Each day this week during the regional rounds of the NCAA Tournament we’re asking some of our top correspondents to put together a collection of notes and interesting tidbits about each region.  If you know of something that we should include in tomorrow’s submission, hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Midwest Region (Tom Hager)

• Northern Iowa head coach Ben Jacobson was rewarded today with a 10-year deal worth $450,000 a year.  He is currently making $289,000 a year.  Speaking of Jacobson, apparently the university has more trust in Jacobson than his own son, who originally picked Kansas to beat the Panthers.
• Michigan State’s focus is going to be on defense.  The Panthers are 21-0 this season when they scored at least 60 points, and MSU head coach Tom Izzo is concerned about stopping a team that shoots such a high percentage from the field and free throw line.
• According to David Gilsan, Tennessee’s key to keeping the game close will be utilizing their depth, something the Buckeyes did not do when they had no bench points against Georgia Tech.
• For all the fans who were surprised by the strength of Ali Farokhmanesh on the cover of Sports Illustrated.  We’ve done some investigating and wonder if SI is doctoring its photos.  Inconclusive, but interesting nonetheless.

West Region (Andrew Murawa)

• The top-seeded Orange have been without their senior center Arinze Onuaku since he injured his right quadriceps on March 11, and to this point they haven’t really needed him. But as the competition gets a bit stiffer this week, the Orange will continue on without him on Thursday and likely throughout the weekend, as he hasn’t yet taken part in practice. The Final Four is starting to look like a more realistic goal for his return.
• Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim knows that regardless of who plays for his Orange, Butler is a talented team that will give his team problems.
• One of the themes of the West Region is the strength of Xavier and Butler, two teams that come from non-BCS conferences but who have become national powers. Just don’t use the term “mid-major” around Xavier head coach Chris Mack.
• And while Kansas State vs. Xavier may not seem like a matchup with a lot of history, they did have a matchup on New Year’s Eve a couple years back, and senior guard Jacob Pullen is still holding a grudge. He’ll have to play under control though, as it may be the battle of All-American-type guards that will decide the outcome.

Read the rest of this entry »

We thought it would be interesting to see how the bookmakers in Vegas and beyond see the final sixteen teams of this year’s NCAA Tournament.  We’ll take a fairly simplistic look at this with some brief analysis after the jump, but we suggest that if you really want to delve into a greater detail of analysis behind these odds, you head over to Vegas Watch who will be breaking down each region throughout the week.  Here’s how the people who do this for a living handicap the remaining teams in the field.  We’ve broken it down into three categories (from left to right): percentage chance of making the Final Four, the Championship Game and winning the national title.

(ed. note: this was calculated prior to Truck Bryant’s injury for West Virginia)

Read the rest of this entry »

Each day this week during the regional rounds of the NCAA Tournament we’re asking some of our top correspondents to put together a collection of notes and interesting tidbits about each region.  If you know of something that we should include in tomorrow’s submission, hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

Midwest Region (Tom Hager)

• Northern Iowa coach Ben Jacobson has insisted that his players are handling the added attention well, but it is hard to keep your composure when you walk into a lecture hall and receive a standing ovation, as Ali Farokhmanesh experienced on Monday.
• Many people know that Farokhamnesh transferred to UNI, but most people do not know that UNI, like most other schools, knew about him in high school and passed up on him.
• According to Dan Blank, the key for Michigan State will be to push the ball (something Kansas failed to do when they let Jordan Eglseder score 14 points in 18 minutes).  However, given the injuries they have recently sustained, Blank says hastening the pace may not be so easy.
• Ohio State has been criticized for a lack of bench production, but Blank points out that the short bench may benefit the Buckeyes.
• The Buckeyes are underdogs in this game, but Inside Tennessee’s Patrick Gibson reported that the Vols had a solid practice session on Monday.  That should come as no surprise, as this week Doug Gottlieb listed Bruce Pearl as one of his top coaches in the country.

West Region (Andrew Murawa)

• Here we are, a couple of days away from the start of the Sweet 16 round and Syracuse is a likely favorite to play in the national championship game in two weeks, a lofty set of expectations that were entirely unlikely four and a half months ago when expectations for the Orange were low, and got even lower with an exhibition loss to LeMoyne.
• While Syracuse is led by a Hall-of-Fame head coach, their opponent in the Sweet 16 has a coach that is younger than Jim Boeheim’s coaching career. Butler head coach Brad Stevens is 33; Boeheim is in his 34^th year as the Syracuse coach.  Nevertheless, Stevens has his Bulldogs a weekend away from potentially playing in the Final Four down the street from the school’s campus.
• In the other regional semifinal, Xavier will face Kansas State, a matchup between two balanced teams. Xavier head coach Chris Mack sees his Musketeers playing their best offensive basketball of the year, but a key may be their ability to keep their strong offensive rebounding opponent off the glass. Beyond that, the Muskies will need to have answers not only for stars like Jacob Pullen, but also role players like Dominique Sutton.

Read the rest of this entry »

Meet Alex Herrmann, a 17-year old Chicago-area kid who loves college basketball.  He is not to be confused with the late, great Alex Herrmann, a world-famous magician in the nineteenth century.

Herrmann the Magician, Part II (courtesy: Deadspin)

You would be forgiven if you were a little confused, though, as Herrmann the Younger is conjuring up a good amount of magic himself when it comes to filling out this year’s NCAA Tournament brackets.  An NBC Chicago report that came out today introduced the world to the teen who is making the seemingly impossible claim that he picked the entire first two rounds correctly (48-0) on his bracket.  The odds of doing that are approximately 13.5 million to one, which means that the autistic teenager needs to get Tom Cruise on the batphone to scoop him up and make a beeline for Vegas, stat.

His explanation for his incredible prescience (which we’ve never seen nor heard of before, ever).  “I’m good at math.  I’m kind of good at math and at stats I see on TV during the game.”  He’s either one lucky SOB or he has a crystal ball in that head of his because if his national champion pick of Purdue comes through then we’ll be taking the ’49 Buick Roadmaster by his house ourselves to get his picks for next year.  Here he is discussing his strategery.

Here’s the best part.  He entered his picks into the only CBS Sportsline game that doesn’t offer any prizes.  The other two CBS bracket games offer as much as $5,000 per perfect round while Yahoo! and others offer millions for a completely perfect card.  Right.  He may be a brilliant bracket-filler, but he could use a little work in the gaming department.  For a nominal fee, we’ll be happy to help him out with that.  Here’s his bracket.

And then there were 16.

With the greatest four days of the year now in the rearview mirror, there’s still plenty to get excited about. The regional semifinals and finals can provide heart-pounding drama and unforgettable moments with games involving the best teams the sport has to offer. It only takes a quick rewind to five years ago: remember the West Virginia-Louisville and Illinois-Arizona regional final doubleheader?

If any team still standing — whether it be Cinderella Cornell or favorite Kentucky — wants to spend the first Monday in April cutting down nets in Indianapolis, they’ll first need to get by their Sweet 16 opponent. In order to jump over that next hurdle, there are a few in-game factors we deem imperative. Let’s run down what needs to happen for each team to advance and what will go wrong if each team finds their season has come to a heartbreaking conclusion:

Will the senior Dale frustrate the freshman Wall?

East Region- #1 Kentucky vs. #12 Cornell

If Kentucky advances: The Wildcats need to speed up Cornell and go crazy in transition. Cornell loves to keep teams in the halfcourt where they can run their sets and explore a two-man game with heady point guard Louis Dale and seven-foot center Jeff Foote. If Kentucky is forced into a halfcourt game, DeMarcus Cousins and Patrick Patterson must get a touch on each and every possession. The Big Red will have an incredibly difficult time containing two lottery picks if Cousins and Patterson receive the ball in prime post position. It would also help tremendously if Eric Bledsoe’s hot shooting streak continues. Bledsoe has nailed 75% of his three-pointers in the Dance thus far, giving Kentucky yet another dimension.

If Cornell advances: Cornell emasculated Wisconsin on Sunday, shooting the ball at over a 60% clip and scoring an otherworldly 1.45 points per possession against a Bo Ryan defense. If the Big Red continues their red-hot stroking from the outside with star Ryan Wittman, Dale, Jon Jacques and Chris Wroblewski, there’s a fair chance Kentucky won’t be able to answer. When the Wildcats struggle, they take and miss a plethora of long-range shots. Cornell runs the ninth most efficient offense in the nation, largely due to the intelligent play of their senior guards. With Kentucky starting a freshman backcourt, it’s possible the Big Red could frustrate the turnover-prone John Wall into mistakes.

East Region- #2 West Virginia vs. #11 Washington

If West Virginia advances: The Mountaineers need to stick to what they do best- namely hitting the boards with an unmatched intensity, beating Washington up physically, and getting the ball to Da’Sean Butler in big spots if the game comes down to the wire. Washington only has one main contributor that’s 6’9 and most of their forwards are more long than bulky. West Virginia is the second best offensive rebounding team in the nation and could rack up the second-chance opportunities, much like they did against an undersized Missouri squad in the previous round. A key matchup to watch is Devin Ebanks guarding Quincy Pondexter. It’s vital that Ebanks bring it on the defensive end; in fact, if I’m Bob Huggins, I tell Ebanks to transfer his complete focus to the defensive end and guarding Pondexter.

If Washington advances: The Huskies underachieved during the regular season for many reasons, the top two being an inability to win on the road and shooting woes from behind the arc. A 34% three-point shooting team the entire campaign, Washington has shot 47% or better from downtown in both of their tournament wins. Isaiah Thomas and Elston Turner have played tremendously well in this regard, and they’ll need the hot shooting to continue on Thursday because the Huskies can’t hold a candle to West Virginia in the paint. Also, Mountaineers point guard Joe Mazzulla is an above-average defensive player and can frustrate Thomas into poor shot selection and turnovers. Thomas needs to keep his head and continue to find Pondexter in the right spots and Turner off screens for open looks.

For the other three regions, read on…

Read the rest of this entry »

How’s Your Bracket? Of the sixteen top seeds in this year’s NCAA Tournament, eight are now gone — one #1 seed, one #2 seed and three each of the #3s and #4s.   The last time that half of the top sixteen didn’t make the Sweets?  2005 (8).  Before that?  2000 (9).  So maybe this is a cyclical thing of around twice a decade, but we’ll take it.  It makes for a wild attention-getting opening weekend, and builds a buzz about the Dance that had been lacking in the last couple of years during the early rounds. In addition to that, we have a #9 (Northern Iowa), #10 (St. Mary’s), #11 (Washington) and #12 (Cornell) crashing the rarefied air of the regionals, the most teams from the lower half of the bracket to make it since 1999 when five double-digit seeds made it to the second weekend.  To the players on those four teams, they don’t care about any of that — the unlikelihood of its occurrence is lost on their youth; all they know is that they’re still playing and they believe they can continue to advance in this tournament.  And why shouldn’t they?  None of the four teams above fit the definition of an overmatched Cinderella that just happened to catch a favorite looking ahead or on a very off night.  No, these four teams have combined to win 113 games this year, and each has shown the ability to win convincingly over quality competition.  Cornell’s 13-point victory over Temple was one thing; but an 18-point pasting over Bo Ryan’s Wisconsin while scoring 87 points is quite another.  St. Mary’s knocking out a strong Richmond team was impressive; but holding Big Shot Scottie Reynolds to 2-11 from the field is a different story.  Same thing for Washington dominating a 30-win New Mexico team, and well, we’re still in astonishment over the UNI victory over Kansas on Saturday afternoon (more on this below).  It was a bracket-busting kind of weekend, and it provided more thrills and memorable moments than the last few NCAA Tournaments combined.  It’s the reason we all love this sport, and it provides additional evidence (although none is needed) that the Tourney is already in its sweet spot in terms of the right number of teams allowed to participate.  If #9 seed Northern Iowa had to play an additional game to get to #8 UNLV before a chance to take on #1 Kansas on Saturday, would they have had the legs to get past the overall top seed?  Would any of the above teams still be dancing?

Un-Farokhing-Believable.  We were among the biggest supporters of top overall seed Kansas as a dominant team that had a great shot at steamrolling to this year’s title, but Ali Farokhmanesh and Northern Iowa had other ideas.  It wasn’t enough that the Iowan with the Persian name that no major college wanted drilled a 25-foot game winner during Thursday’s first round game versus UNLV; no, he one-upped that shot with another three (“a dagger,” according to Bill Self) on a 1-on-2 fast break opportunity where the ‘smart’ play appeared to be pulling things out and running clock.  His platinum-balls three from the right wing was all net, giving UNI a four-point lead with around thirty seconds to go.  After KU’s Tyrel Reed charged on the ensuing possession, the upset was in the books, and it will go down as one of the greatest in NCAA Tournament history.  No matter what the revisionist historians will try to argue, Kansas was the prohibitive favorite to win the NCAA Tournament this season, and in the 64/65-team era, there has never been a bigger Second Round upset.  Bigger than Stanford and Kentucky in 2004, Stanford again in 2000, and yes, even Kansas’ loss to UTEP in 1993.  The difference between those teams and this one is that 2009-10 Kansas was considerably better than all of those other #1 seeds.  If you disagree that they weren’t the prohibitive favorite, send us a screen shot of where you had the Jayhawks losing.  42% of America in the ESPN Tournament Challenge had the ‘Hawks winning it all, and nearly 75% had them in the Final Four.  We would agree that it was the biggest overall upset since George Mason over #1 UConn back in 2006, but at least by that point in time we had a decent idea of what the Patriots were made of (with wins over UNC and Michigan State already).  Here, we had no idea that Ali and his Magic Panthers had in store.

Color Us Impressed…

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the next two days in a series of separate posts, RTC will break down all 16 of the second round games using our best analytical efforts to understand these teams, the matchups and their individual strengths and weaknesses.  Our hope is that you’ll let us know in the comments where you agree, disagree or otherwise think we’ve lost our collective minds.  Here are the Sunday games.

12:10 pm – #1 Syracuse vs. #8 Gonzaga  (Buffalo pod)

In the CBS national game to start the day, everyone will get this very enticing game between Syracuse and Gonzaga.  Given the way this year is winding up, it wouldn’t surprise anyone if the Orange without their big man Arinze Onuaku found itself on the short end of the score around 2:30 pm today.  But we still have faith in Syracuse even without the talented center and we think that Jim Boeheim’s team is too good to fall short of the Final Four this early.  The primary problem that the Zags are going to have is one they didn’t have to worry as much about with Florida State, and that is in stopping the powerful SU offense.  With offensive scoring threats at all five positions, Syracuse is in a far more advantageous position than FSU was (with their limited offense) when Gonzaga caught fire on Friday — if the Zags want to get into a shootout with Syracuse, that’s not likely to end well for them. Still, with the way the Big East has had so many early round troubles, and the WCC looking great with St. Mary’s already in the Sweet Sixteen, we’re not ready to dismiss the Zags based on that alone.  The Syracuse zone is likely to be something that Mark Few’s team has not seen with such athletes all season, so even with their ability to put the ball in the hole, we hesitate to think the Zags can consistently score on it.

The Skinny: Gonzaga will push the Orange, but we still like this team to advance and make a serious push for the national title in coming weeks.

2:20 pm – #2 Ohio State vs. #10 Georgia Tech  (Milwaukee pod)

You might not see it on their faces, but the Buckeyes are smiling.  Northern Iowa’s removal of Kansas puts Ohio State in the driver’s seat in the Midwest region.  That said, there’s still no way Thad Matta and Evan Turner are going to let the rest of that team look past their opponents and assume an open road to Indianapolis.  Good thing, because Georgia Tech showed us that they’re not just made up of Derrick Favors and Gani Lawal and a bunch of suckers.  The Yellow Jackets shot 2-10 from the three point line but balanced that by holding Big 12 player of the year James Anderson to a 3-12 shooting night, 0-6 from beyond the three-point arc, and an overall 11 points.  But the most impressive aspect of Georgia Tech’s performance on Friday night — by FAR — was the fact that they went to the free throw line 25 times — and hit 24 of them!  It wasn’t just Lawal and Favors.  Tech played nine players, and eight of them shot at least one free throw.  Evan Turner isn’t just the player of the year in his conference, though — he’s likely the national POY, so the Tech task is that much tougher.  Turner wasn’t himself in their first round game against UCSB, going 2-13 and posting only nine points (though he did contribute 10 boards and five assists).  He’s looking to break out, and knows he’ll have to be at his best.  Lawal and Favors, though, will be looking to get Dallas Lauderdale, Jon Diebler, and Turner in foul trouble early and open poke some holes in that OSU front line.

The Skinny:  You probably don’t want to go with our Midwest picks, since yesterday we took Kansas and Ohio.  It’s not exactly going out on a limb to say that this will be a great second round game, but that stat line of Turner’s shows you that he can play such an important role on the team even when he’s not scoring.  For Tech to win, they’d have to turn in a similar performance at the free throw line, keep Turner under wraps and coax him into a supporting role again, and cool down Jon Diebler.  That’s a tough trifecta to pull off.  We don’t see it happening.  But we didn’t see Northern Iowa dismissing Kansas, either.

Read the rest of this entry »

How’s your bracket?  Probably looking pretty sweet if you went to undergrad at St. Mary’s and then took a master’s at Northern Iowa.  Have they stopped partying at UNI yet?  Or campaniling?  Or whatever they do there?  And if not, who could blame them?

That was yesterday, though.  The Panthers and Gaels will be receiving their Official Cinderella starter handbooks in the mail in a couple of days, so the matter now turns to the Sunday games, and any possible candidates that could join them.  Your lineup:

• #1 Syracuse vs #8 Gonzaga
• #2 Ohio State vs #10 Georgia Tech
• #4 Maryland vs #5 Michigan State
• #2 West Virginia vs #10 Missouri
• #4 Wisconsin vs #12 Cornell
• #3 Pittsburgh vs #6 Xavier
• #4 Purdue vs #5 Texas A&M
• #1 Duke vs #8 California

Will Northern Iowa’s dismissal of Kansas inspire other underdogs to greater heights?  Or will it cause the higher seeds to sharpen their focus and be even warier of the upstarts?  Keep in mind, things always start and end a tad earlier on Second Round Sunday, and there’s that glut of four games that all start within 30 minutes of each other in the early afternoon.  But no worry, if you can’t see them all — we’ll be here all day, talking about them, updating this post every few minutes, and looking for your comments.  Hard to believe we’ll have whittled the field of 64 down to 16 by Sunday night, and the events of Saturday should drive the point home that we need to enjoy this while it’s here.  We’re here to help.  We’ll start updating the post a few minutes before the first tipoff, and we hope to see you here.

12:00: Here we go, folks!  Day 2, second round.  The day starts with ‘Cuse/’Zags and you see the rest of the lineup above.  Syracuse, Duke, Ohio State…you’ve been put on notice by Northern Iowa.  Let’s see what happens.

12:10: One thing that’s got to make you happy if you’re a Syracuse fan is that Wesley Johnson is being VERY aggressive with the basketball.  Hit his first two.

12:18: See, I don’t think Matt Boldin needs to fire from three for the Zags to put their best foot forward, today.  I think they’ll be better off if he does more creating and dishing, and we know he picks up points that way.

12:27: Goodness, right now it’s Wesley Johnson versus Elias Harris.  Johnson has Syracuse’s first ten and Harris has just made the baseline his second home.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the next two days in a series of separate posts, RTC will break down all 32 of the first round games using our best analytical efforts to understand these teams, the matchups and their individual strengths and weaknesses.  Our hope is that you’ll let us know in the comments where you agree, disagree or otherwise think we’ve lost our collective minds.  Here are the Friday afternoon games.

12:15 pm – #2 West Virginia vs. #15 Morgan State  (Buffalo pod)

West Virginia enters the NCAA Tournament as one of the hottest teams in the nation. They squeaked out an enormous road win at Villanova to end the regular season then swept through Cincinnati, Notre Dame and Georgetown en route to a Big East championship riding the heroics of Da’Sean Butler. The Mountaineers are an extremely gifted rebounding team; in fact, sometimes their best offense comes after a missed shot. They feature multiple weapons that can step out and shoot a mid-range jumper or three from Wellington Smith to Kevin Jones to the all-around dynamo Butler. Also, few teams can match West Virginia’s intensity in the halfcourt defensively. Morgan State head coach Todd Bozeman will need a gigantic scoring output from their own star, Baltimore native Reggie Holmes. Holmes scored 25 or more points fifteen times this season, averaging 21.3 PPG and ranking in the top-50 in percentage of shots taken. The Bears also feature a rugged forward named Kevin Thompson who comes in at fifth in the nation in offensive rebounding percentage. In fact, Morgan State ranks 11th in the country as a team in that very category. Unfortunately for the underdogs, West Virginia is never outworked on the glass, not with Jones, Devin Ebanks and Bob Huggins prominently involved.

The Skinny: This one shouldn’t be close from the tip. Morgan State dominated the MEAC all season, but West Virginia is flying high at this point. Expect the Mountaineers to dominate by 25-30 points.

12:25 pm – #6 Xavier vs. #11 Minnesota  (Milwaukee pod)

The answer to which team will win this game depends entirely on which Gopher team shows up to play in Milwaukee.  Will it be the defensive juggernaut that held Purdue to 11 first  half points last Saturday, or will it be the team that got obliterated by Ohio State 52-29 in the second half on Sunday?  Tubby Smith’s team has been schizophrenic like that all year, following up strong wins with disastrous performances (two losses to Michigan?  really?), which probably explains why they were a bubble team up until Sunday evening.  Xavier comes into this one with the stronger resume, but it’s difficult to say if the Musketeers are the better team.  When he plays under control, XU’s Jordan Crawford is a talent, and his supporting case of Jason Love on the interior and Terrell Holloway running the show makes for nice balance throughout the Xavier lineup.  The question we have is who will win the defensive battle, though.  Xavier defends the three really well, while Minnesota behind Blake Hoffarber and Lawrence Westbrook both shoot it equally as well.  This game is essentially a tossup (Vegas agrees, setting Minny as a one-point favorite), and we really liked the first seven halves of basketball that the Gophers put up in Indianapolis on a neutral floor last week, so we’re going with the extremely mild 6/11 upset here, in a close game that comes down to the last possession. 

The Skinny: Despite the seedings, this is a tossup game and we like the Gophers to win it on the last possession. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Each day this week during the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament we’re asking some of our top correspondents to put together a collection of notes and interesting tidbits about each region.  If you know of something that we should include in tomorrow’s submission, hit us up at rushthecourt@yahoo.com.

South Region Notes (Patrick Sellars)

• The first “upset” of the tournament occurred in the South Region when SWAC champion Arkansas Pine-Bluff took down the Big South tournament champion Winthrop, 61-44. The Golden Lions earned the right to play top seeded Duke on Friday night.
• When #9 Louisville takes on #8 California on Friday night, Louisville head coach Rick Pitino says he’ll be ready for the Bears’ “organized chaos.”  There is also an interesting quote in the article from Cardinals’ guard Edgar Sosa that says he has heard Cal referred to as “poor man’s Marquette”.
• Utah State’s leading scorer, junior guard Tai Wesley, broke his nose in the WAC tournament final on Saturday when the Aggies got pounded by New Mexico State.  He will play in the Aggies’ upcoming game versus Texas A&M, but you have to wonder what kind of effect it will have on USU’s star. On TAMU’s side, they will have Dash Harris back in the lineup after he missed the Big 12 Tournament with a bone bruise in his right wrist. Head coach Mark Turgeon said that if his team wants any chance to win this weekend, they will need Harris healthy.
• Fran McCaffery is not letting his Siena team think they can beat Purdue by just showing up in Spokane on Friday. He says Purdue is by far the best team Siena will face all season even without Robbie Hummel. You’d have to think a Butler Bulldogs fan would think otherwise.
• Here is an interesting article from The Times-Picayune which highlights the #3 Baylor vs. #14 Sam Houston State game. Not only are the two teams from Texas, but they have two New Orleans natives returning to their home town for the first round. Star senior guards Tweety Carter (Baylor) and Ashton Mitchell (Sam Houston State) both played their high school ball in The Big Easy.
• Villanova head coach Jay Wright told the Philadelphia Inquirer about his team’s lackluster play in first round games the past two seasons. Wright said “we’ve survived first-round games, but we really haven’t played well in first-round games.”

East Region Notes (Ryan Restivo of SienaSaintsBlog)

Read the rest of this entry »