2009 NCAA Tournament: Sweet 16, Day 1

Over the first four days of the tournament I went 38-10. That's pretty good. I only have 12 Sweet 16 teams correct, but all of my Elite 8 teams are alive. We start weekend number two with the East and West regions.

EAST REGION

T.D. Banknorth Garden
Boston, MA
#4 Xavier Musketeers (27-7, 12-4 A-10) vs.
#1 Pittsburgh Panthers (30-4, 15-3 Big East)
Once again, Jamie Dixon did everything in his power to make sure the Panthers didn’t play past the first weekend. However, Pitt didn’t respond to his usual choke job coaching techniques. After being outplayed by #16 seed East Tennessee State for 35 minutes, the Panthers went back and forth all day with an underrated Oklahoma State squad before pulling away in the final minutes. Pitt, which has relied heavily on defense for the past decade, has surrendered 70 or more points in their last three games and six of their last seven. Much has been made of Pitt’s new scoring prowess, but little has been said about the poor defense they’ve been playing. In other words, Pitt is far from the complete team that sports media is portraying them to be. If you were to put Pitt’s offense from this season with Pitt’s defense from any of the past seasons, then you’d really have something. But as of now, and it’s very weird to say this, the Pittsburgh Panthers can’t rely on their defense to win games or even keep them in games. If they don’t score, they are in trouble.

So now that Jamie Dixon has cleared Pitt’s second round hurdle, they have to clear an even bigger one…making it to the regional final. You would think that if Pitt can bust through what has been their ceiling in the new millennia, then they’d have the confidence to bust through to the Final Four. But they are facing a Xavier team that has more tournament experience than they do (mainly because the Muskies have made Elite 8’s in the previous seasons, while Pitt has not). Xavier has the defense that Pitt used to own. I know holding Wisconsin to 49 points isn’t impressive, but they held a good shooting Portland State team to 59. In fact, the Musketeers have held teams to 60 or less in seven of their last eight.

The problem for Xavier is that their last eight opponents didn’t have the firepower that currently resides on the Pitt roster. The DeJuan Blair-Sam Young team inside is lethal, especially to a mid-major that lacks height and depth inside. I expect a close, rather low scoring game, but Pitt will wear down the smaller Musketeers.
Pick: Pittsburgh 67, Xavier 63

#3 Villanova Wildcats (28-7, 13-5 Big East) vs.
#2 Duke Blue Devils (30-6, 11-5 ACC)
I think it’s safe to say that the Dookies are living on borrowed time. They played as well as they possibly could against an overmatched Texas team, and they needed several generous bounces and a couple of generous calls in avoiding the upset. While Ratface’s bunch played well, they won that game with smoke, mirrors and referees. Teams like that don’t last long in the tournament.

Meanwhile, there was nothing lucky about Villanova’s dominating performance of UCLA. From the opening tip to the final whistle, it was all Wildcats. There wasn’t a 30-second time frame in that contest when any basketball fan was able to believe that maybe UCLA had a chance. Complete dominance. As bad as Memphis made Maryland look, Villanova made a better Bruins team look even worse. I’d like to think that ‘Nova will blow out the Dookies, but I know the refs won’t allow that to happen.
Pick: Villanova 79, Duke 70

WEST REGION

Cardinals Stadium
Glendale, AZ
#5 Purdue Boilermakers (27-9, 11-7 Big Ten) vs.
#1 Connecticut Huskies (29-4, 15-3 Big East)
NCAA stupidity strikes again. First, the famous oligarchy orders their own courts for each host region. So now when you go back and forth between games, you have no idea what region you are looking at or where the game is being played since all the courts look the same and have the same massive logo at midcourt. Then the NCAA puts their logo on all the uniforms…just in case you couldn’t tell which organization was hosting the event. Was the big blue bubble at midcourt not enough of a giveaway? Now, the NCAA is refusing to call the new Glendale complex by its corporate University of Phoenix Stadium name. All because the University of Phoenix isn’t a NCAA institution. Despite the fact that it’s stupid to play college basketball games in NFL stadiums, if you don’t want to call a stadium by its proper name, then don’t play there. Both the Suns and Coyotes have their own buildings. Play at one of those. And just down the road in Tempe, Arizona State has a state of the art arena as well. If ASU can “host” a game at Cardinals Stadium, they can certainly host a game at their own gym.

Anyway, it’s been an interesting week for Jim Calhoun and UConn. Yahoo! Sports finally put the smackdown on a program that has been one of the nation’s dirtiest for a long time. Besides paying Khalid El-Amin and stealing him from Minnesota, and paying Rudy Gay (and/or his AAU team) and stealing him from Maryland, there have been numerous questionable recruits to circle through Storrs the last few seasons. And since the NCAA was too busy ordering new courts and deciding what to call stadiums to do anything about it, I’m glad to see a couple of journalists finally call out Calhoun. Hopefully the NCAA will do something more than a slap on the wrist. The NCAA won’t want to attack a program that has been one of the nation’s biggest cash cows (just like another program in Durham they refuse to investigate). It will be interesting to see what happens from here. The evidence is overwhelming against UConn on this one, so the NCAA better do something.

As for this game, the Huskies have been playing well in the tournament, with or without Calhoun (and even though I’d like to give a cancer-survivor the benefit of the doubt, I have to believe that Calhoun missed the opening round game because of the Yahoo! story and it had nothing to do with his health). The distraction will make this game closer than it should be, but Purdue struggled with Jon Brockman last weekend. I don’t see them faring much better against Hasheem Thabeet and Jeff Adrian.
Pick: Connecticut 83, Purdue 77

***The Predictor Game of the Day***
#3 Missouri Tigers (30-6, 12-4 Big XII) vs.
#2 Memphis Tigers (33-3, 16-0 CUSA)
Finally, a game that I’m looking forward to. Maybe it has something to do with neither team being from the Big East or Big Ten. This game promises to be a fast-paced, high-scoring affair. Both teams will press. Both teams will run. Both teams like to force turnovers and get up and down in transition. It should be a lot of fun to watch.

It’s going to come down to athleticism, and Memphis has the advantage in that category. As it turns out, Memphis can do more than run up and down the floor and rebound. They can shoot pretty well too, as Maryland found out the hard way. Their defense has been much better this season. Their bug-a-boo from a year ago, free throw shooting, has also vastly improved. This may actually be a more complete Memphis team from a year ago. No, they don’t have Derrick Rose or Chris Douglas-Roberts, but they have NBA ready Tyreke Evans. The freshman gets turnover prone every once and awhile. But other than that, he may be the best guard left in the tournament. Better than a healthy Ty Lawson. Robert Dozier and Shawn Taggart give Memphis a solid inside game. Along with Evans, Antonio Anderson and Doneal Mack give Memphis their balance outside. All five starters can score, rebound and pass the ball. Anything that the CUSA Tigers can get from Wesley Witherspoon, Willie Kemp and Roburt Sallie is a bonus. And Sallie has been lights out in two tournament games thus far.

Mizzou has some nice players too. Despite being a running team, the strength of the Tigers isn’t their backcourt. Forwards DeMarre Carroll and Leo Lyons combine for more than 31 points and 13 rebounds a game. When the two big bodies get in foul trouble, or when the other team collapse, Mizzou does have five capable guards. The backcourt isn’t anything special, but they are deep and any one of them can go off on any given afternoon. J.T. Tiller and Zaire Taylor are the passers and set-up men. Kim English is the 6’6” tweener who can do a little bit of everything. He’s mostly an energy guy off the bench. Matt Lawrence is a reliable 3-point shooter and Marcus Denmon is a slasher who is still trying to find a consistent role on the team. Mike Anderson’s team is deep and they love to run opponents off the court.

While at UAB, Anderson’s defense used to give John Calipari’s Memphis teams fits. I suspect that Evans will be challenged and pressured the entire length of the court all day long. While the freshman may struggle to break Missouri’s press, I think that Memphis can otherwise run with Mizzou’s break-neck pace. And if Memphis can turn it into a halfcourt game in the last 10 minutes, I don’t think Missouri stands much of a chance. Look for Evans to have a down game, but the rest of Memphis to pick him up. Just make sure you tune in for this one.
Pick: Memphis 84, Missouri 81