March Through Madness: An NCAA Tourney Blog : The Men

Final Thoughts: The Devil and Bill Self

Mark Coatney — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:49:01 GMT

Here's the story I had begun, when Kansas led by 3 midway through the first half: "If it comes down to the last-second shot, Kansas is in trouble. This team plays hard, and they like each other, and they're generous to a fault. But there's really nobody on that team, except maybe Mario Chalmers, who has the personality and the skills to both want to take the last shot and to actually hit it."

Funny how things work out.

Also funny how both teams played very well, and according to type. Memphis pressured the ball, drove to the basket, hit the midrange jumper and missed clutch free throws; Kansas aggressively defended the perimeter and pounded the ball inside. There were a few outliers—play that game a hundred times more and Derrick Rose is more of an offensive threat; play it a hundred times more and Kansas shoots better than 3 of 12 threes (though, go figure: before Sherron Collins and Chalmers hit those last two three-pointers, Kansas was shooting 1-10; had Kansas lost, we all would have been point to this as one of the reasons why).

Since we've been numbers geeks here all along, we'd like to point out that the Memphis collapse wasn't all that bad; according to the Bill James lead calculator, a 9 point lead with a little over two minutes left to play is only 32 percent safe. Interestingly, this is the same degree of confidence Kansas had when they were up 40-12 with 27 minutes left to play against North Carolina. Of course, Kansas closed that one out.

There is the free throw issue, of course, and though everyone is going to make a lot of noise about how Calipari shouldn't have dismissed his team's poor shooting so lightly, I'm inclined to agree with those who believe free throws have very little to do with winning. Having a team that shoots a high percentage from the line is nice to have, of course, but it's a far less valuable skill than, say, offensive rebounding, which gets your team the most precious commodity in the game—more possessions. And though the misses were easy to point to as the reason for the Memphis collapse, far more important was allowing Kansas to steal the inbounds pass with under two minutes left to play; Collins hit a 3 that brought the score to 60-56.

But enough rehashing. As they say in Bull Durham, the moment's over, and the first midnight scrimmage is only six months away. The big question facing Bill Self now comes in the form of ~~the Devi~~l Boone Pickens with an offer of, well it's an obscene amount of money, really, to coach Oklahoma State, which just happens to be Self's alma mater. Will Self take it? When Devin asked me that last night, I made a not-very-convincing-even-to-myself argument that Bill Self would never leave the greatest job in college basketball. And there are already plenty of columnists saying he should stay put (thanks, Gene Wojciechowski). Still, I think Devin's right. It's a chance to go home, to a school that does have a pretty good basketball tradition of its own (even though their last title came in, ahem, 1946). And, oh yeah, there's maybe Ten. Million. Dollars.

So maybe he's gone. And really, with no hard feelings; Self is by all accounts a great guy, and he's run a great program at KU. Still, what shall it profit a team, if it shall gain the whole world, and lose its own coach? Well, hundreds of thousands in merchandise sales, etc. for one thing. A higher national profile. And, maybe a shot at the next up-and-coming coach. You think Mark Turgeon's available?

And now, in our own personal One Shining Moment, I must thank you both for a very nice three weeks of watching and writing about basketball. And I'm not just saying that because my team won. Truly, this is the most wonderful time of the year, made even better with such smart writers to talk it over with. See you all at Midnight Madness.

Did Kansas Win a Title and Lose a Coach?

Devin Gordon — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:34:38 GMT

I think its only fitting that we let Coatney have the last word, assuming he's come down from that cloud yet. He's waited a long time for this, and his Jayhawks took the title in the most electrifying way. There's no such thing as a crummy national championship, but no one wants to win one in a garbage game like, say, the Maryland-Indiana slopfest about five years ago. This was a skilled, thrilling game, with superb players all over the court, and the kind of finish you can't script. I'd like to second Starr's compliment of the referees and their wise decision to swallow their whistles. As I watched it, I thought often that the game was being called like an NBA game--and that it was much better for it. The players decided this one, loud and clear.

But now all the speculation will turn to the coaches--or one coach, at least. When I sent Coatney a congratulatory e-mail last night, I told him that I thought he'd won a title but probably lost a coach. As everyone reading this surely knows, Bill Self is being wooed by his alma mater, Oklahoma State, with buckets of money. Coatney thinks he'll resist the lure, but I seriously doubt it. At the risk of being a cynic, OSU is simply offering too much money to walk away from--a reported $4 million per year with a $6 million bonus. (He makes just over $1 million per with Kansas.) I'm sure KU will sweeten his deal, but not /that/ much. And here's why I'm so convinced Self will take the dough: it wouldn't be a betrayal. It would, in fact, be an act of loyalty to both sides. He can cry "mission accomplished" for Kansas--he got them their title--and he can return home without leaving any unfinished business and without having to explain why on Earth he would do it. And though it didn't stop Billy Donovan, the thought will surely cross Self's mind about what kind of KU team hed be returning to. Its also worth saying that $10 million is an insane amount of money, and I'm not sure any of us--as pure and noble as we are--could walk away from it. Especially if we were being offered that money to come home.

Coatney, I don't think anything can dim your day today. But do you really think Self will be your coach next year? Or is that just the champagne talking?

At Last, One Great Game

Mark Starr — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:32:20 GMT

When you don't, as I didn't, have a horse in the race, the game itself--good or bad--becomes the only concern. And last night's NCAA basketball final was everything a fan could have hoped for. Kudos to both Kansas and Memphis for a spirited, stylish sprint of a game, good enough to virtually erase the memory of what had been a disappointing, often sluggish tournament.

But I give every bit as much credit to the referees, who managed one of the toughest tricks in officiating: to sit on their whistles and let the kids play without ever letting the physical play get out of hand. There were only 35 fouls whistled, a number of those deliberate fouls by Kansas in the end game, and 34 free throws taken in a game with an extra period. Thus the refs, as much as the players, contributed to the breakneck pace of the play.

I had been thinking about end-game situations since the previous evening's women's semi-finals, when, with 7.1 seconds remaining, Tennessee raced the length of the court to score the game-winner and squeak by LSU 47-46. (Tennessee will play Stanford for the title tonight). There was no surprise in their last-second approach. Tennessee got the ball in the hands of its superstar Candace Parker who raced the length of the court with only the meagrest harassment. Only when Parker reached the baseline did every LSU player jump out at her, leaving a Tennessee player all alone under the basket. Parker found her with a perfect pass and, even after she blew the layup, another Volunteer was there to rebound and put the ball up and in with less than a second left in the game.

It was hardly an unfamiliar ending in tournament basketball--with prominent memories of Danny Ainge and Tyus Edney racing end-to-end in the final seconds and scoring winning buckets for Brigham Young and UCLA respectively. I always wonder in such games how, particularly when a team has struggled to score all night long as Tennessee had, can they possibly get two unmolested layups in the final seconds. And this was after LSU coach Van Chancellor had a timeout to set up his defense. It seemed obvious to me that Parker should have been double-teamed in the backcourt and forced to give up the ball, requiring her less skilled teammates to execute perfectly in the final seconds. The result might have been the same, but it would have certainly come harder.

So I was already obsessing about end-games when we had another classic situation in the men's final. (A pause here to note my one and only prescient comment before the tournament: that Memphis didn't shoot free throws well enough to win this tournament.) A team, in this case Kansas, needs a three-pointer to tie in the final seconds and send the game into overtime. I've come to believe that, at least in the college ranks (and maybe even in the pros), the trailing team should never get to take that shot unmolested. The defenders should be out on the three-point line ready to foul--even if that means allowing a player to get to the line for three free throws and a chance to tie the game. I am convinced that most college players have a far better chance of hitting the three-pointer in rhythm than they do of making three consecutive free throws with the game on the line.

Kansas vs. Kansas vs. Memphis

Mark Coatney — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 16:17:48 GMT

The moment I knew Kansas was going to lose to North Carolina came with around seven minutes left in the first half, right after Kansas had just gone up by 28 points. It was then that Billy Packer said "this game is over," and it was then that Kansas started playing like it was, going into a tailspin of offensive fouls, blown dunks and lazy passes that culminated in Russell Robinson jacking up a 1-on-5 three from the corner while the rest of the Hawks were, I believe, talking over the post-game dinner options down on the other end. It was exactly the kind of ragged, sloppy ball you see at the end of blowout games, and the fact that it came when there was still a whole other half to play was, um, problematic to say the least.

It was also the Kansas season in a nutshell. When the Hawks are good, they're very, very good, as ESPN's Andy Glockner demonstrates with some good numbers analysis here. When they're bad, they're—well, you saw it last night. Which team will show up Monday night against Memphis? Probably both; when Kansas it at its best the offensively the team works through the post, and Memphis is good enough to disrupt that. On the other hand, Memphis is capable of blowing out teams then letting them back in as well; see, for instance, both the Texas and Michigan State games last week.

Who will win Monday? I'm following both my heart and the good statisticians at Basketball Prospectus, who both make the case for Kansas.

Predictions Roundup: What the Experts are Saying

Mark Coatney — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:24:14 GMT

We'd like to first nod in the direction of the enlightened folks at Basketball Prospectus, children of the Enlightenment all, who have used the razor-sharp tools of Reason and Science to determine that UCLA and Kansas will be winners tonight. And, you know, who are we to argue with the numbers crunchers, especially since they crunch so deliciously for Kansas fans?

Elsewhere things are not so tasty. The consensus at ESPN is for a Memphis-North Carolina final, while Sports Illustrated's experts see UCLA and Carolina as moving on tonight. Hmm.

Congratulations, Tyler Hansbrough. Now Go Rest on Your Laurels

Mark Coatney — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:03:27 GMT

From AP:

Tyler Hansbrough, who topped the Atlantic Coast Conference in scoring and rebounding and led North Carolina to the Final Four, was selected The Associated Press college basketball player of the year Friday.
The 6-foot-9 junior forward averaged 22.8 points, the highest mark by a North Carolina player since 1970, and 10.3 rebounds for the Tar Heels (36-2), who were ranked No. 1 for all but six weeks this season and were the overall top seed for the NCAA tournament.
Hansbrough was presented the award the day before the Tar Heels play Kansas in the second game of the Final Four.

Though it's March Madness, We Know April is the Coolest Month

Devin Gordon — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:17:08 GMT

March gets all the ink, and the fancy "Madness" nickname, but as a top-to-bottom sports fan, I'm finding myself much more partial to April. We get the Final Four and the national title game, then the Masters just a few days later. And wrapped all around this month is a new season of baseball. I imagine the afterglow of Sunday's nailbiter was still bright for Coatney... but for Starr and I, Monday was all about baseball, and will be until Saturday, when the remarkable "All Four One" mini-tourney commences. Thank God it's April. Speaking purely as a Duke fan, it couldn't have come soon enough.

The only thing that can ruin this month for me is a North Carolina national championship, and despite the fact that they'll have to plow through two loaded No. 1 seeds to pull it off, I fear that Tar Heel title is, if not inevitable, then at least looking likely. In assessing Carolina's dominance thus far, everybody talks about Tyler Hansbrough, as well they should, but the real reason I'm so pessimistic about someone knocking off the Heels is another guy: Ty Lawson. Hobbled by an ankle injury for much of the season--which is a bit like making Tiger Woods swing a club with one hand--Lawson is only now reminding us of what he can do. And when he's healthy, Carolina goes from very good to dominant. The other guy who makes Carolina so dangerous is Marcus Ginyard, who is the team's one-man answer to the complaint that the Heels don't play enough defense to win the title. I think Carolina's defensive questions are more a pace-of-play issue than anything else. And when absolutely necessary--just ask Louisville--they can lock down on anyone.

Sorry, Coatney: I know that nothing would be sweeter than sticking it to Roy Williams at the moment when it would hurt most. But the Davidson game left me wondering whether Kansas can score enough to keep up with Carolina. Davidson's backcourt is actually a nice approximation of what Kansas will face against the Heels--Wayne Ellington is nearly as smooth a scorer as Stephen Curry, if not as prolific, and Lawson is even faster. And down low, let's just say I don't expect Kansas's workmanlike bigs to have nearly as much success against Hansbrough and the always-overlooked Danny Green.

By the way, how good is this weekend looking when UCLA plays a team loaded with NBA players--a team that has only lost ONCE this season--and that game is the undercard? Wow. My one correct call if this entire darn tournament was Memphis coming back strong against Michigan State, showing up when the lights started shining brightly on all that talent. Now we know for sure that Memphis isn't overrated. I've gotta disagree, Coatney: I am a believer in Memphis... but not in all aspects. The lingering question about Memphis coming off this weekend is how they'll perform in a close game, where that free throw liability can kill. Especially since I don't know anyone who believes Memphis can romp through UCLA and then Carolina or Kansas. One or both of these games will be close, for sure. Heck, the UCLA game seems guaranteed to be close, and I much prefer the Bruins chances in that scenario.

UCLA vs Carolina in the title game? Should be a doozy. But the best part: I don't see any outcome Saturday that doesn't give us a fascinating game on Monday. Baseball this week, then back to college hoops. I love April.

In the Matter of Davidson v. Goliath

Mark Coatney — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:25:34 GMT

Besides being our day of rest, Sunday is the day of my longstanding pickup basketball game. Which begins at 5 p.m. sharp, which means that I didn't watch the Kansas-Davidson game. Mostly. At least in real time. I saw the last couple of minutes in a bar in around the corner after my game ended, and while I would later watch the whole thing, really, I saw the whole contest right there--the Kansas guards playing tight, Davidson making some plays but going through some offensive dry spells, Stephen Curry hitting some clutch shots but missing more through sheer exhaustion.

Later, after reviewing the tape, my thoughts were pretty much the same: That's a good Davidson team, and very well coached. They successfully doubled the Kansas big guys, and it was a really smart strategy, because what they realized is that while the Kansas bigs are tall, great scorers, strong and hit the boards well, they're not very good passers. Still, I think Davidson would be playing next weekend if they didn't have their own Belmont moment late in the game--they only scored, what, 5 points over the last 7 minutes, because they started to get a little tentative. When they were up 4 midway through the second half, I think they did a little bit of that "Holy crap, we're going to the Final Four" thing, and it cost them. Still, it was a great game, best of this weekend, I'd say, in terms of sheer hustle and desire.

That's because the others were such blowouts. Unlike last year, when Florida was the clear leader, in this year's tournament there were four favorites, at once roughly equal to each other and better than the other teams in the draw. Now they're all in the Final Four, which if nothing else should give us three great games next weekend. I'm already sad that the tournament doesn't include a consolation game anymore. Especially since North Carolina-Memphis would be such a great matchup.

Still, looking ahead, what do you guys think? I'm still not a believer in Memphis; they're talented, and well-coached, but UCLA is better, so I have the Bruins moving on, 68-62 over the Tigers. In the other game...hmm. Everyone says that Carolina's defense is the Achilles Tar Heel, but I'm not so sure. Carolina gives up a lot of points because they play at a fast pace that allows the other team more opportunities to score, sure, but a better metric of a defense is the percentage of opposing possessions that result in scores, and Carolina does better there. And we've all seen throughout this tournament how gifted they are offensively.

Kansas can win, though, by keeping up a constant pressure on the Carolina guards; I think they will wilt by the second half, and the pressure should help keep the ball out of Hansbrough's hands. The Jayhawks have four superior defenders who can guard anybody in the Carolina backcourt, and that should be the difference, with Kansas winning 83-80. I'll wait to talk about the championship game until this weekend, but for now, how do you guys see this playing out?

The Ivies Muscle Up

Editors — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:12:14 GMT

Charles Euchner files a nice take on what new scholarship rules could mean for Harvard's NCAA tourney chances:

Harvard, Yale and Princeton perennially finish among the top five in rankings of universities for their academic offerings and research. Could they, one day, also compete for the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament?

Ivy League colleges have not been serious competitors in major sports since the signing of the Ivy Group Agreement in 1945, which banned the use of athletic scholarships. Harvard and Yale dominated college football in the late 19th and early 20th century but de-emphasized sports in the aftermath of a series of controversies over gridiron violence. (Harvard's invention of the "flying wedge," in which a mob of defensive players targets a single opposing player, led to the creation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.)

But now two Harvard initiatives—a dramatic restructuring of tuition assistance and aggressive recruitment of the nation's best high-school basketball players—could spur Harvard and other Ivy League schools to produce basketball teams worthy of March Madness. Basketball is likely to see the greatest change from these new rules, since one good player can significantly improve the fortunes of the team; see, for instance, the career of Bill Bradley, who led Princeton to the Final Four in 1965. Because of the volume of elite athletes needed, the initiatives are less likely to impact sports such as football or baseball.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE

In Which We Bow Before the Wisdom of Kenpom

Mark Coatney — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:50:02 GMT

Just a quick note on last night's games: According to Ken Pomeroy's numbers, Louisville over Tennessee was no upset, and last night's games played out according to form. More supporting evidence for the case for Kansas...

In Which Another Editor Ensures His Team Will Lose

Mark Coatney — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:52:42 GMT

Devin, one immediate thought is, and I'm probably going to regret this, but--bring on Davidson. Kansas has lots of experience handling phenomenonally talented scorers (See: Durant, Kevin, who put up 37 in his last game against Kansas, an 88-84 loss); they'll let Curry get his 40, get out and run and win 90-80.

And now I've officially bumped my team out of the tournament.

But to me Wisconsin poses more of a challenge, because they're kind of the Hillary Clinton of the tournament: They don't give up, and they'll do whatever it takes to win. Teams like that bother Kansas, because, while the Hawks are very good, they don't impose their style of play on others--instead, they take whatever style of play is being dictated by the other team and then win playing that game. This usually works, but Wisconsin defends like nobody else in this tournament except, maybe, UCLA, and the team seems particularly good at making the contest into an ugly, close game--and that's exactly the kind of game Kansas could lose.

Also, Starr, though I loved your story about your friend and the bottle of wine (and I'm going to use that same line the next time I'm in a similar situation), everybody knows that the proper response to the men from Madison is "Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' Badgers."

That gag's been cracking me up since 6th grade.

But enough of this wishy-washy analysis based upon nothing but emotion, friendship, and, in my case, too much late night ESPN. Let's look at some cold hard statistical numbers-crunching, especially because they crunch so deliciously for KU. Ken Pomeroy breaks down the Sweet 16 on Basketball Prospectus and finds that that team with the best chance to win it all now is....your Kansas Jayhawks. His take, based on his formula to determine how well each team is playing at the moment, as expressed as each team's percentage chance to move on to the next round:

                     Elite8 Final4 Final  Champ
 1MW Kansas          93.2   64.5   48.5  33.8
 1W  UCLA            92.1   71.3   46.2  22.9
 3MW Wisconsin       82.7   32.0   19.9  11.1
 1S  Memphis         69.2   44.2   22.9   9.8
 1E  North Carolina  56.5   34.3   12.2   6.0
 3E  Louisville      60.5   27.9    8.3   3.6
 4E  Washington St.  43.5   23.7    7.1   3.1
 2S  Texas           50.7   21.6    8.4   2.6
 3S  Stanford        49.3   20.6    7.9   2.4
 3W  Xavier          51.7   14.2    5.2   1.3
 5S  Michigan St.    30.8   13.6    4.6   1.2
 2E  Tennessee       39.5   14.2    3.1   1.0
 7W  West Virginia   48.3   12.7    4.5   1.0
10MW Davidson        17.3    2.3    0.6   0.1
12MW Villanova        6.8    1.1    0.2   0.03
12W  W. Kentucky      7.9    1.8    0.3   0.02

See? The smart money says Kansas, and that's good enough for me. In fact, why don't we just bow to statistical inevitability now, and save us all the trouble...

Teams to Root for--and Against

Mark Starr — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:11:42 GMT

I figure that by now I am pretty typical of most tournament fans. I never really believed I was going to win the pool, so my rooting interest becomes idiosyncratically personal--either for or against a team, coach, player, state, guy I once knew, girl who dumped me. In other words, I go very scientific. And if I lack any good reason to root for or against, I tend to go with the underdog.

Here are teams I'm for:

Stanford: I went to grad school there and, while I never went to a single basketball game, Stanford gave me my first taste of big-time college sports, namely football. The young among you are probably laughing, but once upon a time that was not an absurd statement. My stint coincided with the Jim Plunkett era (Plunkett would go to the Patriots as the #1 pick in the 1970 draft and later win a Super Bowl with the Raiders). Stanford won back-to-back Rose Bowls, one with Plunkett and another with Don Bunce at quarterback, over #1-ranked, undefeated and, as usual, overrated Big Ten teams, Ohio State and Michigan respectively.
Michigan State: They were my Final Four sleeper and, if you can't win your pool, nothing impresses like picking the outsider in the Final Four.
Villanova: More than 20 years later, my hat is still off to Villanova for the great upset over Patrick Ewing and Georgetown for the 1985 basketball championship. My favorite player on that team was Ed Pinckney, a great college player and a serviceable pro who lasted a dozen seasons in the NBA and averaged more than 12 points a game for his career. His sister, Cheryl, used to work in the photography department at Newsweek and was a lovely lady.
Davidson: It isn't just that I am charmed by Stephen Curry, though you got to love a guy who can drill it from downtown and still stops to kiss his mom on his way onto the court after halftime. But I actually remember the great Lefty Driesell teams of the '60s there and, for reasons that I can't remotely recall, became a big fan of the school's biggest star, Fred Hetzel. That won't trigger a lot of memories, but he was a two-time All-American and the first pick overall in the '65 NBA draft. He only lasted seven seasons in the NBA, but he averaged 18.9 points and 9.9 rebounds a game with the pros, numbers that would earn him an eight-figure salary today.
Wisconsin: So many of my friends went to Wisconsin in the '60s (and my brother-in-law went there later) that I have always had great affection for Madison and the Badgers. Besides, almost 30 years ago I had a memorable dinner at a restaurant called Ovens of Brittany. My dining companion ordered a German white that he didn't really like. I asked him if he wanted to send it back. He said, 'No, let's just drink it fast and try a different one." RIP Sean Toolan, killed covering Beirut in 1981.
Memphis: I know John Calipari is a little too slick (OK, a lot too slick), but his UMass teams were some of my favorites ever. I owe him something for the great entertainment.
Washington State: I was doing a story on decathlete Dan O'Brien who lived in Moscow, Idaho, but did his training for field events across the border on the Cougars campus. On a dank, drizzly, chilled afternoon, O'Brien tossed discuses while I gathered them and skittered them back (throwing them more than 20 feet was beyond my capability). Had I not been there, O'Brien, later an Olympic gold medallist, would have been fetching his own. I learned a lot that afternoon about just what it takes to attain greatness.
Louisville: Two of my favorite all-time players--Darrell Griffith and Wes Unseld. And I've got a soft spot for the Big East.
Tennessee: Once there were immortals like Red Auerbach and Red Holtzman, but the Jewish basketball coach is now a dying breed. I give you Bruce Pearl.

You will note that some of these "fors" are in direct conflict. And sometimes I don't know which team I'm rooting for until the game begins and my gut tells me. But here are teams I'm against:

UCLA: They made my college years boring by winnning every single time. No wonder I didn't go to a basketball game at Stanford. The Bruins have enough hardware to last until the next millennium.
Kansas: Our buddy Coatney just wants this one too bad. Lacking a passion for a team, nothing can get the juices flowing like the misery of a friend. Kansas is my schadenfreude special.
West Virginia: I actually like this team, but the whole state acted appallingly when football coach Rich Rodriguez left for Michigan. (They weren't all that upset when Bob Huggins skipped out on Kansas State after just one season to coach basketball at his alma mater, West Virginia.) There has to be some punishment meted out for fans' bad behavior so I'm rooting for the Mountaineers to provide some mild disappointment.
North Carolina: In truth, I have nothing against Dean Smith, Michael Jordan, Tyler Hansbrough or Carolina blue. But they are royalty and I am strictly a proletarian. Now that Devin is miserable about Duke, I can join him in hoping that nobody at Carolina gets to be happy either.

Wounded, But Wiser, Our Expert from Duke Revises His Picks

Devin Gordon — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:28:40 GMT

So in my first post for this NCAA tournament blog, I confessed to being a bracketology bonehead--no matter how closely I follow college hoops, I never win bracket pools, never even come close--and in case you thought I was being falsely modest, I am proud to report that I am currently in last place in Newsweek's 15-person pool. Actually, let me be more specific: I'm in distant last place. There's almost as much daylight between me and 14th place as there is between 14th and 1st. Oy. I've already lost my national title pick (thanks, Georgetown) and another Final Four pick (thanks, Pittsburgh... actually, thanks to the entire Big East for your support). At this point, my prediction that I'll nail 1.6 of the Final Four teams is looking spot-on, assuming one of my safe, remaining choices (top seeds North Carolina and UCLA) survives the second weekend. Give me some credit: yes, I'm always wrong with my tourney picks--but at least I was right about how wrong I'd be.

With that in mind, shall we turn to the Sweet 16? It could just be the wounds I'm nursing from Duke's early exit, but the two games in the West region are the only ones that don't really get my motor going. I think UCLA--given time to rest some nagging injuries--will put its sluggish tourney start in the rearview mirror and roll past a Western Kentucky team that probably should've lost in the first round to Drake. I'm similarly uninspired by Xavier-West Virginia, which should be a nice contest between two solid, well-coached teams, but if I had to bet my house on which Sweet 16 match-up is the least likely to feature the future national champion, this is the one I'd pick.

I doubt that Wisconsin-Davidson will wind up producing the champ, either, but every game featuring The Stephen Curry Scoring Machine is officially a must-see event. I've caught both of these teams up close: once upon a time, in late 2007, when Duke was good, we blew Wisconsin off the floor and scraped past Davidson, holding Curry to 20 points and harassing him into eight turnovers. Davidson was the more impressive team then, and I hope I'm not jinxing its chances by saying it is more impressive now. Coatney, assuming your Jayhawks can survive Villanova, I assume you're pulling hard for Wisconsin? Otherwise, Kansas will find out what it's like to be Duke: the team that everyone in the country desperately wants to lose.

The remaining four games--Carolina/Washington State, Louisville/Tennessee, Memphis/Michigan State and Stanford/Texas--all look positively delicious to me. Super match-ups all around. I'm sure Washington State looks like a cake walk for Carolina, but in fact, this is exactly the kind of team that the Tar Heels should worry about. The Cougars have held their two opponents to a combined 81 points so far, and have rolled in both games with nearly as much ease as Carolina. If Wazzu can control the tempo against Carolina's speed demons, they could make a game out of this. This is the kind of plodding, scratching, frustrating contests that has "top-seed upset" written all over it. But... can Wazzu score enough to actually win? I doubt it. Wazzu played conference foes UCLA and Stanford tight in all four face-offs this season against the PAC-10's pillars of strength, but they ended up losing all four. As a Duke fan, I'm desperate for someone to knock off the Heels, and I do think we'll finally see them sweat. But I don't think their tournament ends here, especially not in what amounts to a home game in Charlotte.

At this point, I'm sure so many people have lost faith in Memphis--especially from the free-throw line, where the Tigers look like frightened kittens--that Tom Izzo's Spartans are probably the favorite. But I think teams like Memphis, ones with NBA talent striding off the bench, tend to slip into cruise control against schools they know they should beat. And they save their best for when they know everyone's watching. Everyone will be watching on Friday night--this is the late game, with a scheduled start 15 minutes after Kansas / Villanova--and I think all those studs are gonna rise to the occasion and overwhelm a solid but unspectacular Spartans team.

As for Louisville-Tennessee and Stanford-Texas, honestly, ya got me. I have no idea which way they'll go. In my bracket, I picked Tennessee and Stanford to be gone by now, and given the way they struggled past lower seeds, the prevailing wisdom seems to be that they're not long for this tournament. But Texas hardly impressed against a singularly unimpressive Miami squad, and as Coatney, our resident Big 12 expert, can attest, Coach Rick Barnes has a knack for assembling the best talent in the land and coaching it into the ground. I'm going with Stanford to pull off the upset. As for Tennessee, this is a team I've never particularly believed in, and the fact that their best player, James Lofton, had leg surgery yesterday isn't a good sign, even if he is expected to suit up tomorrow night. These are two teams that play at a furious pace, with tons of pressure, and I think Louisville will hold up better, if only because none of /their/ players had leg surgery yesterday. But there I go, putting my chips on the Big East again. Have I learned nothing?

OK, gents, over to you. Where will your attention be fixed tomorrow night and Friday?

Hemingway's NCAA Picks

Mark Coatney — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 02:49:33 GMT

McSweeney's: Often annoying, far too precious, completely self-indulgent and typographically naïve. And yet....how can you fail to be charmed by John Frank Weaver's piece, "Ernest Hemingway Blogs About the Top Teams in College Basketball?" Though this reads, well, about like you'd expect, and there are many fine moments, including, Devin, this about your Blue Devils:

Coach K is a platoon captain. He can lead men to war. Men would gladly die for him. They would run over barbed wire. They would charge into a battery of machine guns. They would limp toward a field of death on his word. In this game, they shoot for him. They press for him. They pick and roll for him. But he is a man torn. He coaches Duke. He coaches the U.S. team. A man can only love one woman. A man can only love one team. Which team does Coach K love?

It's like the guy was reading your mind...

Notes on the NCAA D-III Champion Bears of Wash. U

Sarah Kliff — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:58:59 GMT

I graduated from Washington University in St. Louis about a year ago and, while we boast an admirable ranking in the U.S. News & World Report, sports aren’t exactly our thing. More bluntly: we have never won a men’s national title. In any sport. Ever.

Well, until this weekend. On Saturday, I experienced what may be the only moment of sports glory for my alma mater when the Washington University Bears won the NCAA D-III Championship with a 90-68 victory over the Amherst Lord Jeffs.

Didn’t know there was a basketball championship this weekend? No clue who the Wash. U. Bears are or what a Lord Jeff is? It’s cool—I’m still trying to sort out the Lord Jeff thing. But if you missed the championship match, it’s pretty hard to blame you—it was barely televised. You’ll probably only read about the results in a few select publications: Wash. U.’s student newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and a handful of niche D-III publications, like D3hoops.com, among them.

Welcome to life in D-III, a giant grab bag of teams from the nation's small colleges—more than 400, making it the largest NCAA division—who just had an incredibly exciting basketball season that you never heard of. If you want to talk about upsets, dramas and dreams that drive the narratives of college sports, D-III is your division this year. And the Wash. U. Bears are your Cinderella team.

If you forgot to fill out your D-III bracket this year and missed the play-by-play, here’s the quick recap of the Bears’ rise to glory: It starts with your standard mix of teams. And the Bears are not your likely favorite in that mix—they have a middling record of four months ago, they largely get written off back in December when All-American point guard Sean Wallis breaks his leg. They go into the Big—or at least Medium-sized—Dance ranked 11th. But in the final four they pull off an epic upset. First, they take down the top-ranked team, Hope College—the Bears were down by one point at the half but came back for a 89-74 victory. And then in the finals, they pummel the defending champion, No. 3-ranked Amherst, by more than 20 points. Among the crowd that does keep D-III brackets, I’m pretty sure no one was banking on a Bears victory.

Largely because this is the first time Wash. U. has won anything in the realm of men’s national titles (although, to the Lady Bears credit, they have a very strong record in volleyball). We come from the University Athletics Association, a sports conference we lovingly refer to as the “Nerdy Nine” because Emory, University of Chicago and Brandeis are among its ranks. And it was considered a “huge success” by the dean of students when 108 fans decided to board a bus to watch the game in person. If 108 Duke fans showed up to a game—well, you get the picture.

I’m sure it will be a pretty big deal when UCLA or North Carolina whoever comes out victorious over in the D-I side wins the championship. Chances are the tale of the Wash. U. Bears will probably not be immortalized in the lore of college basketball. But for now at least, we finally have a victory to celebrate—one that’s not related to our U.S. News ranking. Go Bears!