Sunday, March 21 (all CBS)
12:10pm - Syracuse vs. Gonzaga
2:20pm - Ohio State vs Georgia Tech
2:30pm - Maryland vs Michigan State
2:40pm - West Virginia vs Missouri
2:50pm - Wisconsin vs Cornell
4:50pm - Pittsburgh vs Xavier
5:00pm - Purdue vs Texas A&M
5:15pm - Duke vs California
Now it’s a party. The first round is done. The next 48 hours of games will define which big-time teams can handle the pressure cooker that is the Big Dance, and it will identify the Cinderellas we’ll be talking about for years. If you’re a double-digit seed, winning one game is nice, but you don’t receive your wicked stepsisters, pumpkin coach, and glass slipper until you at least reach the Sweet 16. Oh, you’re a big-conference bigwig? Then the next round is still probably less than what was expected of you. People don’t remember Second Rounders. They remember teams that make the Sweet 16 and beyond. The first round was fun. But it’s over. Here are the teams vying for the Sweet 16 on Saturday:
#2 Villanova vs #10 St. Mary’s
#5 Butler vs #13 Murray State
#6 Tennessee vs #14 Ohio
#1 Kansas vs #9 Northern Iowa
#3 Baylor vs #11 Old Dominion
#3 New Mexico vs #11 Washington
#2 Kansas State vs #7 Brigham Young
#1 Kentucky vs #9 Wake Forest
We’ll be here all day, watching the games with you. We hope you’ll join us, and we definitely look forward to seeing you in the comments section as we all climb in to ride this rollercoaster for the third time. See you right here about fifteen minutes before the first tip!
12:55: Here we go! For the Sweet 16, gentlemen…let’s play! Some interesting matchups throughout the day. Looking especially forward to Baylor vs ODU and KSU vs BYU. To me those look like the more intriguing games.
1:05: St. Mary’s off to a quick start! The inside battle between Omar Samhan and Mouphtaou Yarou and/or Maurice Sutton is gonna be fun to watch. God, Samhan looks bigger every time I see him.
1:15: I guess Jay Wright’s “minor teaching point” is over. Samhan could not have asked for a better start to this game. Eight points on 4-6 shooting. SMU does not look intimidated early. I fact, Villanova still looks like they’re getting over whatever hangover they were nursing that caused them to almost get beaten by Bob Morris.
1:26: Samhan just rooked with that second foul. I agree with Raftery. That should have been a no-call.
WOW. 284 of the 345 Division I college basketball teams are in action on Saturday, and an inordinate number of those games are being broadcast on TV somewhere. We all know what happened last week — an upset-lover’s dream, with a wave of surprising results that started about halfway through the day and kept rolling through Sunday night. And then we had the equally compelling performances by Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds on Monday night and the Robbie Hummel/Evan Turner show on Tuesday. What will this weekend bring? If you check the schedule, many of these match-ups are pretty intriguing, with quite a few highly-ranked teams heading into the home lairs of some squads that really need wins (Purdue at Northwestern comes to mind, where we’ll be courtside with RTC Live). There are some excellent early games of which we’ll be keeping track, starting off with an incredible (not to mention VITAL for both teams) A-10 game involving Dayton at Xavier at 11 AM ET. How about a little bit of #5 Syracuse visiting #9 West Virginia at noon? Maybe you’d prefer a couple of angry ACC teams coming off of losses with #18 Georgia Tech traveling to Chapel Hill to say howdy to #13 North Carolina at 2 PM ET? Well, whatever hoops we can find (and as I say, it is everywhere this weekend), we’ll be live-blogging it here for most of the day, not to mention we have two OTHER RTC Lives we have in store in addition to the aforementioned Purdue/Northwestern: Arizona at Oregon at 4:30 PM ET, and Portland at Saint Mary’s at 10 PM ET. We’ll be here starting at about 11 AM for the first game, so get that refresh-button finger warmed up and join us — and better yet, let us know what you’re watching and what’s on your mind. See you in a bit!
11:00: So here we go with Dayton at Xavier. What a rivalry, and what a way to start the day! This is something like the 4,286th meeting between these two schools (OK, actually 115th, I think). Both teams are currently undefeated in the A-10, and this one would REALLY look good on the ol’ NCAA Tournament resume’.
11:10: I’m sitting here wondering what sort of high-flying exploits Dayton’s Chris Wright will have on display. It’s also fun to watch Dayton coach Brian Gregory on the sideline; he’s a high-energy guy, not that Chris Mack’s not. Gregory is one of those coaches where, if you’re just talking basketball with him, you want to ask him, “Hey, are there some lines I can run for you? Could I do a couple of miles out on the track?” In other words, he’s a good motivator.
As if we weren’t already immature enough here at RTC, this season we figured we’d regress further into our childhood years and come up with a Christmas list, each participant naming one or two things we’d like for ourselves and/or the game of college basketball. As you can see, the answers ranged from the practical to the impossible, the civil to the…well, hostile. Above all, we hope that you, our faithful readers, will have a happy, healthy, hoop-filled holiday season. Enjoy the list, and thanks for being here.
Zeitlin totally owns this tie. No need to get it for him.
rtmsf, RTC founder/editor/contributor:
All I want for Christmas this year is for a titanium-based super extra force field with double-secret password protection to be built on, around, above and under the current NCAA Tournament format. Seriously, I want this thing to be more hermetically sealed than Tiger Woods’ brand-new Swiss bank accounts or Jerry Jones’ new face. Please, Santa, no matter what the rest of these guys ask for — the new rear spoiler for nvr1983, a clue with the ladies for Stevens, that ridiculous jumpsuit for Hayes, and whatever Penn nonsense Zeitlin wants this year — just throw away their lists. Please. The single most important thing you’ll find on anyone’s list this year is mine (ok, I say that every year, but I mean it this time). The possibility that some television money-men and NCAA decisionmakers long on greed but short on perspective and common sense support the idea of expanding the single most exciting and grand spectacle in all of sports to 96 teams should appall your jolly sensibilities. If you can make this happen, Santa, I promise to be good all year round; I’ll even send in that cash pledge this year I keep promising to do but never do, I swear. Thanks.
–Signed, 65 is Enough.
Hands OFF.
nvr1983, RTC editor/contributor:
The NCAA finally gets a sense of reality and actually go after some big name programs instead of focusing on the relatively little guys. Sure, Memphis and Renardo Sidney were involved in some shady dealings, but was it any worse than what USC has done over the past decade?
Have ESPN get ESPNU on every major cable provider or at least put those games on ESPN360.com
Go back to 64 teams. Forget this talk about 96 teams. I don’t even want the 65th team. The play-in game has been a joke for years and everybody knows it. It cheapens the tournament by making the official start of the tournament a game that even die-hard fans don’t care about.
Someone needs to fix this one-and-done rule. I love watching these guys—Kevin Durant, Michael Beasley, Derrick Rose, and John Wall—play, but I know that I will never get to see them mature in the college setting. Either make them stay 4 years or let them enter the draft right out of high school.
Fire the guy running the clock at Hinkle. Somebody has to get some coal this Christmas…
Here's your 1.3 seconds.
John Stevens, RTC editor/contributor:
I can’t lie, there are some things I want for the other guys. Heck, this is the giving season, right? I’d like nvr to remember how to sleep, since he rarely gets to. I think it’d be nice if rtmsf’s, er, “rash” finally cleared up. And yeah, there are some things I’d like for myself. Michelle Beadle’s phone number. Fran Fraschilla’s tweeting abilities. But those are things I’d rather earn of my own efforts. As far as gifts that revolve around college hoops, there’s just no way I can limit it to one thing. Yes, I’m that selfish. But I think I want things that everyone wants, so I’m willing to share. I’d like Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery to be the implied #1 announcing crew for any weekend CBS game, even though I still love and respect Enberg, Lundquist, Elmore, Bilas, et al. I’d like fewer TV timeouts. I’d like the NCAA Tournament to be freaking left alone. But most of all, what I want is for the rest of the season to be free of major injuries. The Evan Turner fall was scary and he’s lucky it wasn’t worse than just a couple of fractured transverse processes. After Derrick Roland broke his leg last night I went outside and sat in my car for half an hour just to avoid the television. That’s gotta be it for the gruesome injuries. I don’t want to watch Kansas or Kentucky or Duke or Texas or anyone come tournament time and think, “That’s not the same team, compared to when they had (x).” It’s been too fun of a season so far to have some team’s chances ruined by a misstep or a freak accident.
"Rise and FIRE...." "ONIONS, Mr. Johnson!!" It has to happen.
Zach Hayes, RTC Bracketologist-in-Residence:
This one might cause some controversy, but I’d ask Santa for some duct tape for Dick Vitale. Watching the Texas-UNC game on Saturday sent me over the edge. His shameless self-promotion and constant hyperbole is incredibly irritating and the man fails to make one cogent basketball point from an analytical perspective the entire telecast. His quirks and habits get extremely tiresome by December. While others like Bill Raftery have their fun, they bring to the broadcast a true sense of the intricacies of basketball to further my understanding of the sport. Jay Bilas is constantly providing enlightening analysis and former coaches like Bob Knight and Steve Lavin are tremendous. Yet ESPN keeps giving us Dick Vitale in the biggest games so he can yell things like “I’ll tell you, Ed Davis has talent!” and “go onto dickvitale.com for my freshman of the year, coach of the year, fans of the year…” It’s enough. Santa, send me some duct tape so I never have to hear that old man screaming again.
We'll go ahead and cancel that interview request...
Dave Zeitlin, RTC Ivy League Correspondent and feature writer for Backdoor Cuts:
What I really want for the holidays is for Penn to beat Duke on New Year’s Eve. But since the odds of that happening are about as slim as Isiah Thomas doing one good thing in his life, I have another wish. I want big-conference coaches to stop whining about tournament expansion. I mean, really? Everyone knows college football is a joke because of the BCS, but let’s not turn college basketball into a joke on the other end of the spectrum by completely diluting the regular season. Yes, I like the idea of more mid-major teams getting berths, which would be a side benefit to tournament expansion. But here’s a better solution for that: limit the number of berths for big-conference teams. How about you have to have a .500 record in the conference and finish in the top half of your league to be eligible? I’m tired of the sense of entitlement some of these coaches have. You have a whole season AND a conference tournament to be one of the 65 teams to make the Big Dance — that should be enough. Most of these guys should take a lesson from Bill Carmody, who in nine seasons at Northwestern has never guided the Wildcats to the NCAA touranament. Still, he is against expansion, saying it would make every game a little less meaningful. Merry Christmas, Bill. I like you even though you coached at Princeton.
Mr. Zeitlin declines. But gives credit where it's due.
Why: Because you’re just as nutty as we are to spend an entire Friday night watching glorified practice sessions
If you’re a frequent visitor here at RTC you’ve probably seen what we do on weekends during the season, meaning our live-blogging during TV game broadcasts that we call Boom Goes The Dynamite (and if you’re the one person who still doesn’t understand that reference, get yourself over to here). We do this because not only do we love watching college basketball until our faces are numb, but we dig the comments of people who are sitting there on their couches watching right along with us and the in-game discussion it generates. In my view, it’s one of the best things we do here. As you probably know, even though it starts at 6pm in some places and most places don’t have the midnight start time any more, Midnight Madness is this Friday night; our beloved countdown clock up in the right hand corner of the screen will hit all-zeroes, and many schools will be having some sort of event to celebrate the first official practice of the new college basketball season. ESPN and ESPN-U are sending analysts to nine different schools (specifically Connecticut, Georgetown, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Duke, Washington, Michigan State and North Dakota State) and will be showing some of the festivities at those venues from 9pm to 1am ET on ESPN-U. ESPN will be simulcasting right along with them from 11:30pm to midnight. By the way, Bill Raftery’s going to be one of the guys at Georgetown, which means we get an early dose of “Onions!!” and “A little lingerie!!” And I say thank God for it.
Our first Boom Goes The Dynamite of the year will take place this Friday night during the Midnight Madness coverage. I’m John Stevens, one of the editors here at RTC, and with some behind-the-scenes help from one or two of my RTC compatriots, I’ll be live-blogging during the ESPN-U broadcast, starting around 8:45pm ET and going all the way through 1am. We’ll be putting up our own thoughts on what we’re seeing and of course your comments as well, but we’ll also be putting up video footage as available, tweets from people who are at the Madnesses watching live, takes from discussion forums, and so on. So if you’re at home watching the broadcast, tune us in as well and get ready to hit the refresh button like a meth-addicted rat in a science experiment. We’ll be waiting.
Before I get started, I want to reiterate our stance against the scumbags who surreptitiously videotaped Erin Andrews in the clips that apparently came out almost 4 months ago and somehow remained unknown before exploding on the Internet one week ago. . .
As you may know by now the past week has been a particularly trying one for the sports media overlords in Bristol as they have been hit by the aforementioned peephole video scandal, which their own sister network claims might have been an inside job[Ed. Note: Can ESPN sue its parent company?], and the Ben Roethlisberger fiasco where they waited several days to announce the news that one of the most recognizable athletes in America had a sexual assault charge filed against him. Perhaps the most interesting story out of Bristol this week was that ESPN had decided to blacklist all New York Post staff members from appearing on any ESPN or any of their outlets after the Post ran screencaps of the infamous videos that left little to the imagination. On a basic visceral level, most people would agree to ESPN’s decision as they would be disgusted by the decision of the Post brain trust to run the screencaps.
The situation becomes a little more dicey when 2 other major media outlets (CBS and FOX News) decided to show the actual clips on their news broadcasts. If the front office people at ESPN actually had a policy or stance regarding the use of these illegally filmed clips, they should have taken a similar stance against CBS and FOX staff members. This raises an interesting question: Why did ESPN single out the New York Post? While some may argue that it was the way the Post utilized the images, we find that rather hard to believe. Although CBS and FOX were not as sensational in their presentation of the clips as the Post was they are in fact doing the same thing–using the illegal footage to try and further their story. For our money, there is a simple answer as to why ESPN singled out the Post staff members for their blacklist–because they can.
After nearly 10 days of college basketball critics bemoaning the lack of excitement in this year’s edition of March Madness, two of the Big East’s best teams answered all of those critics by submitting an all-time classic. After one of the strangest 10 seconds you will ever see, Scottie Reynolds made an end-to-end run that might replace the Danny Ainge and Tyus Edney versions on NCAA Tournament highlight reels from now on as this was on a much bigger stage with a trip to the Final 4 on the line. Even with Reynolds miracle, Pittsburgh still had its shot, but a 75-foot desperation heave by Levance Fields was off-target and the Villanova fans which filled TD BankNorth had their biggest moment since 1985 when Rollie Massimino, who attended the games in Boston, guided the Wildcats to their only national championship.
It was a game that showed off everything that the Big East was this year: tough, physical, surprisingly high-scoring, and always entertaining. The Wildcats came out of the gates strong and held a 22-12 lead with 9:27 left before the #1 seeded Panthers joined the fight. Relying on its three stars (DeJuan Blair, Sam Young, and Fields), Jamie Dixon’s squad cut the lead to 2 with an 8-0 spurt in 1:09. From that point forward, the two team traded punches like world-class heavyweights (back when being a heavyweight actually meant something) as neither team was able to stretch their lead beyond 5 points. Villanova relied on a balanced attack (Dwayne Anderson with 17 points, Reynolds with 15 points, Dante Cunningham with 14 points, and Shane Clark with 11 points) while Pittsburgh relied heavily on its two 1st team All-Big East performers (Young with 28 points and 7 rebounds and Blair with 20 points ant 10 rebounds) to keep it in the game.
A tight game throughout. . .
After trading haymakers for nearly 37 minutes without either team achieving any separation, Pittsburgh appeared to have a chance to do so coming out of a Villanova timeout with a 4-point lead and the ball out of bounds with 3:05 left. Instead, that’s just when the madness started. Jermaine Dixon, who had hit a tough jumper just moments earlier (with a shot that was reminiscent of one that his brother Maryland star Juan Dixon used to hit not too many years ago) to give the Panthers the lead, had the ball stolen from him and in an attempt to recover fouled Dwyane Anderson for the conventional 3-point play. A Sam Young turnover and a Corey Fisher lay-up later, the Wildcats had the lead with 2:16 left, but Fields hit a pair of free throws to give the Panthers the lead back. The Wildcats showed their mettle by scoring the next 5 points to take a 4-point lead with 47 seconds left. As he has done all night long, Young provided the answer for the Panthers with a clutch 3-pointer (“Onions!” as Bill Raftery would say) with 40 seconds left to cut the lead back to 1. A pair of Fisher free throws and a Reggie Redding free throw allowed the Wildcats to stretch the lead back to 4 with 20 seconds left.
John Stevens is a featured writer for Rush The Court.
It looks like CBS has made its selections and placements for the Sweet 16 announcing crews. I think this is important for a couple of reasons; first, because we got us some heavyweights going at it this weekend and these matchups deserve top-drawer announcers; and second, because when you consider some of the tournament’s great moments, the announcing calls are just as much a part of the history as the actual visual images. It’s good to have the big boys behind the mics in case a legendary event happens. That said, let’s take a look at, and rate, the pairings.
The New #1 Crew (image credit: daylife.com)
SOUTH — Jim Nantz (pbp) and Clark Kellogg (color)
Games: North Carolina v. Gonzaga and Syracuse v. Oklahoma (Friday)
Grade: C+
This is the premiere crew, as CBS would have you believe. I give this pairing a C+ because I think these two gentlemen are still working on their rhythm with Kellogg having taken over the seat previously occupied by Billy Packer. Jim Nantz, despite being one of the consensus nice guys in television and a man who has more than put in his time as far as being a basketball announcer, has just never done it for me as a play-by-play man. He’s always struck me as a big-picture, in-the-studio guy, the captain of the whole ship. I have nothing against Kellogg or Nantz as individuals, but because they’re still feeling each other out this late in the year, I don’t think it’s the “premiere,” automatic, Final Four crew any more. Plus, Syracuse v. Oklahoma is going to be an absolute war, and I think it’s a game that’s just tailor-made for Gus Johnson at the play-by-play mic, or Raftery doing color, or — God help us all — both.
Lundquist and Raf. (image credit: ning.com)
EAST – Verne Lundquist (pbp) and Bill Raftery (color)
Games: Pittsburgh v. Xavier and Villanova v. Duke (Thursday)
Grade: B
I’ll admit, there’s really no reason to give this pairing anything other than an ‘A’ except for my own sour grapes. I always loved the pairing of Lundquist with Len Elmore. Plus, if CBS reunited them, it could slide Raftery over to the seat next to Gus Johnson and blow the speakers out of your television. Both Lundquist and Raftery still give me the impression that they’re still amazed to be getting paid for doing this for a living, and when that comes through, it always enhances my enjoyment of a game they’re calling. Especially Raf. Those tag-lines that we all know — “The Kiss!” or “A little lingerie, Mr. Lundquist!” or “Onions!!” — just never get old to me. Also, if a legendary moment presents itself, you know neither of these guys is going to drop the ball.
Because of the NCAA’s refusal to give us a media credential (or discuss the issue and our side of the case), we were forced to go to today’s open practice to get an up-close look at the teams. As an aside, if anybody has extra tickets for the games in Boston for the Sweet 16 or the Elite 8 (in case your team gets cheated by the refs), send me an e-mail at rushthecourt@gmail.com and I might be able to take them off your hands.
The guys who don't want me covering the game
Let’s get one thing out of the way. The East Region open practice might have been the most boring 5 hours of my life (not counting lectures). There’s a reason the NCAA makes this event free (outside of the fact that they more than make up for it through the $8 programs, $5 Cokes, and $23 baseball caps). The crowd was 95% white males in their mid-30s or above along with a handful of kids chasing autographs from players who they were looking up during the practices checking to see which ones had the best stats. My favorites were the old guys sitting behind me who kept on commenting on how good Gary McGhee and Brian Zoubek were (the tallest guys on the court) and what outstanding pros they were going to be. Anyways, here are my thoughts and pictures (some pictures are from my iPhone because I forgot to charge my digital camera) from each team’s “practice”.
RTC asked its legion of correspondents, charlatans, sycophants, toadies and other hangers-on to send us their very favorite March Madness memory, something that had a visceral effect on who they are as a person and college basketball fan today. Not surprisingly, many of the submissions were excellent and if you’re not fired up reading them, then you need to head back over to PerezHilton for the rest of this month. We’ve chosen the sixteen best, and we’ll be counting them down over the next two weeks as we approach the 2009 NCAA Tournament.
Roadtrippin’ to the Alamo City (submitted by John Stevens)
March 1998.
I was living with two friends at the time in an apartment befitting three guys in various stages of their education: one of us a few years out of college and still not playing it too fast and loose with his new income, most of which was being put toward his upcoming wedding; another fellow who was finding no stimulation in graduate school and was looking to upgrade his life; and me, breezing through the last two easy months before my college graduation, working enough at my cake-walk part-time job to keep me in pizza, beer, and the occasional night out (which usually involved pizza and beer).
It was also tournament time. Our favorite time of year. Feeling the wanderlust that an emerging springtime brings, my grad-school roommate and I decided that instead of watching our favorite event on TV as we’d done for most of the previous two weeks, we’d empty our bank accounts and take a road trip to one of the regionals — say, given the snow outside our window in mid-March, the one in St. Petersburg, Florida. Not exactly a tough sell. Turned out to be one of the best road trips I ever took.
Until the next week.
These F4 Fans Weren't As Lucky As John
We got home from St. Pete and were going through several days of unopened mail when I noticed an envelope bearing the emblem of my college. Specifically, the Office of Billing and Financial Aid. 99 times out of 100, that means a bill. Not exactly something I wanted, having just blown a wad of cash to travel to an NCAA regional. It was about as welcome as a positive syphilis test.
But wait, what was this? Weeeeell, evidently some of the grant money awarded me many months ago never found its way to my account, so now that the mistake had been found, a check had been cut for me in the amount of $1500. My buddy and I had just spent the last half hour reminiscing on what a great road trip we’d just had, but still sad because we didn’t know when our next one would be. When I opened that envelope and saw that check, I looked at my friend and told him, “Don’t bother unpacking. We’re going to the Final Four.”
He said he couldn’t part with the cash needed for such a trip, but I reminded him that I owed him a few hundred bucks from a previous debt and that we’d sort out the rest later. To his credit, it didn’t take much persuading. The Final Four that year was in San Antonio, a city I’d heard too many great things about, so there was no way I was going to defy fate and pass up this opportunity. I’d never been to Texas, never even been anywhere near that part of the country. And it’s one of my favorite things to do any time of the year, but as the weather gets warm, is there anything better than packing up a bag and a cooler and hitting the open road with a friend?
Three days later, we were doing exactly that. We bought tickets from a newspaper ad, left in the middle of the night, and drove for hours and hours. Nothing on the radio but people talking Final Four basketball. Constant analysis, endless interviews with coaches, former players, etc. The farther south we drove, the warmer it got. We started out wearing sweaters and jeans, and in a few hours we were in t-shirts, shorts and sunglasses. It was one of the ugliest drives I’d ever been a part of. It involved two dudes who reeked from being in a car too long. But in its own way, it was paradise.
We found living quarters (we thought we were going to be shacking as far away as Austin, but avoided that thanks to the generosity of my buddy’s family) and went to find the epicenter of activity for the weekend. We found the San Antonio Riverwalk by following the noise of the crowd, the sounds of mariachis doing renditions of college fight songs, and, um, Dick Vitale’s voice. Every once in a while as you walked this gorgeous underground pedestrian street along the banks of the San Antonio River, you’d see groups of tourists floating by on large rafts, looking back at the walkers who were looking at them. Sometimes the raft drifting by you would contain a school’s cheerleading or dance team squad, or part of its band, or the CBS studio crew (if Bill Raftery’s big smiling mug floating by on a raft doesn’t bring a smile to your own face, you need to visit your local neurologist, because you are officially incapable of smiling), and so on. The biggest crowd response always happened when Dickie V would come floating by, waving and gesturing to the masses like a big kid. I mean, my God, he’s been doing this for how many years? And there’s not a doubt in my mind — he was still having as much fun as we were.
We made our way to the Fan Jam and just owned the two-on-two shootout for a while, calling ourselves The Shammgods — the insiders applauded the name, much respect — and scoring many notable (and even upset) victories, including a single-shot victory over a couple of prepsters from NYC and an absolute trouncing of two cocky 14-year olds from Tennessee. In our eighth — that’s right, you heard me, eighth — game I hit a cold streak and a couple of local college kids got the better of us; I still relive this cold streak in my mind every so often and the blood still boils. We considered it an upset on the level of ‘85 Villanova, but at that point I think we were such big favorites in Vegas, it wasn’t worth it any more. We met former College of Charleston coach John Kresse who actually took a few moments from strolling with his wife to talk hoops and take pictures with us. Near the ESPN set, we bumped into Steve Lavin who acted like he didn’t see or hear about our exploits at the two-on-two shootout; both of those guys couldn’t have been nicer. It wasn’t just celebrity-sighting — when talking college basketball with them, they weren’t celebrities any more, just regular guys talking about the thing they love the most.
We all know the games from that particular Final Four were fantastic, no matter for whom you were rooting – Kentucky, Utah, UNC or Stanford. There’s simply no way to describe the atmosphere at a Final Four game. The best comparison I can think of is watching the end of a Pink Floyd concert when they’re doing the last number (Run Like Hell) and there are pyrotechnics and lasers like you never imagined and the stage is basically on fire. Imagine that over three days of basketball. The fireworks are constantly taking place on the basketball floor, and the energy and emotion of the crowd is every bit as urgent and electric.
The Alamodome Has Hosted Several F4s
I had fallen in love with college basketball long before this road trip. Even though I never possessed the skill to play it at that level, the sport has been a favorite distraction of mine ever since I’ve had functioning neurons in my brain. But watching those games at the Alamodome and being part of the overall atmosphere of the Final Four that year… well, it was one of those few watershed times in a person’s life, like when you hear a piece of music or meet a person you know from the first nanosecond will always be part of your existence. My friend and I drove the 20+ hours back to the humdrum rhythm of our everyday lives, and as I walked around my campus and worked at my job I saw people who probably once had similar watershed moments in their lives, but whose realities had become relegated to the process of just getting through the days, just surviving things — whatever those sticky, sinister things were. Those were the days when I looked back on my trip as I looked at these people, and I decided — I will never fall victim to those things. Whatever it entails, as often as I possibly can, I’ll always go to be a part of that event. I will always have this in my life.
Good afternoon, college hoops fans, and welcome to another version of Boom Goes The Dynamite. What does that mean? If there’s a game on my television, I’m watching it. I’m even monitoring games on about five different online game-trackers. John Stevens, here, holed-up in the RTC Midwestern Compound. Normally you have to wait until Tuesday for me to force my opinions and exert my influence on you in my weekly column; on this particular Saturday, NVR1983 (the Zelig of college basketball fandom — the man can literally pop up anywhere in the country with a press pass and do a live broadcast and duck out before you’ve noticed he’s been there, and probably eaten half your food) is probably somewhere setting himself on press row for a game tonight, and RTMSF (the guru of RTC) is, from what I understand, probably laying under a big pink blanket watching Mad About You or Sex And The City DVDs with his wife at a spa somewhere. Poor b—ard.
(Just kidding, Mrs. RTMSF…)
Anyway, where I am in the Midwest, it’s cold again, it’s grey, and it’s starting to snow. Sounds like good basketball-watching weather (but what isn’t?). I’ve got a television, I’ve got a cooler, and I’ve got a couch. Let’s watch some hoops. I invite you to join me.
We’re getting a little bit of a delayed start because of a techincal difficulty on my end (long story — suffice to say, I am easily distracted and/or confused by things like shapes and colors), but now that we’re up and rolling, in a moment we’ll catch up on what’s happened so far in today’s games. Welcome!
Back for another day of BGTD. We have a light early schedule today with only a couple interesting early games. I’ll be updating this post throughout the early part of the day so keep on checking back and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments.
St. John’s at #1 Pittsburgh, Noon
- Been a struggle so far for the #1 team in the country. The Red Storm have been on fire from the field while the Panthers have struggled to find their range from the FT line (7/15). The Red Storm have been getting a big game out of D.J. Kennedy, who has 9 points at the half. The only reason the Panthers are in this game has been dominating the glass and a big start from DeJuan Blair, who has been beastly in the first half. It will be fun seeing Blair go head-to-head against the other big men in the Big East.
- Rough start for Sam Young with 5 points on 2/11 FG although he just got a nice assist to Gilbert Brown to put Pitt up by 5 with 1:20 left and then a nasty dunk off a feed from Levance Fields.
- Pitt up 41-36 at half after heating up a little at the end of the half and St. John’s missing a couple shots in a row.
- Interesting fact: Both Kennedy and Blair played at Schenley HS (Pittsburgh) on a team that won the Pennsylvania (PIAA) Class AAAA Championship. Does anybody know if Schenley is a regional powerhouse or just a fluke getting 2 D-1 scholarship guys on the same team?
- Weird setup for the seating at Petersen Events Center. It almost looks like they have luxury boxes behind the benches. Hard to see on TV. Does anybody who has been inside the arena have a little more info on this?
- Pitt is up 58-42 with 13:01 left.
- Wow. That’s a brutal schedule for Pittsburgh for the rest of January (5 straight games against ranked teams after a game against USF).
- Looks like Pitt has opened up a big lead and should be able to cruise the rest of the way. I’m going to switch my focus to the other 2 game below unless something interesting happens in this game.
- Pitt is putting on a clinic now. 85-61 with 2:36 left. Time to call this game.
#18 Xavier at Fordham, 1 PM
- Xavier up 35-22 with 4:34 left in the first half.
- Pretty dominant performance so far. They are shooting 60% from the field compared to Fordham’s 28%.
- I guess this is why people ranked Xavier above Butler in the BlogPoll a few weeks back even after Butler beat them. (Butler barely beat a bad Detroit team at home yesterday).
- Not getting this one on TV so if anybody is actually watching this one and wants to fill us in. Feel free because it’s hard to say something insightful by looking at constantly refreshing box scores.
- Fordham starts the 2nd half on an 13-4 run to cut the lead to 6 with 16:42 left making my above comment look really bad.
- Make that an 18-4 run to cut it to 49-48 with 15:25 left. How is the #18 team in the nation letting this happen against a 2-11 team?
- Xavier finally brought their team out after halftime. Now they’re up by 15 with 9:10 left. If I just saw the box score tomorrow morning, I would have assumed that Xavier rolled in this game.
- Xavier is up by 23 now with 4:07 left. Looks like another “routine” victory.
- Nice balanced effort from Xavier with 6 guys in double figures.
Wisconsin at #14 Purdue, 1:30 PM
- This should be a good game. Wisconsin has played well this year winning their first 3 games in the Big Ten including a big win at Michigan earlier this year.
- The game is being played on Keady Court. Is it too much to ask for a logo with a horrible combover?
- Speaking of the court. It looks like another of the raised courts (benches are below the floor). How many other schools have something like this? Does it have something to do with the colors? The only other one I can think of is at Vanderbilt.
- Looks like Robbie Hummel is healthy as he just hit a 3 after missing some time. He is coming off the bench, but I don’t think that will last long.
- Looks like a football game is breaking out here. Bodies hitting the floor.
- Nasty putback dunk by JaJuan Johnson. I guess the Big Ten does have some athletes.
- The Badgers have played pretty poorly, but is still in the game at half, 32-26 off an 8-0 run to end the half. If Purdue wants to make a run in March, they need to start putting teams away.
- Big first half by Johnson with 14 points on 6-of-7 from the field.
- Wisconsin keeps hanging around, but they haven’t been able to challenge Purdue for the lead. Each time they come close, they fail to convert.
- Tough foul on E’Twaun Moore there. Could have went either way.
- I have no idea what Bill Raftery was trying to say there. Something about Hummel’s 3-pointer, church, and marriage.
- Purdue is opening up a nice working margin here.
- Wisconsin would be right in this game if they could finish near the basket. They must have missed a dozen shots within 5 feet so far today with 7 min left in the game.
- Nice victory for Purdue (first win in the Big Ten after 2 losses). They won a game they should win without ever being in too much trouble. Great game from JaJuan Johnson with 20 points and 10 rebounds.
Let’s kick off Thanksgiving Week with a little Maui Invitational to go with your turkey and stuffing.
The Maui is easily our favorite pre-conference tourney every year. There’s something about the endless beach and sunset shots they show us during timeouts, or maybe it’s just Bill Raftery in a Hawaiian print shirt. Whatever the case, we love it and we can’t take the season seriously until the luau music hits our ears. Not to mention that most years there’s some excellent basketball to watch. Our favorite two tourneys right off the top of our head were the year (2001) that Ball St. beat #3 Kansas and #4 UCLA in consecutive nights before finally succumbing to #1 Duke; and the year (2005) that Gonzaga’s Adam Morrison and Michigan St.’s Maurice Ager bombed threes all over the place in a triple-OT thriller.
Our picks for this year are below the bracket.
Day One Picks.Marquette easily over Chaminade. LSU in a low-scoring slugfest over Oklahoma St. Duke runs all over Princeton. Arizona St. surprises Illinois.
Semis. Herb Sendek gives Duke a tough game, but K prevails (9-0 in this event). Marquette’s guards confound LSU.
Finals. Duke gets revenge for last year’s loss to Marquette in the finals of the CBE Classic.
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