Tournament Thoughts - Second Round Sunday

They're doing it again. Now the announcers are saying the brawl in China helped bring Georgetown together as a team.

Georgetown came out hot then basically played lax for 12 minutes between the two halves, and NC State went on a 30-9 run that gave them a lead they basically never relinquished.

Though they almost blew it by missing 4 free throws in the final minute. Georgetown even had a chance to chuck up a game winning 3-pointer. Because NC State did not foul. Under 5 seconds off a rebound, far from the basket (no chance of shooting foul), up by 3, you should foul. It would almost be impossible to lose, but coaches are afraid of a made free through, purposeful miss, rebound and putback. What are the chances of that happening?

Love Draymond Green. Maybe everyone is getting a little sick of him and the story about Magic Johnson calling him, but he really is a special player.

I love Rick Majerus, but the end of the game was brutal. His fouling strategy at the end of game made it simultaneously boring and exciting. Exciting because it almost worked, boring because it took half an hour.

John Henson's wrist might still be hurting. He was really furious when a guy took a swipe at it.

If two guys were so good at Ames High School how come The Mayor didn't get either? I guess it makes sense, McDermott wanted to play for his dad and Barnes was the #1 recruit in the entire country.

North Carolina just has too much talent for Creighton. They can beat themselves at times, but when they turn it on, Creighton has no chance.

Everything about Gregory Echinique is impressive, except his glasses.

For all who root for upsets, this is what you get. A 25-0 run by Florida. Upsets very often lead to bad games in the next round.

I loved Norfolk State's win, but I kind of what have liked to see Missouri-Marquette.

The Norfolk State cheerleaders remind me of Bring It On, when they stole the routine from the black school. And a 27-year-old Gabrielle Union played a high school cheerleader.

This is the problem when a team plays great defense and focuses on defense. South Florida couldn't get a bucket when they needed one.

As soon as the Ohio game ended I switched to Xavier-Lehigh and they showed Jim Nantz delivering the news to Clark, and he was visibly nervous and excited. Very nice moment.

And I hope he enjoys it because they have no chance against North Carolina. That game will be 60-30 at some point during the second half before Roy Williams calls off the dogs.

But Kendall Marshall broke his wrist. Non-shooting hand so he will surely be able to play. But between him and Henson they are going to have a tough time because this is where the tournament gets tougher. First three games against Vermont, Creighton and Ohio. But last three games could conceivably be against 3 top 10 teams out of the group of Kansas, Syracuse, Ohio State, Michigan State and Kentucky. Hard to win three straight against that competition with two key players at less than their best.

Lehigh had an incredible run and a big lead against Xavier, but once it started to go wrong they seemed to start to lose confidence. And Xavier took advantage. They kept feeding Kenny Frease because he had 3 inches and 50 pounds on Gabe Knutson. Frease had 25 points on 11 of 13 shooting and is the reason Xavier won. Let's see if he can do that against Perry Jones III. Though PJ3 is skinny.

I like Lehigh's uniforms, you don't see many teams with brown in their color scheme.

We still have not had a buzzer beater or an overtime game in this tournament. I guess the Kansas game was the closest thing we got.

A shame for Robbie Hummel. What a star-crossed career. At least he ended it on a good note.

And down goes another trendy Final Four team. Even though I did horribly in round 1 I did not fall into the Missouri and Florida State traps.

Every team left plays in the eastern time zone except Baylor and Kansas who are in the central. Ohio has 4 teams left (Ohio, Ohio State, Cincinnati and Xavier). Half of the teams remaining are from the Big East or Big Ten, the two best conferences.