2007 NCAA Tournament: Round 2, Day 2

So some final thoughts on the Maryland game I guess. Mike Jones played a whale of a game. Forget the dropped pass in the last second. The odds of him hitting the shot weren’t good. The Terps shouldn’t have been that position anyway. The question I have is, after Jones hit four threes to begin the second half, why did he spend the next 5-7 minutes on the bench? I’ll never understand this. I’ve never understood why Jones sits for minutes at a time instead of getting quick blows. For four years, Gary Williams really screwed up Jones' playing time. No, I'm not saying fire Williams. I'm not one of these nuts out there that want to get rid of him because he can't get to the Final Four each year. But I think I'm allowed to criticize him if he does something wrong. I think he really wasted Jones' shooting ability and probably cost Maryland a few games by sitting Jones at the wrong times.

Yes, the charge call on Strawberry was awful. Not only was the Butler defender under the hoop (legal in college hoops…but still), he was in the air, not set and Strawberry was a making a play for a loose ball. I’m not going to blame the refs, even though the game was poorly officiated. The blame here has to rest on the shoulders of Ekene Ibekwe, who missed all four of his free throws and committed five turnovers including two absolutely stupid fouls. It’s a shame that his last game when like that, but he cost Maryland four points at the line and five possessions. That more than makes up for the three point deficit that the Terps were on the wrong side of.

Overall, a pretty good season. I thought Maryland would be a bubble team and would be fortunate to go 8-8 in conference play. The snapping of Illinois’ home court winning streak, the sweep of Dook and the home win against UNC were all things to be proud of. Thanks again to D.J. and Mike who were terrific student-athletes for four years. The future doesn’t look tremendous, but with Vasquez, Hayes, Gist and Osby all back next year, it at least looks bright and promising. More on Maryland to come later this month.

This is a quick turnaround for me, so I’m going to make this post a bit shorter. So far, the record is 30-10 and I still have 14 of my final 16 teams alive, and all of my Elite 8 teams are still playing. Day 2, Round 2, let’s get to it.

East Rutherford Region

#5 Southern California Trojans (24-11) vs.
#4 Texas Longhorns (25-9)
Spokane Memorial Arena – Spokane, WA
How they got here:
USC beat #12 Arkansas 77-60
Texas beat #13 NMST 79-67
When is someone in the Texas athletic department going to call Rick Barnes and scream at him to make sure Kevin Durant touches the ball on just about every possession. He only had 13 shot attempts against New Mexico State. That’s awful. A.J Abrams had 13 shots. D.J. Augustin had 12. Sure, they’re nice players. But when you have a kid like Durant, he should be taking a minimum of 20 shots per game. That isn’t unreasonable and it will allow the rest of the team to get involved. There are just way to many possessions when Durant doesn’t even get to touch the ball. This may be one of Barnes’ worst coaching jobs, and that’s saying something. There is no way that NMSU should have been able to hang around for 35 minutes. There is no reason that Texas shouldn’t be as good as Ohio State. Both teams revolve around one player. The difference is coaching. Thad Matta forces his team to get it to Oden. Barnes allows his guards to control the ball way too much. This will end Texas’ season eventually. USC is good team and they also compare to Ohio State. The Ohio State from 2006. USC is just like last year’s Buckeyes. Anything else from here on out will be gravy for the Trojans until their outstanding recruiting class comes in next year. And like last year’s Buckeyes, they’ll lose in the second round.
Pick: Texas 83, Southern Cal 74

San Antonio Region

*The Predictor Game of the Day*
#5 Tennessee Volunteers (23-10) vs.
#4 Virginia Cavaliers (21-10)
Nationwide Arena – Columbus, OH
How they got here:
Tenn beat #12 Long Beach St. 121-86
UVA beat #13 Albany 84-57
Both teams were very impressive in the first round. Neither one played a worthy foe, but they were impressive nonetheless. Now I know that Long Beach State was one of the worst defensive teams in the tournament, but for anyone to score 121 points in this day and age of college basketball is frightening. That was the best Tennessee has played all year. That was the Tennessee team that everyone talks about being so good. They’ve only resembled that squad a couple of times the last few years. The key in this game isn’t going to be guard play. J. Sean SingleReynolds played very well against Albany. But the Tennessee combination of JaJuan Smith, Ramar Smith and Chris Lofton were just as good against Long Beach State. In fact, they were just as good as Singletary and Reynolds were during the regular season. The key is going to be the front court matchup. Virginia has nobody inside. Tennessee has Wayne Chism and Duke Crews. Both are legitimate scores and rebounders. They will be the difference. I’ve been telling you all season that Virginia would run into a team that possesses strong guard play combined with a couple of decent big men and that UVA wouldn’t be able to match baskets. Unless SingleReynolds both score 30, the Cavs won’t be able to keep up. Even then, Tennessee may get too many easy inside baskets.
Pick: Tennessee 93, Virginia 83

#7 Nevada Wolf Pack (29-4) vs.
#2 Memphis Tigers (31-3)
New Orleans Arena – New Orleans, LA
How they got here:
Nevada beat #10 Creighton 77-71 (OT)
Memphis beat #15 N. Texas 73-58
Both teams looked less than impressive in wins over inferior opponents. Nevada seems to be taking a page out of the Rick Barnes playbook. The Wolf Pack refused to get the ball to Nick Fazekas down the stretch and allowed Creighton to stay in the game. It also frustrated Fazekas enough that he was called for several silly fouls and was disqualified when the game went to overtime. I know I said that Nevada wasn’t a one player team. Marcelus Kemp and Ramon Sessions are very good players. That doesn’t mean that Mark Fox should allow his team to go several minutes without letting their best scoring threat touch the ball in the post. Meanwhile, Memphis put on a typical Memphis effort. 20 minutes of sleepwalking, unorganized and selfish basketball followed by 10 minutes of pure athleticism that sparks a game ending run, followed by another 10 minutes of bad basketball. Give me the team that tries hard.
Pick: Nevada 83, Memphis 80

St. Louis Region

#9 Purdue Boilermakers (22-11) vs.
#1 Florida Gators (30-5)
New Orleans Arena – New Orleans, LA
How they got here:
Purdue beat #8 Arizona 72-63
Florida beat #16 Jackson St. 112-69
The Gators continue to get the breaks. I thought the first three teams they played in last year’s tournament were easy. I thought it would be nearly impossible to get three opponents worse than the South Alabama/Wisconsin-Milwaukee/Georgetown (much, much worse than the Georgetown of this season) trio. However, after the gimmie opening round, the Gators lucked into a matchup with Purdue instead of the athletic Arizona. And as a result of Maryland’s loss, the Gators will embarrass Butler off the floor next weekend as well. This team won’t play anybody decent until the Final Four.
Pick: Florida 87, Purdue 68

#11 Winthrop Eagles (29-4) vs.
#3 Oregon Ducks (27-7)
Spokane Memorial Arena – Spokane, WA
How they got here:
Winthrop beat #6 Notre Dame 74-64
Oregon beat #14 Miami-OH 58-56
I’ve seen a lot of Oregon this year. They played their worst game of the season in the opening round and almost paid for it. They managed to get a reprieve and now get a gift game with Winthrop. I didn’t think the Eagles were going to beat Notre Dame, and I certainly don’t think they’ll beat Oregon. Look for the Ducks to get back on track here.
Pick: Oregon 77, Winthrop 72

#7 UNLV Runnin’ Rebels (29-6) vs.
#2 Wisconsin Badgers (30-5)
United Center – Chicago, IL
How they got here:
UNLV beat #10 G. Tech 67-63
Wisconsin beat #15 Texas A&M-CC 76-63
Despite having a pretty soft subregional, this is no way you can convince me now that the Badgers have any chance at the Elite 8. Not after getting dominated for 32 minutes by the 15 seed. Two of the issues that allowed Wisconsin to come back on Friday won’t be available to them today. Turnovers and poor perimeter defense by the Islanders allowed the Badgers to make up the 18 point deficit. UNLV is the best defensive team in the MWC and they only average 11 turnovers a game. Fall behind to the Rebels, and there will be no coming back.
Pick: UNLV 65, Wisconsin 61

San Jose Region

#8 Kentucky Wildcats (22-11) vs.
#1 Kansas Jayhawks (31-4)
United Center – Chicago, IL
How they got here:
Kentucky beat #9 Villanova 67-58
Kansas beat #16 Niagara 107-67
Like the Indiana-UCLA game yesterday, don’t be fooled here by the names and the CBS hype. Kentucky is mismatched at every position on the court. 67 points against defense deficient Villanova will not get it done for the Wildcats in this game. If they don’t score in the 80’s, they won’t be close. Kentucky has shown no signs of being consistently able to score that many points.
Pick: Kansas 88, Kentucky 76

#5 Virginia Tech Hokies (22-11) vs.
#4 Southern Illinois Salukis (28-6)
Nationwide Arena – Columbus, OH
How they got here:
V. Tech beat #12 Illinois 54-52
SIU beat #13 Holy Cross 61-51
Oh my goodness, is this game going to be U-G-L-Y. Back in December, the Salukis beat Virginia Tech. But this was before Virginia Tech realized that they could compete night in and night out in the ACC. In close games like this one should be, you have to like the team that has the extra athletic ability to make a couple of big defensive stops. Zabian Dowdell should be able to neutralize Jamaal Tatum and Deron Washington should be able to slow down Randal Falker. Without those two having big games, I’m not sure how Southern Illinois can score more than 60. By the way, these new Coke commercials are pretty stupid. Take this one with the Virginia Tech fan who can never put the Coke can down during the game. I don't know what's more unbelievable; the fact that he drinks enough Cokes during the game to make up a pretty large Virginia Tech logo (I'm pretty sure that if you consume that many Cokes in 2 hours you would have no teeth and probably seizure out by halftime), or the fact that Virginia Tech even has basketball fans at all.
Pick: Virginia Tech 64, Southern Illinois 57