice job building that South Carolina program. Duke had a clear path to another Final 4 with Villanova out of the way, and screwed it up. For a guy who has won 5 titles overall, and two in the last seven years, Duke has had a litany of early flameouts, not making it past the first weekend in: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2012, 2014 and now 2017. As for Nova, their one year respite of not being early seed losers is gone, but I still found that the most surprising loss by the #1 overall seed since Kansas got stunned by Northern Iowa in 2010. This Villanova team was deep, experienced and so solid, and for them to get picked off in the 2nd Round still shocks me.
6.) That midwest region is well set-up for Kansas, but if anything that's when they've really struggled in the past. Louisville is gone, and the #3 seed in the region, Oregon, is missing one of their best players in Chris Boucher. Michigan is fine but still a #7 seed. Purdue is big and is an analytical-favored darling, but still, this should be Kansas's region to lose. Now, it was easily their region to lose in 2013 when Michigan picked them off in OT in the Sweet 16 (Michigan would end up in the National Title Game). That year, their #2 seed in the region (Georgetown) lost to Florida Gulf-Coast in the first round. In 2011, Kansas was the #1 seed with a #12, #11 and #10 in their region, and the #11, Shaka Smart's VCU, blitzed them from deep in the Elite 8. More about Kansas later, but while this draw looks really enticing, it never is as easy as it seems for them.
7.) This is probably year five or so of the Turner/CBS coordinated broadcast of March Madness, and I appreciate it more and more every year. Getting every game available live is just such a treat. Sure, it gets annoying juggling four channels and having to figure out where TruTV is each year, but you know what was worse? When you had to depend on CBS deciding to switch to the game that was best for you to watch as we did for a decade or so before this. The announcing teams are generally great (even if I still pour one out sadly for the Verne-Raftery duo). The halftime/pre-game/post-game teams are good - especially now that Charles and Kenny give 10% of a shit instead of zero. I'm all for this continuing for years and years and years.
8.) My word, that South Region just loaded up with blueboods, huh? Sure, Kentucky, and to a point, UNC, escaped in the 2nd round, but here we are with a mouthwatering Sweet 16 game of Kentucky vs. UCLA, with the Lonzo Ball and Friends show up against an always entertaining Kentucky group. And who does the winner most likely get? The one team that would like to run as much as either Kentucky or UCLA in UNC. The over/under for these games has to be 170 or so. Now, if a half-decade back taught us anything, it is to not disrespect Butler, and it is great to have them a live sleeper again, but the world wants Ball vs. UK and then Ball/UK vs UNC. Just give us this, please!
9.) As someone who has tertiarally followed Kansas for a while, this is the strangest brew yet. FOr years, they have plaed the tournament in a skittish, try-not-to-lose variety that was infuriating. In so many games they start out slow and cold and depend on their great defense to eventually wear teams out. This entire season has been something very different, a Kansas team defined by their guards, their tempo, their offense and not their defense, and they are looking like it through two tournament games. 190 points total. Bombing away from three. The combo of a potential Player of the Year in Frank Mason III and a top one-and-done prodigy in Josh Jackson is a title-winning combination. Kansas has easily been the most impressive team through two games, something very foreign for them, and while past Kansas teams have shown that can turn in any given cold five-minutes, this vintage just seems different.
10.) The Picks:
East:
(4) Florida beats (8) Wisconsin
(3) Baylor beats (7) South Carolina
(4) Florida beats (3) Baylor
West
(1) Gonzaga beats (4) West Virginia
(2) Arizona beats (11) Xavier
(2) Arizona beats (1) Gonzaga
Midwest
(1) Kansas beats (4) Purdue
(7) Michigan beats (3) Oregon
(1) Kansas beats (7) Michigan
South
(1) UNC beats (4) Butler
(3) UCLA beats (2) Kentucky
(3) UCLA beats (1) UNC
Final Four
(W2) Arizona beats (E4) Florida
(M1) Kansas beats (S3) UCLA
(M1) Kansas beats (W2) Arizona
2.) Quick continuing tip of my cap to the NCAA for reducing the shot clock to 30 seconds two years back. The game is just immeasurably better with the reduced shot clock. So many games with scores into the 80's if not even higher. Maybe this is a confluence of a few different events, such as a lot of offense heavy teams still being alive but the tournament has been offense first and the teams themselves have executed with more sense and planning than normal.
3.) The East Region was shaping up to have a great finish, with a potential Elite 8 matchup of the defending champs at the #1 seed, and Duke at the #2 seed, battling it out in Madison Square Garden. Of course, both of those two teams get knocked out and we are left with absolute madness. Wisconsin after for years disappointing with Bo Ryan, is now a run of Final 4, Runner-Up, Sweet 16 (as a #7 seed) and Sweet 16 (as a #8 seed). A year after knocking out #2 seed Xavier, they played so well to knock off a team I really thought was impervious to an early upset. Wisconsin is really good (the Big 10 as a whole had a great first weekend), but now they get Florida (who just held a decent Virignia team to 35 points, and then get the winner of South Carolina (we'll get to Duke's killer in a bit) and Baylor, who continues to be the least respected team to make a handful of good tournament runs in recent years. I have no idea who will escape this region. I would favor Florida, but really, who knows?
4.) The West bracket is chalk city with the #1, #2 and #4 seeds all alive (Gonzaga, Arizona, West Virginia), and the only intruder is Xavier, who was a #2 seed last year and is the definition of a live dog. By the way, one of these four will be in the Final 4, and if you combine these four with the four I just mentioned in the previous point, one of them will play for the National Championship. If ever there was a year for either Mark Few's Gonzaga or Sean Miller's Arizona to break out, it is now when they have a clear path to not only the Final 4 but likely the Title Game. Even Xavier actually would be a great 'Cinderella' story for one of the most well respected programs to finally make the Final 4 as a disrespected #11 seed.
5.) I still can't get over both Villanova and Duke going down. For Duke, it was not an unfamiliar loss, as it had many similarities to their loss to Arizona in the 2011 Sweet Sixteen, when Duke got run out of the gym by a more athletic unit. The one difference is that team had a monster in Derrick Williams (before he turned into an uber-bust). I still can't fathom Duke giving up 65(!) points in teh second half. Frank Martin has done a really nice job building that South Carolina program. Duke had a clear path to another Final 4 with Villanova out of the way, and screwed it up. For a guy who has won 5 titles overall, and two in the last seven years, Duke has had a litany of early flameouts, not making it past the first weekend in: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2012, 2014 and now 2017. As for Nova, their one year respite of not being early seed losers is gone, but I still found that the most surprising loss by the #1 overall seed since Kansas got stunned by Northern Iowa in 2010. This Villanova team was deep, experienced and so solid, and for them to get picked off in the 2nd Round still shocks me.
6.) That midwest region is well set-up for Kansas, but if anything that's when they've really struggled in the past. Louisville is gone, and the #3 seed in the region, Oregon, is missing one of their best players in Chris Boucher. Michigan is fine but still a #7 seed. Purdue is big and is an analytical-favored darling, but still, this should be Kansas's region to lose. Now, it was easily their region to lose in 2013 when Michigan picked them off in OT in the Sweet 16 (Michigan would end up in the National Title Game). That year, their #2 seed in the region (Georgetown) lost to Florida Gulf-Coast in the first round. In 2011, Kansas was the #1 seed with a #12, #11 and #10 in their region, and the #11, Shaka Smart's VCU, blitzed them from deep in the Elite 8. More about Kansas later, but while this draw looks really enticing, it never is as easy as it seems for them.
7.) This is probably year five or so of the Turner/CBS coordinated broadcast of March Madness, and I appreciate it more and more every year. Getting every game available live is just such a treat. Sure, it gets annoying juggling four channels and having to figure out where TruTV is each year, but you know what was worse? When you had to depend on CBS deciding to switch to the game that was best for you to watch as we did for a decade or so before this. The announcing teams are generally great (even if I still pour one out sadly for the Verne-Raftery duo). The halftime/pre-game/post-game teams are good - especially now that Charles and Kenny give 10% of a shit instead of zero. I'm all for this continuing for years and years and years.
8.) My word, that South Region just loaded up with blueboods, huh? Sure, Kentucky, and to a point, UNC, escaped in the 2nd round, but here we are with a mouthwatering Sweet 16 game of Kentucky vs. UCLA, with the Lonzo Ball and Friends show up against an always entertaining Kentucky group. And who does the winner most likely get? The one team that would like to run as much as either Kentucky or UCLA in UNC. The over/under for these games has to be 170 or so. Now, if a half-decade back taught us anything, it is to not disrespect Butler, and it is great to have them a live sleeper again, but the world wants Ball vs. UK and then Ball/UK vs UNC. Just give us this, please!
9.) As someone who has tertiarally followed Kansas for a while, this is the strangest brew yet. FOr years, they have plaed the tournament in a skittish, try-not-to-lose variety that was infuriating. In so many games they start out slow and cold and depend on their great defense to eventually wear teams out. This entire season has been something very different, a Kansas team defined by their guards, their tempo, their offense and not their defense, and they are looking like it through two tournament games. 190 points total. Bombing away from three. The combo of a potential Player of the Year in Frank Mason III and a top one-and-done prodigy in Josh Jackson is a title-winning combination. Kansas has easily been the most impressive team through two games, something very foreign for them, and while past Kansas teams have shown that can turn in any given cold five-minutes, this vintage just seems different.
10.) The Picks:
East:
(4) Florida beats (8) Wisconsin
(3) Baylor beats (7) South Carolina
(4) Florida beats (3) Baylor
West
(1) Gonzaga beats (4) West Virginia
(2) Arizona beats (11) Xavier
(2) Arizona beats (1) Gonzaga
Midwest
(1) Kansas beats (4) Purdue
(7) Michigan beats (3) Oregon
(1) Kansas beats (7) Michigan
South
(1) UNC beats (4) Butler
(3) UCLA beats (2) Kentucky
(3) UCLA beats (1) UNC
Final Four
(W2) Arizona beats (E4) Florida
(M1) Kansas beats (S3) UCLA
(M1) Kansas beats (W2) Arizona
