It's Only Money, Right?

I am going to Atlanta to watch Syracuse in the Final Four!

It was another suffocating performance by Syracuse's 2-3 zone. I know people always talk about how the Big East teams are familiar with the zone and know how to beat it, and it does better in the tournament when teams are unfamiliar with it. There's some element of truth in that, but the bigger issue was on display in this game: it's not what you do, it's how you do it.

Everyone has seen the 2-3 zone on tape. Everyone knows how to attack it, ESPN does that feature during every Syracuse game. The problem is, when you have guys as long and athletic as guys like Michael Carter-Williams and CJ Fair you can be good at the zone no matter what. And if guys don't get out on shooters, and box out on rebounds then you will get killed. It's that simple.

Syracuse got a good match-up against Marquette because they are a bad 3-pont shooting team. They missed and they kept firing. Despite having some success early in the first half by getting the ball to Davonte Gardner, they continued to rely on the outside shot to their own detriment.

Syracuse won't have that luxury against Michigan because Trey Burke, Tim Hardaway Jr and Nik Stauskas all shoot better than 38% from downtown.

But since Syracuse is going to be there, and I don't know when I am going to get this chance again, I decided to go. Billy and I got our tickets on vividseats.com, which has slightly cheaper tickets prices on average, and both sites have ridiculous fees. Because of the set-up of the Georgia Dome for basketball we opted to pay a little extra money to be in the lower level (200s) instead of the upper level (300). With $85 of ridiculous fees tacked on, we paid $390 each. But that actually seems cheap compared to what tickets are selling for right now. As of this writing the cheapest 200 level ticket on Vivid is $537.

Flight was a bit of a hassle, because I had to fly out Saturday and come back Sunday (couldn't take two extra days off work), and I have to change planes in Charlotte both times. I thought the cost $550 round-trip was a bit too high, but about what I was expecting.

So we're looking at two crazy days, $1000 down the tubes and hopefully a chance to see the Orange win their 4th straight national semifinal.