2008 NCAA Tournament: Sweet 16, Day 1

While the first two days were not kind to me, the second round was. I finished the first weekend with a 36-12 record. 7 of my final 8 are still alive, as is my entire Final Four. Overall, in pretty good shape.

EAST REGION

Charlotte Bobcats Arena
Charlotte, NC
***The Predictor Game of the Day***
#4 Washington State Cougars (26-8) vs.
#1 North Carolina Tar Heels (34-2)
WSU beat #13 Winthrop, #5 Notre Dame
UNC beat #16 Mt. St. Mary’s, #8 Arkansas
Along with the Stanford-Texas game, this is by far the most intriguing game of the regional semifinals. North Carolina has been the most dominant offensive team of the tournament to date. They put 113 on overwhelmed Mount St. Mary’s and 108 on Arkansas. Now I know that Arkansas isn’t in Carolina’s weight class, but there is no way a tournament team from the SEC should surrender 108 points and lose by 31 (and it could have been much worse).

Washington State has been the most dominant defensive team in the tournament. They allowed only 40 against high-scoring Winthrop and 41 against even higher-scoring Notre Dame. So they’ve only given up 81 points in two games (technically, UCLA has only given up 78 points in two games, but one of those was against Mississippi Valley State…it’s hard to compare). In contrast, there have been 16 teams to score 81 or more points in a single game in this tournament, including two games where both teams did (Drake-WKU and Stanford-Marquette). So to only surrender 81 points to a good mid-major and the highest scoring team from the Big East is very impressive.

I will go out on a limb and say that North Carolina probably won’t score close to 100 points in this game and Washington State probably won’t hold UNC in the 40’s. Most likely somewhere in between. Wazzu is a guard dominated team, which doesn’t bode well against North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough. The Cougs have a pair of 6-10 players who see playing time, but neither one of them are a real threat to score or to stop a player of Hansbrough’s talent. Aron Baynes and Robbie Cowgill are decent players against the Washington’s and the California’s of the Pac-10. But this is a real big man they’re facing here.

Against Pac-10 teams with good post players, the Cougars were 0-5. They lost twice to Kevin Love and UCLA and three times against the Lopez Twins of Stanford. Love had 27 and 16 in his two games against WSU. Brook Lopez had 18, 25 and 30 in his three games against the Cougars, including the game-winning shot in overtime in the meeting up at the Palouse. Even in their 61-41 win over Notre Dame, the Cougars still surrendered 10 points and 22 rebounds to Luke Harangody. Against good big men, the Cougars defense doesn’t have an answer. They have no problem beating good guard teams, like Arizona, Oregon and USC (against whom they went a combined 6-1), but they couldn’t stop Love, Lopez or Harangody.

The one thing Washington State has going for them is the fact that UNC hasn’t been in many close games lately. The Tar Heels ACC semifinal win against Virginia Tech was their only close game in the past month. If Washington State is somehow effective against Hansbrough and keeps it close, they have a chance. Kyle Weaver and Derrick Lowe are one of the few guard tandems that can shut down Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson. There’s just no answer inside.
Pick: North Carolina 78, Washington State 65


Aron Baynes couldn't stop Brook Lopez, and he won't be able to stop Tyler Hansbrough.

#3 Louisville Cardinals (26-8) vs.
#2 Tennessee Volunteers (31-4)
L’ville beat #14 Boise St., #6 Oklahoma
Tenn beat #15 American, #2 Butler
I had both of these teams reaching this point. In fact, I had all four teams in the East reaching this point (please don’t look at my predicted Midwest Region…please). The way both of them reached this point is a bit surprising. One has struggled while the other has breezed through two rounds. Before the tournament, if you were to tell me that both teams would reach this point, with one doing it easily and one doing it the hard way, I would have guessed that Louisville had problems and Tennessee had it easy. I would have been wrong.

All season, Louisville has been a tough team to figure out. I thought all season that they were the best of a mediocre Big East (and with Georgetown losing, my opinion is looks a lot stronger). When the Cardinals were playing well, they were having no problems putting way conference competition. They won nine straight Big East games at one point, including victories over Georgetown, Marquette, Villanova, Notre Dame, Syracuse and Pittsburgh during that span. But this was still the same team that got blown at home by Dayton, put up no fight in a loss to Purdue, lost ugly at Seton Hall and mailed in their performance in the Big East tournament. So, while I picked Louisville to make it to this point, and advance from this game, I did so with some trepidation. I knew this was a streaky team that could lay an egg at any time. But the Cardinals beat Boise State, and beat down Oklahoma and have had no problems so far.

Tennessee on the other hand, had none of that streakiness in them. They had four losses all season, all to NCAA tournament teams. They lost at Texas, at Kentucky by 6, at Vanderbilt by 3 and in the Tornado Tournament to Arkansas by 1. They didn’t lose consecutive games all season. They didn’t even have back-to-back bad performances all season. So, when the Vols struggled against American, I thought they would have a fairly easy time with Butler. But Butler did what Butler does best: annoy the heck out of power conference teams by slowing down the pace of the game and setting basketball back 30 years. The Bulldogs gave Tennessee a scare and nearly knocked them out of the tournament.

I picked Louisville to win this game at the beginning of the tournament, and I see no reason to change it. The Cardinals appear to be as healthy as they’ve been all season, and they appear to be on one of those streaks of good play. As I discussed last week, Rick Pitino’s defense is finally rounding into form. Even when they don’t score 70-80 points (they’re one of only two Big East teams that can do that routinely), their defense is good enough to win them games. That hybrid zone frustrated the Sooners, and it should do the same today. Tennessee has the gaudy record, but I think experts are realizing what I’ve been saying all along. The Volunteers marched through an extremely weak conference, where even the better teams (like Vandy and Arkansas) didn’t play much “D”. So while the Vols were putting up 80 a night, their points per game stat should have been accompanied by an asterisk. Louisville clamps down again, Chris Lofton is the only one who can shoot over the Cards’ zone, and Pitino’s bunch pulls away in the early second half.
Pick: Louisville 76, Tennessee 65

WEST REGION

U.S. Airways Center
Phoenix, AZ
#12 Western Kentucky Hilltoppers (29-6) vs.
#1 UCLA Bruins (33-3)
WKU beat #5 Drake, #13 San Diego
UCLA beat #16 MVST, #9 Texas A&M
Not going to spend a whole lot of time on this game. The Bruins have clear mismatches at 4 of the 5 positions. Only Courtney Lee against Russell Westbrook appears to favor WKU. I continue not to be impressed with Lee’s efforts. He disappeared in the 2nd half and overtime against Drake. He played well against San Diego, but that’s not surprising since every player that guarded him was at least 2-3 inches shorter. For the so-called Sun Belt Player of the Year, I expected more. However, Westbrook almost single-handedly cost UCLA the game with his poor performance against Texas A&M.

Lee could score 30, and I don’t think it will matter. Also, he won’t score 30. UCLA’s defense is too good. There is no one on Western Kentucky that can slow down Love. I don’t see any player that can deal with the inside-outside threat of Josh Shipp. As impressive as Tyrone Brazelton has been in both tournament games, he won’t be able to matchup one-on-one with Darren Collison.


Darren Collison and Josh Shipp will both have big games against the Hilltoppers.

UCLA did struggle against Texas A&M. But you know what, A&M is pretty damn good. They were just a bit inconsistent because of some sketchy point guard play. In terms of talent on paper, the Aggies were probably in the 5 to 6 seed range. The Bruins faced a heck of 9-seed, and it wasn’t surprising to see them pushed to the brink. If the Toppers can do the same, it would be one of the biggest shocks in the NCAA tournament in recent memory.
Pick: UCLA 74, Western Kentucky 57

#7 West Virginia Mountaineers (26-10) vs.
#3 Xavier Musketeers (29-6)
WVU beat #10 Arizona, #2 Duke
Xavier beat #14 Georgia, #6 Purdue
Confession: I went down to the MCI-AT&T-Verizon Center this past Saturday to check out the 2nd round games. I went dressed in a navy blue shirt. Now I could lie and said I put on that color for the Muskies in the 2nd game, but it was clearly meant for West Virginia in the afternoon contest. To be fair, it was an UnderArmor shirt with no WVU markings on it. But I definitely fit in with the Mountaineer fans. I certainly rooted along with Mountaineer fans during the game.

Considering the opponent, I didn’t feel like I was betraying my alma mater. This isn’t football. I can only remember one recent basketball game between the ‘Queers and Terps (BB&T Tournament from 2004). I have no regrets. While I’ve seen the Dookies lose in person plenty of times while matriculating at Maryland, I’ve never seen their season end in person. So that was fun!

While I appreciate the win over Dook, I will now revert back to my usual ways of rooting against WVU. 1st of all, I don’t like them. 2nd of all, Bob Huggins is a douche bag. 3rd of all, I had Xavier in my Elite 8 and I would like to see them get there. There are plenty of reasons to pull for the Muskies.

West Virginia, in a typical game, is dependant on two players: Joe Alexander and Alex Ruoff. Alexander is problem for any team. He’s got size, he’ll go inside and bang around, but he’s also comfortable on the perimeter. Ruoff, on the other hand, is stoppable. He’ll be out near the three-point line. Put a shutdown defender on him and you’ll be fine. Allow Alexander to get his 20 and 10. His effort should be enough to keep the game close, but not enough to win it on his own.

As for Xavier, they have six proven scorers. None of those six are go-to-guys, which will be Xavier’s undoing before the tournament ends. But in this game it will be the reason they win. The Fightin’ Hicks don’t have enough defensively to stop Josh Duncan, Drew Lavender, Derrick Brown, C.J. Anderson, B.J. Raymond and Stanley Burrell. At least two of those players will get hot and carry the Muskies into the next round.
Pick: Xavier 83, West Virginia 80