Bilas and Digger Not Bleeping Idiots After All
Posted by rtmsf on March 30th, 2008We felt a little bit like we jumped the gun on Digger/Bilas when we noted that our own bracket ended up with three #1 seeds and a #2 seed, but we still felt that the likelihood of four #1 seeds making the 4 was almost nil, considering that it has never happened before.
We are now prepared to eat crow.
Moving on… is this the best Final Four ever, at least in terms of the quality of teams? Clearly we’ve never had four #1 seeds before, so that’s a great starting point, but how about the fact that the four teams have combined for a ridiculous record of 143-9 (.941) this season? Of those nine losses, only three of the Ls came to teams that were not in the NCAA Tournament this year (Washington, Oklahoma St., Maryland). We need to do some further research on this, but we have to believe this is the first time ever that the top four preseason teams in the AP and Coaches’ polls made the F4. All we can say is that whoever wins this year’s F4 will have definitely earned it.
Now on to the games today…
We have to give major love to John Calipari for somehow convincing his 37-1 team that they were an underdog at the South Regional. The way they were corralling loose balls and attempting to de-Shaqproof rims (mostly Joey Dorsey), it was clear that this team felt slighted. As Vegaswatch pointed out before the Sweet 16, Memphis became publicly undervalued in the last couple weeks of the season, which manifested itself in the Tigers getting unfavorable odds despite the fact that they spent much of the season at #1 in the country. We’re not sure how much life Calipari will get out of playing this card considering the two immolations of Michigan St. and Texas this weekend, but if Derrick Rose and others keep playing like this, it may not matter. Still, UCLA represents an old nemesis of John Calipari (UCLA won 50-45 in the E8 in 2006) and Memphis as a program (UCLA won the title 87-66 in 1973 over what was then called Memphis St.).
As for Kansas-Davidson, we were anxiously awaiting the Kansas collapse along with everyone else (you could have gotten 1:10 odds against Stephen Curry missing that transition 3 with 1:15 remaining), but it looked to us that Davidson finally reached a tipping point where NBA-level talent finally trumped a hardy group of very skilled players who have reached their full potential. Still, with that said, Davidson ended up willing itself into a last-second attempt to win the game. Far be it from us to question the strategy of a #10 seed that damn near made the F4, but we would have loved to have seen Davidson run a penetrate-and-kick/reversal play to get Curry the final shot rather than letting him try to create something himself (not his strength). What a tremendous run for this Davidson team, though – they represented the essence of the Tourney Cinderella better than anyone since the George Mason run a couple of years ago.
