Thumbing through weekend one

I’m going to play Roger Ebert in my analysis of the greatest weekend in sport, give or take 350 pounds.

THUMBS UP: Tyler Hansbrough’s toughness
North Carolina forward Hansbrough does look pretty goofy wearing that plastic mask over his face, making it hard to think of him as a tough guy. But a quick peek at his numbers over the weekend show that he is as physical as ever. Against Eastern Kentucky and Michigan State, Psycho T scored a total of 54 points while pulling down 19 rebounds. He will have to continue to play tough against the likes of USC and most likely Georgetown if the Heels are going to cut down the nets.

THUMBS DOWN: Cinderella
What happened to the next George Mason, the double-digit seed that makes a Final Four run? Or even a Bradley or Wichita State, the mid major who makes it into the second weekend of the tournament. For the first time since 1995, no ten seed or higher got past round two, leaving March without its usual Madness. VCU and Winthrop advanced one round, but couldn’t get to the sweet 16. The lowest seed left is now UNLV, who is a seven seed but probably should have been a five.

THUMBS UP: Al Gore’s state
Nobody came out a bigger winner of the opening weekend then the state of Tennessee did. First off, Pac-Man Jones didn’t get arrested, which is good. And then Memphis, Vanderbilt and UT all advanced to the sweet 16, giving the Volunteer State (By the way, that is such a lame nickname) the most teams still alive in the big dance. Of the three, I think the team that could go the farthest is the Vols, because I like their matchup with Ohio State. Memphis should lose to Texas A&M and Vandy should go down to Georgetown.

THUMBS DOWN: The Big 10 and ACC
These two power conferences had a combined 13 teams in the tournament a week ago (7 from the ACC, 6 from the Big 10). Now they have two. And really, if life had been fair, that number would be only one. Xavier should have beaten Ohio State (see below), but some bad coaching and officiating, not to mention an incredible shot by Ron Lewis. North Carolina really hasn’t been challenged yet, despite playing two close games.

THUMBS UP: Southern Illinois and Butler
A lot of people like to look down on highly rated mid-major teams. They see a bunch of no-name teams on the schedule and a bunch of players who didn’t play in high school All-Star games. How on Earth could this team be that good? Just take a loot at the Southern Illinois Salukis and the Butler Bulldogs. Both play great defense, have good shooters and do not make mistakes. Those are recopies for a long tournament run, and that’s why they are both in the Sweet 16.

THUMBS DOWN: CBS’ Coverage
I usually like the Eye’s NCAA tournament coverage, because they switch to the best game that’s being played. But this year, they didn’t seem to be on their A game. I was stuck watching the second half a boring Michigan State - Marquette game for 35 minutes until they decided to switch to the closer Duke - VCU game. They didn’t highlight their best announcing duo, Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery enough. And what was with the blimp shots of basketball arenas? I think we all know what a roof looks like. Next year, I’m ordering the Madness package so I don’t have to sit through all those commercials.

THUMBS UP: Tournament Committee
After the brackets are released on selection Sunday, the ten members of the NCAA tournament selection committee take more abuse then a Mike Tyson punching bag. How could you leave (Insert bubble team here) out of the big dance? Why isn’t (Insert conference champ here) a one seed? But this year, those ten people deserve a big round of applause. They didn’t under or over seed very many team’s, as shown by seven of the top eight seeds still being around after round two. (All the number one seeds and three of the number twos. Only Wisconsin has been eliminated) They even got one bracket to go exactly as planned, as the West region has seeds 1-4 still alive.

THUMBS DOWN: The referees in the Illinois-Va. Tech game
I could blame a lot of people for the Illini’s loss on Friday night. It could be Rich McBride, for not showing up in the second half. The finger could be pointed at Bruce Webber for keeping up the defensive intensity in the second half. Brian Randle could easily get a fair share of the blame for air balling a free throw with about a minute left in the game. But some of the fault has to fall on the games referees. They missed two big calls at the end of the contest, one on a Sean Pruitt lay in, the other on a lose ball after a missed shot. I don’t like refs to decide NCAA tournament games, but when its my team on the line, I say make the damn call.

THUMBS UP: Graduation
The one good thing about the Illini losing is that it provided me a chance to rid myself of one of the constant headaches in my life over the past four year. Mr. Rich McBride, also known as Chuck for his infamously bad three-point shooting, has now used up all of his college eligibility, meaning that unless I decide to watch a Austria League three-point contest, I will never have to see the bald headed #33 ever again.

THUMBS DOWN: Thursday’s Games
Here I am, all geeked up for the start of the best weekend of the year, and all we get on day one is garbage. Other then VCU-Duke, there were no big upsets, no buzzer beaters, and only one other game (Xavier-BYU) decided by less then ten points. Defiantly the most disappointing tournament opening day that I can remember. But thankfully it was redeemed by….

THUMBS UP: Saturday’s Games
What an amazing day of college basketball. Five games were decided by less then five points, and another included a buzzer-beater that ended as a seven point game in overtime. Hero’s included Ron Lewis, Acie Law IV, Derrick Byars, and AJ Graves. And we got to hear Gus Johnson (Who I was a fan of before Bill Simmons started loving him) announce two intense games. Its days like that I am thankful that I own a television. If only Xavier had beaten the Buckeyes.

THUMBS DOWN: Bad free throw shooting
The Illini, Louisville and Xavier all would have won their respective games if they had made free throws. Duke shot itself in the foot by not making shots from the charity stripe. So did Purdue. Tennessee tried to kill itself from the line. The point is, free throws make a difference in these games. The teams that don’t make them are usually the teams that are heading home early.



This took longer to write then I expected, but before Thursday’s games, I will post my Sweet 16 preview.