Let's start with St. Louis and Memphis. There isn't a bigger contrast in coaches than Rick Majerus, fat, old, grumpy and frumpy and Josh Pastner, young, curly-haired, energetic. St.Louis hit a miracle bank shot at the end of the first half and Rick Majerus credited the fact that St. Louis is a Catholic school.
Memphis went incredibly cold from 3 for a spell (I think it was 11 misses in a row) and that gave St. Louis the chance to get enough of a lead that they were able to salt it away with free throws.
Then I put Michigan-Ohio (a rivalry dating back to the Battle of Toledo) on the TV and Duke-Lehigh on the computer.
Ohio was really in control of this one throughout. They never seemed worried or flustered that Michigan would make a comeback. I do like Tim Hardaway Jr, very good player.
Whenever an announcer says a player got a good look at a shot, I always think he is going to say a t-bone steak.
At Duke, even the black kids (Seth Curry, Austin Rivers) are privileged upper-crust assholes.
I like when the home team wears colored jerseys. I like this yellow versus green in Michigan vs. Ohio.
Ohio's Alex Kellogg is the son of CBS's Clark. I wonder what would happen if by some miracle they made the Final Four. Would Clark be able to do the games? It's a shame Clark can't see his son play. I remember Big John Thompson demanded that Westwood One assign him to Georgetown's region or he wouldn't do any games. No one had the balls to tell him that calling his son's games was not a good idea. He did call the Georgetown-Belmont game today.
Terrible crucial late possession by Michigan. Killed 20 seconds and ended up jacking a bad 3. And even when they got another chance Smotryce blew it. And the three possessions before that weren't too great either. They panicked too early and it led to another major upset. Wow.
Peter King (Ohio) made a bet with Rich Eisen (Michigan) and he refused to take points. Now I think Eisen has to sing the Ohio fight song on NFL Network.
Somewhere I can hear Focks screaming. And blaming Lloyd Carr.
Damino has been saying it all year, this is not a traditionally good Duke team. They have good players but lack a certain something. I like Austin Rivers as a player, think he is tougher than the rest of the Duke pussies, but he seems way too arrogant given how little he's actually accomplished.
Why did Lehigh keep fouling Rivers? Get out of the fuckin way.
Wow this officially became the biggest day for upsets in the first round in a really long time. This could be the most surprising upset in first round history.
Lehigh's coach doesn't even look happy.
The Lehigh cheerleader looks happy. Little does she know she is getting ripped on Twitter. Poor thing. Fat Lehigh cheerleader might be trending.
And while all that was happening Purdue held on for a win against St. Mary's. Good for Robbie Hummel who had so many injuries and bad luck in his career.
Holy shit, there's still four games left tonight.
South Florida is putrid. 3 out of 27 (11%) from the field. And they're only down 4 points. 34 points scored total by both teams. If I didn't have this as a 12-5 upset I would not watch the second half.
Where is Fran Dunphy's mustache?
The opposite would be Notre Dame vs Xavier which is one of the best played games I've seen over the past two days. Very few turnovers (only 18 turnovers), great passing (29 assists on 47 baskets), good outside shooting (14 of 31 from 3), movement without the ball. The only reason isn't wasn't very high-scoring is that both teams were very deliberate in passing the ball around to get the best shot.
I guess everyone at the game was a Duke fan because no one stuck around for this game.
Michigan State finally pulled away and put LIU away. LIU has some good athletes and good shooters and it was impressive they stayed in as long as they did.
All of you who laughed at me for my exuberance over Tom Izzo and the Michigan State Spartans. Draymond Green really is special. He can do everything. Maybe not well enough to be a good NBA player but certainly good enough to lead his team to a long tournament run.
Similar story for Kansas which let Detroit hang around and then Thomas Robinson started to be too much.
Notre Dame had the worst choke job in history. Not only did they blow a 10-point lead, they still had a chance to win before an epic meltdown. With 41 seconds left Notre Dame had the lead and the ball. Xavier didn't seem to want to foul so ND could have run it down and made Xavier shoot a game-winning shot with just a few seconds left. When the double team came, Notre Dame tried a cross-court pass that went out of bounds. Terrible stupid move. Then with 3 seconds left Notre Dame had 2 free throws to tie. And they violated the lane. And if there was even a prayer left, they grabbed a jersey and got an intentional foul. Worst meltdown ever.
Every year I pick a 2 seed that won't make the Sweet 16. I almost always get it right (like Duke this year) but I always get the team to beat them wrong (this year Xavier).
At least my first round ends with me getting a 12 over a 5 correct. After 22 straight misses in the first South Florida got hot in the second to knock off Temple.
Yeah this wasn't Duke's year. A handful of good but not great players who don't fit well together. Rivers is tough and very talented, but his defense needs alot of work and he comes off as quite arrogant. I'm curious to see whether he goes pro. My expectation is yes, but he'd be wise to polish up his game and go top 10ish in the next year's lottery.
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