One of the Most Gruesome Sports Injuries of All Time

By now you've seen it (so you don't need to comment "I saw that") but I thought I would write something here, for the record, especially since I have posted several gruesome sports injuries (they have their own tag) and I would be remiss if I didn't include this one.

Kevin Ware's injury was so nasty (his leg snapped and the bone poked through the skin) that Louisville players were reportedly vomiting, or at least wretching, on the sidelines. I thought Duke's Tyler Thornton had been poked in the eye. He was wiping away tears. CBS showed a woman in the stands crying. Mrs. Poop thought it was Ware's mom, then they showed three other women doing the same thing.





Ware is already out of the hospital, and on crutches.





Doctors (though not those who treated him) say injuries like this can be repaired and they expect Ware to be ready for next season. I think that a broken bone like this, though gruesome, is easier to repair than a torn ligament like an ACL. And usually has a very good chance of returning to normal form. I hope that will be the case.

Many people are calling this the worst sports injury ever, and it certainly is up there. But I have two I think were a little bit worse.

Houston Cougars wide receiver Patrick Edwards broke his leg in a similar fashion, but what made it worse to me, is that he did it by running into a cart, that never should have been parked there.



But the worst one in my opinion is Corey Hill, a former UFC fighter, who snapped his leg in a similar fashion while delivering a leg kick. What makes his worse is that he's hopping around as another guy is trying to punch him, and his broken bone is wiggling around inside his skin. Joe Rogan is shrieking "stop the fight! stop the fight!"

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.

What Do You Give Me For? Junior Andre and Chase Brennan

We spent Passover with a couple of relatives from London. They could not get over the resemblance between Chase and the child of one of England's gossip couples, singer Peter Andre and model Katie Price. They didn't just remark on it once, they were taking aback by it. And searching through dozens of pictures of each to try to find the best match I certainly can see it. So what do you give me for Chase Brennan and Junior Andre?

2013 MLB Season Predictions

NL East: Atlanta Braves
NL Central: Cincinnati Reds
NL West: Los Angeles Dodgers
NL Wild Cards: Washington Nationals over St. Louis Cardinals

NLCS: Cincinnati Reds over Washington Nationals

AL East: Tampa Bay Rays
AL Central: Detroit Tigers
AL West: Los Angeles Angels
AL Wild Cards: Texas Rangers over Kansas City Royals

ALCS: Los Angeles Angels over Tampa Bay Rays

World Series: Los Angeles Angels over Cincinnati Reds

NL MVP: Joey Votto
AL MVP: Mike Trout
NL Cy Young: Steven Strausburg
AL Cy Young: Justin Verlander
NL Rookie of the Year: Zach Wheeler
AL Rookie of the Year: Jurickson Profar
NL Comeback Player of the Year: Troy Tulowitzki
AL Comeback Player of the Year: Mariano Rivera
NL Manager of the Year: Fredi Gonzalez
AL Manager of the Year: Ned Yost

Last year we all did horribly in the playoff teams and I got Bryce Harper and JLeary got Buster Posey. We'll call it a wash and hopefully more entrants this year.

High Hopes For the Blue Jays This Year

When the Toronto Blue Jays were putting together a package to get Cy Young Award Winner for the Mets, they were willing to include the best catching prospect in baseball, Travis D'Arnaud. Why were they willing to part with such a young stud? They already have a catcher, JP Arencibia.
Arencibia's .222/.275/.433, while not terrible for a catcher, certainly isn't very good. But it's Arencibia's appeal with female fans that makes him so valuable (at least according to Red Sox supposed plan to boost TV ratings).

"Hey JP, It's B-Jay Time!"
"JP Check Out My Dugout"

You just can't disappoint devoted fans like those by trading away their favorite player, it's not good for business. So the Jays made the right decision keeping their establish catcher and giving the Mets D'Arnaud.

Ladies' click on JP Arencibia to check out his Google image collection and use the comments section to let me know if you see what they see in JP.

Tournament Thoughts: Syracuse vs. Indiana

This is one of the biggest wins in the history of the program. It almost undeniably the biggest NCAA Tournament upset under Jim Boeheim.

I am going to give Boeheim a lot of credit for this win, something I seldom do. Well it's not that I don't give him credit for wins, I usually just blame him for losses. I think he had a good game plan on offense, to use the size of his guards, as evidenced from the first play of the game when they posted up Michael Carter-Williams, something I hadn't seen him do all season. Triche and Carter-Williams did what they were asked, effectively, and they dominated this game.



I don't think Tom Crean had his team ready to play against Syracuse's zone. Syracuse came out very aggressive and forced turnovers, Indiana's outside shots weren't falling, and they seemed to get away from the plan which should have been to get the ball to Zeller at the foul line and let him kick out to open shooters. I normally don't buy into things like momentum or emotion, but it certainly seemed like Indiana was discouraged by Syracuse's big early run and never got their confidence back to make a real serious run.

Syracuse's defense was really awesome, 19 turnovers forced and 10 blocked shots (thanks to the officials for letting them play).



I think Baye Keita really has turned into Mark Price. I want him handling the ball late in close games. But nasty fall he took. I hope that thing on his head doesn't develop into a hematoma.



Seeing Juli Boeheim in the stands just isn't the same now that I've met Amanda Enfield.

I don't want to hear a single word about that game being played in front of a pro-Orange crowd. First of all, while there definitely were SU fans there, it was hardly overwhelming by any means. Second of all, it was about 7 - 8 hours away from campus. We can't help it if we have a strong alumni base on the east coast. Third of all, if this shit really mattered, then we got a bad draw on the first weekend, and a good one on the second weekend. That's called fair.

Speaking of Fair, how did he miss that huge dunk. Syracuse missed a couple of dunks and layups and blew some fast breaks, could have easily won this game by more.

This game provides zero comfort at all to assuage the pain of 1987. Nothing will ever take that hurt away. And of course they had to show the Keith Smart shot in the first time out. Thankfully, they didn't show DC's missed free throw. But it is nice to get a win against a hated opponent.

In 2011, Marquette was an 11 seed, Syracuse a 3, and they knocked us off in the second round. Would be nice to get revenge for that one too.

What Do You Give Me For Tyrone Garland and Kel Mitchell?

Many people have noticed the resemblance between LaSalle's Tyrone Garland and Kel Mitchell from Good Burger.

I've Got Gulf Coast Fever

It all started off innocently enough. We were at the Syracuse-Seton Hall game in February and I mentioned to Pizza Parlor Derek that I thought (at the time) that Miami deserved to be ranked #1. PPD said no one who loses to Florida Gulf Coast should be number one. I can't remember my exact words but it was something to the effect of "they're better than you think" or "don't sleep on Florida Gulf Coast." I said this because I knew they had an RPI in the 90s (good for a school of FGCU's caliber) but they lost 5 times to teams with RPIs above 200, twice to Lipscomb.
I am not saying I was convinced FGCU would go on this type of postseason run but that conversation certainly did put them on my radar. And then came the story that put them on everybody's radar: Mrs. Enfield. The smoking hot coach's wife who use to be a bikini model.



Then I watched them play. They have a great style, they press, they run, they throw alley oops and they have a great time doing it. They are fun to watch.

And they are having incredible success. They are only the 7th 15-seed to beat a 2 in the first round. And the first one to win its next game and go to the Sweet 16. Reminding a lot of people of the 1986 Cleveland State Vikings who in the 2nd year of a 64 team field beat Bobby Knight's Indiana team and went to the Sweet 16. A 14 seed made it that far only one other time since. So that's another reason to root for Florida Gulf Coast.

But now I also have skin in the game. For years I have been collecting coke caps and redeem the codes for rewards points (I've netted $200 in Nike gift cards plus other assorted prizes). This year the rewards program added an ancillary game. For each Coke Zero cap you redeemed you got a team, since it happened prior to the tournament I was given "15 seed C."

The rules are, when your team wins you win. If your teams wins the national title you get $100,000 if it's a 1 seed, a trip to next year's Final Four if it's not. Coke is smart, they made 1.25 million caps for this contest. 1 for each of the 1 seeds, 5 for each of the 2s, and 90,000 for each of the 16s.

But my "15 seed C" turned into Florida Gulf Coast. So far I've won a free 20 oz Coke Zero, and 5 mp3 downloads. Next up is $20 in concert cash from Live nation. And if Florida Gulf Coast makes the Final Four I get a $100 Best Buy gift card. If they make the title game the prize is $400 in hotel or airline travel. And in the very very very extremely unlikely event they win it all, I'd be in a drawing for the Final Four tickets.



Not a bad couple of weeks for a school no one had ever heard of until the coach's hot wife's bikini pictures broke the internet.

Song of the Week

"Make a Little Room" - Jarvis
I think I have found another upcoming R&B superstar. He may not win Grammys like Frank Ocean but he actually has a few good songs, this is the one I like best though.

No Small Feat

In my bracket breakdown before the tournament, I made this prediction: "The committee did do a good job of matching big conferences and mid-majors in the 8/9 and 7/10 games though. 5 games like that among those and I will guarantee the mid-majors win at least three of those." They did better than that, they won all five (Colorado State over Missouri, Creighton over Cincinnati, Wichita State over Pittsburgh, San Diego State over Oklahoma and Temple over NC State).

But before we say this proves the small guy doesn't get respect, look at this: of the 8 teams seeded 11 or 12, 4 were from big conferences, 4 were from small conferences. The big guys (Oregon, Ole Miss, Minnesota and California) all won their games, the 4 from the smaller conferences (St. Mary's, Belmont (damn them) Akron and Bucknell) all lost.

And one more stat of the 12 teams seeded 1, 2 or 3, 10 were from big conferences, 2 were from mid-majors. The big conference schools were 18-1 (they all advanced save Georgetown), while New Mexico and Gonzaga went 1-2, both monumental upsets.

If you choose to study this more there is an excellent Wikipedia page devoted just to tournament victories by teams seeded 11 or worse.

I'm not writing this to make any judgment because I really don't know what it all means. I thought New Mexico and Gonzaga were great teams. I don't know why they lost. Maybe you could see the Pac-12 was underseeded and that's why Oregon and Cal won their games, but I really thought that league sucked, especially compared to the Mountain West which has zero teams remaining.

Things like this are what makes the NCAA Tournament so great. One never knows what the fuck is going to happen.

Tournament Thoughts- Second Round Sunday

Aaron Craft, ONIONS!!!!



I don't like the guy, I don't think he's a very good player, mostly just a bruiser. I was celebrating because Iowa State went on a 19-6 run in five minutes late in the second half to take the lead, and they did so because of Craft. He missed 3 free throws (two on the front end of a one-and-one), committed a turnover and a stupid foul. But he made up for it by nailing the game-winning 3-pointer with no time left.

So the last three times Ohio State played in Dayton in the tournament they lost twice and then narrowly escaped. Remind me again about that home court advantage that comes with playing somewhere in your home state.

Ohio State is the luckiest team. This is the second straight year they have the road to the Final Four paved for them. Last year Syracse lose Fab Melo, greatly weakening them for Ohio State, now Gonzaga and New Mexico have been eliminated so it's Arizona and then some other Cinderella in the Elite 8.

I knew I remembered Korie Luscious from somewhere. He started at Michigan State but got kicked off the team so he transferred to Iowa State.

The officials did get the call wrong, the one that was ruled a charge, but should have been a block on Craft. The announcers blew it too, saying he wasn't in the restricted area because his foot was off the ground above the line. That is not the rule. That restricted area line extends all the way to the ceiling, unlike the rest of the boundaries on the basketball court. I don't blame the refs there, very tough call, but it did make a huge difference in this game.

It is always nice to hear the band play "Hang On Sloopy" though.

Now it's Oladipo with the onions though it was actually a bad shot. Indiana didn't need the risk of a 3 there, should have shot the best 2 and hoped to take a 3-point lead with ten seconds left. But he nailed it and clinched the game.

Some effort by Khalif Wyatt. He's a damn good college player. He made 12 of 24 shots, the rest of his team went 9 for 38, yikes.

Now we have to watch the replay of Keith Smart's buzzer beat 100 times between now and next week's game.

Speaking of things that have been beaten into the ground, this Kansas-North Carolina matchup and Roy Williams stuff. I wish they could replay the soundbite of Roy saying "I couldn't give a shit about North Carolina right now."

Bill Self must have given one hell of a halftime speech. Kansas outscored UNC 33-10 to start the second half, and they did it on defense, especially Withey. UNC couldn't make a shot and they never got back in it.

Florida, meanwhile just pounded Minnesota from the beginning and barely ever let them back in the game. I'm sure they are hoping to see Florida Gulf Coast in the next round.

But don't sleep on FGCU. They are a good team. And coached by a guy with a lot of confidence, a lot of money, and probably a big dick.



I love everything that FGCU is doing. They play fast but not too fast. They had a lot of fast breaks and they were under control, not blowing the layups in haste. And they shoot 3s, but almost always in rhythm. Enfield didn't feel the need to pull the plug when they got a big lead because he trusted his team to make the right decisions with the ball.

They really are a great team. A balanced group of guys who play together. They are a lot of fun to watch. They pulled off two major upsets and neither of them was even close. Gonna be a tough game against Florida but I wouldn't count them out. They don't play like a Cinderella. They are not playing a slowdown game, they are not chucking 3s, they're just playing better than their more touted opponents.



I really don't like Marshall Henderson. I hate guys who shoot all the time. I hate guys who overdo the celebration, seemingly trying to get all the attention from themselves. But I could overlook that were it not for other parts of his life. Henderson was arrested for trying to buy pot with $800 of counterfeit money. While on probation he tested positive for alcohol, pot and cocaine. TO me that shows a guy who takes no responsibility and has never been forced to faced the consequences of his actions. He sure can shoot though.



I don't mean to be insensitive to Ramon Galloway's father, but isn't it a waste to give a blind guy a ticket?

Great drive to the basket by Garland. Don't bleed the clock too far, take it to the hole hard and make the shot. Great game, one of the best of the tournament so far.

You will never convince me that playing the extra game is an advantage, simply because mathematically it's harder to win an extra game. But the first year they did it VCU went to the Final Four from the playin game. Now LaSalle is a 13 in the Sweet 16 and could easily get to the Elite 8 by beating Wichita State.

Lots of neon shoes on the court foe Illinois and Miami.

Yes Trey Larkin is Barry's son. No, Tyler Griffey is not Ken's son.



A horrible blown call marred this game however. The ball was clearly out off Kadji's hand which should have given Illinois another chance. Not sure I'd be in favor of replay review for every call like that in the last two minutes of a game, but if it means the wrong team advances, maybe we should consider it.

Impressive game by Duke. They didn't get their best performances from their best players but they played great defense hectoring a good Creighton team into a poor shooting night (2-19 from 3), and they got just enough from the second tier players to cruise to an easy victory.

Tournament Thoughts: Syracuse vs. California

They keep talking about all the Cal fans who are making the short trip to San Jose. But I definitely heard a sizable contingent of people doing the stupid Syracuse stand and clap til the first basket thing.

When Baye Moussa Keita catches the ball down low his first instinct is to do a pump fake. Go up strong!



Incredibly sloppy game. Tons of turnovers in the first half, horrible shooting in the second half. Tons of fouls also.

James Southerland has to learn to play better interior defense without fouling. He's lazy and late a lot of times and makes up for it by fouling. And Boeheim again left him in with 3 and he picked up his 4th, same as happened against Louisville in the Big East final which set up their huge run.

Putting Southerland on the bench takes away a major weapon on offense and it makes it harder for everyone else to drive, or cut. On defense though, I think Southerland plays better defense when he's in foul trouble because he doesn't reach or grab.



Syracuse should have won this game by 20, or could have lost it. They didn't play their best and Cal played even worse. And it's also very troubling how Syracuse consistently blows leads. Stupid turnovers, foul trouble and bad free throw shooting. This one didn't get really close, but it certainly could have. SU made 2 bad turnovers late, but both times Cal gave it right back.

Maybe my inexplicable love for James Southerland clouds my thoughts about this team, but I love CJ Fair. He is a great player and really won this game for us. He is great playing the zone, and the reason his rebounds are so good, especially for someone his size, is because he is always in the right position, crashing the boards, boxing out when the shot goes up. I love the dimension Southerland provides, Michael Carter-Williams has the most potential, and Brandon Triche is the team leader, but CJ Fair is the best player on this team.



So now comes the winner of Indiana-Temple. I know Temple already beat us this season on our pseudo-home floor at MSG but I would much prefer a rematch to a game against Indiana. I just don't see any way the zone can contain Oladipo and Zeller.

And I'm glad we put to rest the myth of the home court. There were certainly some Cal fans in the crowd, but that didn't make the slightest bit of difference.





I don't recall seeing Mrs. Boeheim on camera once that entire game. She must be pretty jealous of Amanda Marcum Enfield.



I've got school spirit.

Tournament Thoughts - Second Round Saturday

That was an unexpected blowout. But here's the thing with VCU, something I've said about Syracuse over the years. When you play VCU you know what kind of defense they are going to play. It's on tape, it's been written about, that pressure defense is what they do. It's a very effective system, and they are good at executing it, but you can study ways to beat it. Michigan just has a lot of athletic guys who can handle the ball, and shoot it.

And Mitch McGary had a great game inside.

Rachel Nichols looks good. Maybe someone at CBS gave her some better makeup advice than she was getting at ESPN.

Charles Barkley is losing his voice. That would be a positive development as far as I am concerned.

Steve Rushin had a great line. He said he named his bracket "I say tomato, Snoop says Tom Izzo." I remember when the Jay-Z song "H to the Izzo" came out the Michigan State cheerleaders would laugh every time he walked by, so he asked them why and they played that song for him. I bet he never imagined his last name would be so prevalent in pop culture.

There's a reason why Michigan State always does so well in the tournament, they have size and they have good guards. I think they have also done what Syracuse tries to do, get good but not great players. Guys who will stay 3 or even 4 years and Izzo coaches em up and they always perform well in the tournament.

Usually the first round games are frantic with a lot of blowouts in there. And when you get to the second round you still have the ejnoyment of a ton of games, but you usually get a lot of close contests. Not today. Michigan won by 25, Michigan State by 22 and now Louisville by 26. What happened to parity?

Horrible start for Harvard. And it never got any better. Fourth straight blowout of the day. This has to be killing the TV ratings.

April showers bring May flowers and first round upsets bring second round blowouts.

Arizona looks like a real dangerous team though. They could face Ohio State in the next round, and could definitely win that game.

Great win for Harvard, and I don't mean to sound like a sap but for those players and fans, winning just one game is a great accomplishment.

Even the big upset of the day wasn't even close. Oregon now has a case to say they were grossly underseeded, but the committee may have done them a favor. Think about it. Would you rather play a 5 and a 4, or a 8 and a 1, or a 7 and a 2. As a 5 its hard to win one game, but you probably are more likely to win two games, than if you have to go through a #1 seed.

I have seen the graphic explaining the difference between a Flagrant 1 and a Flagrant 2 way too many times in this tournament. And only once, maybe twice did I think the fouls were reckless or dangerous. Other times it's just guys playing basketball who happen to hit the other guy.

Butler is such a good team. Brad Stevens is a good coach. This team is completely different than the 2010 title game team, and they are still very, very good. They are building a Gonzaga of the Midwest. And when Marquette made the comeback, led by Vander Blue (he's having himself a tournament), Butler didn't blink.

Vander Blue, ONIONS! Down 69-66, gets the pass in the corner and nails it.

Oh jeez, Rotnei Clark took a terrible shot, 6 seconds remaining and he totally chucked up a 3 he didn't need when Butler was only down 2. Terrible decision. Very un-Butler.

Very creative tournament summary during the Butler-Marquette game. Normally they show one conference doing well, one doing poorly. But in this case they said the 68 bands played "Living On a Prayer" and "Bad Romance" 312 times. And Allie LaForce picked up 4,000 twitter followers. An excuse to show her on camera, yes, but smart producing.

Horrible choke job by Gonzaga. Normally when a big favorite gets down early and they make their comeback and take a big lead (Gonzaga was up 7 with 5 minutes left), they don't let the underdog back in it. But then Wichita State went nuts, bombing 3s and not only did they get back in it, they actually took a comfortable lead in the final minute.

Now I have to listen to another week of Mrs. Poop saying the administration at Wichita State University is being negligent by not changing the team name and instead allowing people to use the crude Shocker hand symbol as a proxy for the Shockers teams.

Tournament Thoughts - Late Friday

Good job by CBS showing Amanda Marcum, coach Andy Enfield's wife. They did a short feature on her early in the game and when the game got tense at the end, just as I predicted they showed her incessantly. She's still very attractive but not model hot anymore. But she is over 40 with three kids.



Georgetown almost made the incredible comeback. They hit a few threes and FGCU turned it over, missed some free throws, it was 72-68 with 52 seconds left. And Georgetown fouled. I think that was too early. They should have backed off. Tried to force a turnover. Or get the ball back with 15 or 20 down 4, you have a chance. This way Georgetown had to keep hitting 3s and FGCU had to keep missing free throws, which didn't happen.

In the first 25 years of the 64-team format there were 4 15 over 2 upsets (Richmond over Syracuse, Santa Clara over Arizona, Coppin State over South Carolina and Hampton over Iowa State). This is the third in the past two years (Lehigh over Duke, Norfolk State over Missouri).

Ohio State and Florida looked good in their opening round games and their biggest impediments to teh Elite 8 were already eliminated, New Mexico and Georgetown.

Oklahoma is the 5th team Lon Kruger has taken to the tournament (Kansas State, Florida, Illinois, UNLV), the only coach to do that. And he won games with all of them too.

San Diego State is a pretty good team. We saw them against Syracuse on the aircraft carrier but that was a weird game. They salvaged a little something for their conference here. Mountain West goes 2-3 losing a huge team in New Mexico, but San Diego State has a pretty good chance to make it to the Sweet 16.

Jamaal Franklin did a risky move at the end of the game, tried a reverse dunk and it bounced out, then went in anyway. I didn't like that play at all.

Notre Dame and their ugly uniforms (which they did not wait) bounced from the tournament in humiliating fashion, finishing up another bad first round for the Big East (3-5 including that nailbiter for Marquette).

Late in the Kansas-WKU game Kansas got a layup but the TV score graphic accidentally credited it to WKU, So I look up and see 53-49 and think really? A few seconds after that it changed to 55-47 but they freaked me out for a few seconds.

Minnesota's mild upset of UCLA ends a very exciting first round. Obviously Florida Gulf Coast over Georgetown and Harvard over New Mexico were the big upsets, but if you look at the others, Oregon, Cal, Ole Miss and Minnesota are all big conference teams, that may have been underrated.

I did nail a 12-5 and 11-6 upset, but I lost two Final Four teams.

I love having four games on 4 channels simultaneously. Does anyone else remember when we were all watching CBS and all the games were ending at the same time and there would be two close ones and we'd be begging them to switch? Thank God we don't have to worry about that anymore.

Tournament Thoughts - Early Friday

You knew Duke wasn't going out as a 2 seed to a 15 two years in a row. It just wasn't going to happen. But Albany did hang in there with them for a while.

What a horrible shooting game by Wisconsin (15-59). It can go either way with them. Either they harass you into an off night or they have one themselves.

Marshall Henderson is a little bit exciting, a little bit annoying, but he's a pretty good player and made shots down the stretch when Wisconsin couldn't.

Only VCU kept it from being a clean sleep by the 12 seeds. I'd love to go back and look but I would say that if you bet on the 12 seeds either with the money line or with the spreads, over the years you probably made a lot of money.

Valiant comeback by NC State but they dug themselves too big of a hole. They almost came all the way back, down 65-62 they ran a great pick and roll and kicked it out to Lorenzo Brown for a wide open 3, but he missed it. They also had another chance, looked like a clean block on a breakaway which would have given them a chance to cut to 2, or even 1, but the refs called it a foul.

Dominant performance by Miami. They are a good team, and probably a serious contender to win this thing.

This elbow rule is out of control and it almost cost Creighton the game. 60-54 McDermott gets the rebound and is sure to be fouled, he swings his arms, hits the guy in the face with an elbow and its 2 shots and the ball. Cincinnati missed both free throws but hit a 3, which could have taken a 6 point lead to 1. Wouldn't have been a great way to end that game. Yes the player should swing his elbows lower, learn to do that so if you strike an opponent you do it in the chest, but it's being enforced too tightly.

I'm beginning to think teams in automatic fouling situations should feign the foul and try to force a mistake. It worked for Marquette and it almost worked in this game too. The guy who receives the ball should just wait to be fouled instead of trying to make a crazy pass.

Valiant comeback by Kansas State thanks to the huge size advantage by Jordan Henriquez. But some poor decisions down the stretch really hurt them. They didn't even get a serious shot off on their last posession.

The Atlantic-10 is now 6-0, with two wins for LaSalle. That will help salve some of the mid-major sting of the Mountain West's poor showing.

The West is the upset regional with the the 12, 13 and 14 (Ole Miss, LaSalle and Harvard) all advancing and at least one of them is going to the Sweet 16.

And now we have to hear about how LaSalle had an advantage by playing an extra game.

This is the 6th straight year a 13 has beaten a 4.

You knew a team with Oladipo and Zeller wasn't going to play a close game with a 16 seed like James Madison.

Illinois-Colorado started simply enough, 17-16 Colorado to start the game. Illinois went on a 23-6 run. Colorado scored the next 21 points, then Illinois scored 9 in a row. There was also a stretch when neither team scored for 4 minutes. But Illinois did hold on to end the afternoon session and knock out the first Pac-12 team.

Tournament Thoughts: Syracuse vs. Montana

Saying "do you know the way to San Jose" is not clever or original Orange fans.

James Southerland dribbled more than 2 times without turning it over. Well, he almost turned it over but Christmas just happened to be there.



Christmas is looking like a monster in this game. Which means Montana is severely undermanned inside.



Everyone keeps talking about how great a 3-pointer shooter CJ Fair is because of his high percentage on few attempts. And they say he should shoot more often. Maybe his percentage his high because he only shoots when he has a good chance of making it. He's very judicious. I think in his case selection is as much a part of his excellence as his shooting skill.

Wayne Tinkle is a pretty funny name for a coach. Brian Anderson seems to be having fun saying it. But he keeps using his full name because it sounds silly to call a grown man Tinkle. I would say they mentioned Tinkle about 20 times as often as they said Boeheim.

Boeheim was positively glowing in his halftime interview. I guess with a 23 point lead you have to crack a smile, even if you are an old curmudgeon.



Nice to see DaJuan Coleman getting some playing time. And all the walkons too. Matt Lyde-Cajuste and 5 foot 10, 150 pound Nolan Hart (no relation to Jason) even got to chuck up a 3.

I actually felt badly for Montana by the end of this. They worked hard, dreamed of this their entire lives and they played their worst game at the worst time. I know Syracuse was a better, bigger, faster team, but shooting 20% from the field is just a poor performance.

Great win for SU. It will have no carryover to the next game, which will start at 0-0 again. But if confidence was a factor, winning by 47 certainly helps boost that.

SU may have gotten a break by getting the weaker opponent in the next round but Cal is certainly good enough to win if SU plays at less than their best.



So Seth Davis wore an orange wig on TV to pay up for picking Montana to beat Syracuse. This is one of the dumbest things ever. The guy gets paid to give his opinion and make predictions. It doesn't mean he hates Syracuse or has no "respect" he just made a knee-jerk guess that Syracuse was going to lose. This is a total non-story and he shouldn't have dignified it with anything more than an acknowledgement of how off his prediction was.

Tournament Thoughts - Late Thursday

South Dakota State was a trendy upset pick but I didn't see it. Michigan wasn't playing great down the stretch but they have a lot of good players.

It's a shame that Nate Wolters had such a bad game. He's better than what he showed in this game.

Louisville's domination of #16 North Carolina A&T is more typical of what we see of 1-16 games. Every once in a while you see a game like Southern versus Gonzaga. But this result is much more typical of what we see with 1-16 matchups.

But don't conflate these results to have any grander meaning. Don't assume Louisville is unbeatable or Gonzaga is vulnerable based only on what we saw today.

I misjudged the Belmont-Arizona game. I thought Arizona would be lazy on defense and Belmont would be able to run and gun on them. But early on it was Arizona nailing 3s and Belmont couldn't make it close.

Maybe we all underestimated the Pac-12. They started off 3-0. The most impressive of which was Cal over UNLV. UNLV has a lot of big, strong athletic guys, but the couldn't make a shot. Moser and Bennett were all over the place, but couldn't put the ball in the basket.

It wasn't just the poor shooting, UNLV made some stupid mistakes and got lazy on defense. They deserved to lose this game.

Good strategy by Cal to foul with ten seconds left and again with 6. It's so easy to make a 3, so hard to rebound a purposeful miss. I think UNLV screwed up by making the free throws. And being unable to foul right away.

Cal's victory had nothing to do with playing an hour from campus. There were a lot of fans there, but UNLV had people too. It had zero impact on the outcome.

Missouri has Alex Oriakhi formerly of Uconn. He was one of the big thugs who rebounded and blocked shots while Kemba Walker shot the ball 20 times a game. He won a national title, but elected to transfer, citing UConn's ineligibility from postseason play. His diminished playing time may have also been a factor. But he ended up at Missouri and didn't even have to sit out a year.

Nice to see Larry Eustachy has recovered, but he will never live down these pictures. It's just a shame they cost him his marriage to Stacy Eustachy. But at least he's got a ticket to the second round. Good luck against Louisville.



What VCU did to Akron was ugly. It's just one of those things that snowballs. VCU was staying in an aggressive press for a long time. I know that's the only way they know how to play but when you're up 40, maybe you want to give it a rest.

With 15:32 left in the second half Chauncey Gilliam hit a layup to make it 65-34. Akron didn't score for the next 7 minutes, and VCU added 12 more points for a 43-point lead, which ended up as a 46-point victory. I will like to see how that press does against Michigan.

Now, on to the big upset of the first round so far, the show stopper, the Cinderella, Harvard over New Mexico.

But first, a couple non-game observations. Doug Gottlieb said "things were Breaking Bad for New Mexico." Inside reference, but totally unnecessary. Glad to know he is a fan of the show. Makes me hold him in slightly higher esteem.

Why do they have to say "AT&T at the half is presented by AT&T?" Don't they think we could have figured that out.

New Mexico didn't choke, or even play badly, they just got beat by a better team that night.

I think there is something to this Ivy League thing. We saw Princeton beat UCLA, take Georgetown to the wire as a 16 seed. Cornell made the Sweet 16, in 2010. I know there were also a lot of years when the Ivy champ got bounced in the first round, but it sure seems as if Ivy players keep their heads and execute the game plan even under pressure.

New Mexico just couldn't get any consistent offense going. Bad day for the Mountain West, 3 teams out so far. Good day for the Pac-12, 3 teams advancing so far.

If Harvard can hit some threes and slow down the tempo they can pull off the upset of Arizona that Belmont failed to do.

And personally, my bracket is shot to shit because I had New Mexico in the final game. Yikes! But that's March Madness for you.

Tournament Thoughts - Early Thursday

Valpo held in pretty well against Michigan State for 10 minutes, it was only 13-10. The next 15 minutes after that MSU outscored them 36-12. And that was that.

Bucknell scored only 14 points in the first half. Yikes. But Butler only had 21. One touchdown and Bucknell could get back in it. And then blamo!, Bucknell gets hot, 9 minutes into the second half they scored 150% as many points as the entire first half. And they have a 35-31 lead, still a football score.

A lot of people talk about parity in the tournament, and it is true. But the bigger reason we have so many upsets and so much uncertainty is because of the 3-point shot. One team is hot, the other is cold, and everything changes. It can overcome a wide talent disparity.

Bucknell led Butler 37-33, and to that point Butler was 0-13 from downtown. Butler hit its next two 3-point attempts. And that minirun was enough to lead them to the victory.

They showed New Mexico State's mascot, Pistol Pete, on a bump shot going out to break on TruTV and when one of commentators (can't keep track of who) said his mustache was askew, which it was. Another said it looked like Elmer Fudd's. I really wish I had the name of the idiot who confused Elmer Fudd with Yosemite Sam.



And that was the highlight for New Mexico State. St. Louis is a good team, seeded properly, but underrated by the broader audience.

Mrs. Poop is fascinated/amused that there is a team called the Shockers. And even happier that Wichita State fans and cheerleaders have adopted the hand gesture.



Pittsburgh once again playing below expectations in the tournament. They never overachieve come March. I think their physical style hurts them on offense, they just can't fill it up when they get behind.

Though the pace of this game, the low scores, the horrible shooting percentages, should have favored Pitt. The two teams combined to make 3 of 37 3-point attempts.

Doug Gottlieb is not a good game analyst. He knows a lot of stuff, has interesting things to share, but tries to be too cute, too smart, and ends up talking too much. He's much better in a studio role, like the one he has with the smoking hot Allie LaForce, who by the way was doing sideline reporting for the games in Lexington.

Funny thing about these new playoff games featuring bubble teams. When the winning team wins its next game everyone makes it out to be a huge advantage, playing that extra game, getting momentum. When they lose all you hear about is the travel demands and the unfairness.

Nice win for Memphis but they were much better when John Calipari was arranging illicit payments for their recruits.

They did almost blow that game. Same shitty free throw shooting that cost them in the Calipari era. 3 for 6 in the last minute as St. Mary's cut the lead to 2. St. Mary's did get a very lucky crazy banked-in 3, followed by a Memphis turnover to get one final shot with 1.9 seconds left. But Dellavadova who is awesome, just couldn't get a decent shot off.

Davidson has a halftime lead on Marquette (Davidson started the game up 12-2, Marquette came back with an 11-3 run) and Buzz Williams took a long drink of water on the way to the locker room.

Junior Cadougan is now a senior. Vander Blue is a junior. I will miss neither of them when Syracuse moves to the ACC next season.

And Vander Blue took over the game. Hit a huge 3, then hit the game-winning layup. He was 3-13 before those two baskets in the final 30 seconds.

Devastating breakdown, I won't call it a choke, by Davidson. They did make 7 of 8 free throws down the stretch. They made one big turnover. If Marquette does what most teams do they foul right away and probably lose. Instead they backed off, Davidson threw a reckless cross-court pass out of bounds and Marquette got the ball one final time. I don't even blame them for Vander Blue's seemingly easy game-winner. Marquette ran a good play and Blue is quicker than anyone on Davidson. But that one stings for the little guy.

It was a little too close for a little too long, but eventually Gonzaga closed out Southern. They dominated with size, killing Southern on the offensive glass, and getting the ball to Kelly Olynyk who could not be stopped in the second half. But still did not look dominant the way a number one seed should.

And Oregon closes out the afternoon with a big win over Oklahoma State. I nailed my 12 over 5 upset and started the day by getting all 8 games correct. Hopefully I can get the next 55 correct as well.

Bracket Breakdown: Syracuse's Chances

You're never as good as you think you are when things or going good, or as bad as you seem when things start to go bad. That's the story of Syracuse's season in 2012-13. They weren't as good as people thought when they started 18-1 and ascended to #3 in the country. Because they beefed up on a fairly easy schedule.
But they are better than they seemed when they limped to a 4-5 finish. But please remember those 5 losses came in 5 games against top 15 teams, Georgetown twice, Marquette, and Louisville twice.
So which team will show up in the NCAA Tournament? It really depends on James Southerland. When he is making shots as he did in the Big East Tournament, it changes everything. Teams must stick a man on him at all times, creating driving lanes for Carter-Williams and Triche. When he is missing shots, or not in the game (the second half against Louisville), Syracuse is much easier to defend.
While part of me is worried about the first round match-up against Montana, I know Syracuse should win the game. But we have seen SU get upset many times, most notably, by Vermont in 2005 and Richmond in 1991.
The second round against UNLV (assuming the beat Cal) will be a much tougher game. Anthony Bennett is a great player, only a freshman, but probably a one-and-done guy whole will go in the first round of the NBA Draft.
If SU sneaks by UNLV, I just don't see any way they are going to contain Victor Oladipo and Cody Zeller with the 2-3 zone.
Of course every year you hope for the National Championship, and would be satisfied with a Final Four. But this year I would just like to see SU make the Sweet 16, and maybe pull off the biggest tournament upset in Jim Boeheim's career by knocking off Indiana.

Love is Blind

You've watched enough NCAA Tournament games to know what happens when an underdog is in a close game with a top seed. They show shots of the small school's fans. They show the bench players cheering after a made basket. And they show the coach's wife looking nervous during tense moments. So let us hope Florida Gulf-Coast takes Georgetown to the wire so we can see as much of Amanda Marcum Enfield as possible.
She is a model who once appeared on the cover of Maxim. Her husband is the coach of FGCU. They apparently met during the 2003 NCAA Tournament. She was a model from Oklahoma living in New York City back then. She wanted to go to Oklahoma State's second round game in Boston. She hitched a ride with Andy Enfield to watch OSU lose to eventual champion Syracuse, despite holding a big early lead. But despite the loss love bloomed and the smoking hot model married the dorky gap-toothed coach. A classic love story.