Saturday Skull Session

By Vico on March 23, 2013 at 6:00 am
31 Comments

G'morning.

Let's cut right to the chase. You're sick to the point of being couch-ridden. Your ailment? Madness. It's a particular type of psychosis that doctors call "March Madness". The best treatment known to our top scientists at the moment is to get plenty of rest on the couch or easy chair, and drink lots of liquids. Typically: beer.

There is presently no cure for March Madness. Though, after the first weekend, March Madness typically gets downgraded to March Upset Stomach, depending on how your school does in the Round of 64 and Round of 32 games.

With that in mind, let's talk some shooty hoops.

 COMPARING CONFERENCES. The first thing that CBS/TruTV/TBS/TNT and ESPN's platoon of college basketball analysts do during the Round of 64 games is use the incoming results to compare wangs across conferences. As some teams fall flat, it may reflect on the overall "quality" or "strength" of the conference. As some teams punch above their weights, it reflects well on their peers. What can we say so far from the Round of 64 games?

For one, the Atlantic 10 has looked like it belongs. The A-10 sent five teams to the tournament and all five won their Round of 64 game. For a while, it looked like Bucknell would do in Butler, though the Bulldogs prevailed to advance to the next round.

The surprise may be La Salle, which had to defeat Boise State in a play-in game in Dayton before traveling to Kansas City to play 4-seed Kansas State in a glorified Wildcats home game. Despite making only three field goals in the second half, La Salle used a 17-point first-half lead as a cushion to win, 68-63.

The "Big Six" in the Round of 64
Conference # BIDS RECORD WIN %
ACC 4 3-1 75%
Big East 8 3-5 37.5%
B1G TEN 7 6-1 85.7%
Big XII 5 2-3 40%
Pac 12 5 3-2 60%
SEC 3 2-1 66.7%

Temple also defeated NC State, the preseason #6 team, in a tight contest in Dayton. Virginia Commonwealth and Saint Louis murdered Akron and New Mexico State, respectively.

The Pac-12 had a good run to begin. Before Colorado was defeated by Illinois, the conference was undefeated in tournament play. Its signature wins were 5-12 upsets. Oregon outclassed Oklahoma State and California upset UNLV in arguably the worst NCAA Tournament game I ever had the misfortune of watching.

So far, the B1G TEN is who we thought it was. Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State and Minnesota hammered their opponents. Only Wisconsin lost in the Round of 64 and, of the winning squads, only Illinois was challenged.

Biggest conference loser so far? The Mountain West. Despite being cheered by Charles Barkley (and the RPI, for that matter) as the top conference in college basketball, the conference ate pavement to start the tournament. Boise State lost its play-in game versus La Salle. New Mexico got punked by Harvard and UNLV lost that horrific game to California. Colorado State acquitted the conference well, beating Missouri in an 8-9 game. San Diego State won too, albeit against a meek Oklahoma team in a 7-10 matchup.

ANY TEAMS STAND OUT TO YOU? Really, teams win or lose games in the tournament. Aggregate performance of teams by conference is a very noisy signal to interpret. It's why, for example, the SEC can be so horrible at basketball this year and the last, despite having the reigning national champion (Kentucky) and a team like Florida, which seems set for yet another Elite Eight.

I do like what I saw from Miami. A Miami Hurricanes team that, borrowing alumnus Ray Lewis' words, is "pissed off for greatness" is a team that could cut down the nets in Atlanta, Georgia. That Miami team is the one that won the ACC outright, the conference tournament, and destroyed Duke and UNC in league play. "Fat and happy" Miami, a team that is assured of its own divinity and greatness, is a team that could lose to Illinois in the Round of 32, just like it did to Wake Forest and (at home) to Georgia Tech. If the "good" Miami arrives in Austin again on Sunday, Illinois' season should be over.

It's hard to get a read on teams like Virginia Commonwealth and Butler. Their winning pedigree speaks for itself. It's why few would be surprised if one of those teams made it into the Final Four. However, do we know anything more about these two teams after watching their victories on Thursday? Virginia Commonwealth got the most favorable matchup conceivable and acted accordingly. Butler did little to allay that it's a winning team, but with serious flaws. Among those A-10 teams, I really liked what I saw from Saint Louis. Don't be surprised if Louisville gets all it can handle from Saint Louis, provided both advance to regionals in Indianapolis.

The obvious head-scratcher — at least of the disappointing teams that still won their game nonetheless — is Gonzaga. Any other team with a pulse, even a team like Iona, and Gonzaga may have lost that game. What to make of it, though? Probably not much. If you felt like Gonzaga was always a paper tiger, I'm not sure Thursday's win over Southern was a revelation or just another affirmation of what you already suspected. If you respect Gonzaga, as I'm mostly inclined to do, then you will recall that Syracuse still made the Elite Eight last year despite playing a similar 1-16 game.

Truly: survive and advance.

John Thompson III just can't make it work in March.

TEAMS THAT FACE-PLANTED. Where to begin here? In a season filled with enough weirdness to justify seeding the NCAA Tournament 2-17, or with eight 2-seeds, perhaps some of what we saw in the Round of 64 should have been expected.

The biggest upset was the 2-15 upset that saw Georgetown, the regular season co-champion of the Big East, lose to Florida Gulf Coast. What made that upset all the more curious is that the bigger upset would have been if Georgetown actually won that game. 2-15 upsets are beginning to happen with more regularity. This is the third such upset in the past two years. When they do happen, it's typically that the 2-seed played subpar or even poor, but the 15-seed also had the game of its life. Remember the Hampton upset over Iowa State in 2001? Or the Duke-Lehigh and Norfolk State-Missouri upsets of last year? Those are what we expect to see.

This game, though, was different. Florida Gulf Coast looked more athletic, more disciplined, and more composed. It looked like the Big East team, not the actual Big East champion Georgetown Hoyas. After reaching the Final Four in 2007, John Thompson III has coached the Hoyas to five NCAA Tournament appearances. The Hoyas were knocked out by a double-digit seed each time.

Returning our focus to the Midwest (and our own regional), what can we say about Wisconsin? That game against Ole Miss was pretty horrific. Despite leading most of the way and having a two-possession lead midway through the second half, Wisconsin couldn't buy a basket. It made matters worse by continually taking shots that it had no business attempting (e.g. Jared Berggren's five three-point attempts). The Badgers shot 25.4% from the floor for the game. Only Sam Dekker's 14-point game on 5/13 shooting looked presentable. Despite being an annual threat for a B1G TEN title, Bo Ryan's Badgers again hibernate in March. In five of the last seven seasons, the Badgers have been eliminated by the lower seed.

How bad did it get for New Mexico? Not only did Steve Alford reward New Mexico's decision to sign him to a ten-year contract by giving Harvard its first ever NCAA Tournament win, but New Mexico's beat writer for Rivals.com ragequit his job. Yep: he ragequit his job.

 MISCELLANY. We need to talk about Harvard University's band... Georgetown schadenfreude... This was but one of many highlight dunks for Florida Gulf Coast... Appropriate GIF is appropriate... NC State blog Backing the Pack is handling the upset well... Turrible... Melvin Ejim isn't Sam Thompson... Marquette's comeback against Davidson was crazy... Well, it is the "Big Dance"... These La Salle fans messed with K-State's team the whole game. They could be seen and heard on the court... Shabazz Muhammad isn't as old as he says he is.

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