2010 NCAA Tournament: Round 2, Day 1

Went 22-10 in the first round, which is pretty good considering I had to go 13-3 yesterday to get there. Some very interesting 2nd round matchups today. I think just about all eight of these games could go either way.

EAST REGION

New Orleans Arena
New Orleans, LA
#9 Wake Forest Demon Deacons (20-10, 9-7 ACC) vs.
#1 Kentucky Wildcats (33-2, 14-2 SEC)
Kentucky was one of the few higher seeds that didn’t fool around at all in the first round. I thought ETSU could give them a little bit of trouble, since UK is a little young. John Wall and the Baby Cats showed a little bit of meddle and impressed me…even though you have to take their opponent into account.

The surprise here is the Demon Deacons. Dino Gaudio summoned all his coaching ability, and with help from Rick Barnes and some awful foul shooting from the Longhorns, escaped in to the 2nd round. Now with the pressure off of him and Wake a little bit, it will be interesting to see if they play loose. Obviously Kentucky doesn’t have that luxury, since they always have the crushing weight of Big Blue Nation on their shoulder. So that could be an advantage for the Deacs.

However, Wake played one of their better games of the past month to get past the Horns. Even with that performance, they needed overtime and some luck to win. Even though Al-Farouq Aminu may be one of the few forwards that can go toe-to-toe with Demarcus Cousins or Patrick Patterson, and Ish Smith is lightning quick (maybe even quicker than Wall), the talent level drops off from there. L.D. Williams and C.J. Harris will have to play better than normal for Wake to have a chance.
Pick: Kentucky 83, Wake Forest 68

HP Pavilion
San Jose, CA
#11 Washington Huskies (25-9, 11-7 Pac-10) vs.
#3 New Mexico Lobos (30-4, 14-2 Mountain West)
The Huskies were successful in alleviating some of questions surrounding the Pacific-10 this season. Their win over one of the teams from “The Best Conference To Ever Exist Even Though Half Our Teams Lost In The First Round” saved a little face for maligned western basketball. On the other hand, New Mexico did little to convince people that the Mountain West should be taken seriously. San Diego State and UNLV were bounced in the first round. BYU needed two overtimes to get past Florida (a team that should not have been in the tournament to begin with). And the Lobos tried several times to give away their game with Montana.

So you have Washington, playing some of their best basketball of the season, facing New Mexico. The Lobos struggled during the MWC Tournament and then struggled in the first round. On top of that, Darington Hobson landed hard on his shooting hand Thursday night, and there’s no telling how well he’ll be able shoot (he struggled after the injury against the Grizzlies). Fortunately for the Lobos, Roman Martinez and Dairese Gary are capable of picking up the slack. If Phillip McDonald, a guy who turned down offers from Texas A&M and Texas Tech, ever gets going, then New Mexico could be really dangerous in this tournament. The UW-UNM matchup was one of the few that I correctly predicted, so I’m going to stick with my original prediction. The Lobos scrap a win together.
Pick: New Mexico 74, Washington 67

SOUTH REGION

New Orleans Arena
New Orleans, LA
#11 Old Dominion Monarchs (27-8, 15-3 CAA) vs.
#3 Baylor Bears (26-7, 11-5 Big XII)
Like many out there, I wanted to take Baylor to go to at least the Elite Eight. But I had seen enough of the Bears to know that they are simply too inconsistent to be trusted. That inconsistency reared its head again in a narrow win against Sam Houston State. For periods of time, the Bears looked like the team that’s been anointed one of the tournament’s darkhorses. For other long periods of time, they looked like the team that lost to Colorado and Alabama and lost most of their games against the upper-echelon Big XII schools. Remember, despite the three seed, that was Baylor’s first tournament win in about 60 years. So none of these players have any postseason experience.

The good news for Baylor is they get a team that can’t possibly outscore them in ODU. The Monarchs could barely outscore the Fighting Irish, a team that made a habit of scoring under 60 points during the end of the regular season. The Bears should have enough fire power to cross the 60-point threshold, and that should be enough for Baylor.
Pick: Baylor 65, Old Dominion 53

Dunkin Donuts Center
Providence, RI
#10 St. Mary’s Gaels (27-5, 11-3 WCC) vs.
#2 Villanova Wildcats (25-7, 13-5 Big East)
So Villanova…what the hell was that? I don’t like one of my Final Four teams to be on the ropes by 2:30 p.m. on the first Thursday of the tournament. I took Villanova because Baylor wasn’t consistent enough, but it appears that may have been a big mistake. Taking any of the Big East teams appears to be a big mistake at this point. Let’s call a spade a spade here, the Wildcats played worse than Robert Morris. The Colonials should have won. RMU just got tight in the last couple of minutes and had a couple of questionable calls go against them.

In a day filled with drama, the Gaels were business-like. There was no doubt they’d beat the Spiders by about the 10-minute mark of the first half. You have to give the edge to St Mary’s coming because of the way they played. However, Villanova has done this before. They played terribly last season in the first round against American before reeling off three more victories on route to the Final Four. Let’s hope their game against RMU was a blip on the radar and not an on-coming trend
Pick: Villanova 77, St. Mary’s 71

MIDWEST REGION

Ford Center
Oklahoma City, OK
#9 Northern Iowa Panthers (29-4, 15-3 MVC) vs.
#1 Kansas Jayhawks (33-2, 15-1 Big XII)
Any chance that Kansas had of being knocked off in the 2nd round went out the window when UNLV lost to Northern Iowa. Lots of experts have pointed to the fact that UNI plays at a slower pace and could potentially slow the Jayhawks down. That’s not going to happen. You have to be able to outscore Kansas to beat them. You can’t slow them down. A handful of Big XII teams tried that and failed. UNLV could potentially score with Kansas, and Lon Kruger has knocked off several higher seeds before. I don’t see Northern Iowa hanging in this game longer than 20 minutes.
Pick: Kansas 80, Northern Iowa 63

Dunkin Donuts Center
Providence, RI
#14 Ohio Bobcats (22-14, 7-9 MAC) vs.
#6 Tennessee Volunteers (26-8, 11-5 SEC)
Well done John Thompson III. You have Greg Monroe, Chris Wright and Austin Freeman, and you can’t win one tournament game in two seasons? Really? As much heat as Gary Williams gets in this town, it would be nice to see the Washington Post give a little (and much deserved) heat to Little Racist III. They never will, because every columnist and writer is terrified of his father. For the life of me, I still don’t understand why he’s running the Princeton offense with All-American talent. The loss to Ohio wasn’t the fault of the players, it was the fault of Thompson and Thompson alone. Georgetown gave up 97 points to a team that was under .500 in their conference. With all due respect to Ohio, who almost everyone ignored, that’s awful. That’s inexcusable. But will Thompson get criticized? Not in this market.

Kudos to the Bobcats, but can they do it again? Tennessee is a team that occasionally plays defense optional basketball. So if the Cats can’t shoot like they did Thursday, they certainly have a good chance. Unfortunately for Ohio, teams tend to shoot worse on Saturday and Sunday than they do in the first round because of tired legs. Don’t expect upset number two.
Pick: Tennessee 76, Ohio 66

WEST REGION

HP Pavilion
San Jose, CA
#13 Murray State Racers (31-4, 17-1 OVC) vs.
#5 Butler Bulldogs (29-5, 18-0 Horizon)
The three buzzer-beaters (or near buzzer-beaters) all hosed me yesterday. Northern Iowa, Wake and of course Murray State all managed to win in the closing seconds, changing my first day record from a respectable 12-4 to a dreadful 9-7. Those are the breaks I guess.

I like the Racers style of play, but I have a tendency to avoid the big double-digit seeds going into the Sweet 16. I know that one or two usually sneak in, but I don’t think I can pick them. Murray State is the poor quality opponent that Butler played most of the season. It will be interesting to see what the Bulldogs can do against Syracuse (although I’m hoping Syracuse loses before they get that chance).
Pick: Butler 71, Murray State 67

Ford Center
Oklahoma City, OK
***The Predictor Game Of The Day***
#7 BYU Cougars (30-5, 13-3 Mountain West) vs.
#2 Kansas State Wildcats (27-7, 11-5 Big XII)
This might very well be the game that decides the direction that my bracket is going. I need Kansas State to get to the Final Four, or at least get to within one step of the Final Four, and I think this is their last real hurdle. I don’t think the Pitt-Xavier winner is going to matchup favorably against KSU, but the Cougars definitely do.

We found out Thursday that BYU is not a one man show. The Gators pushed them around and went bucket for bucket with the favorites. If BYU was just Jimmer Fredette, they wouldn’t be playing today. Sure his 37 points were impressive, but they needed more than that to hang with Florida. Strong performances from Jackson Emery and Michael Loyd Jr (who was only averaging 4.5 ppg before scoring 26) proved the Cougars aren’t a one-trick pony.

For Kansas State, they are going to need more of the balanced scoring they got in their first round game against North Texas. Fredette is going to have the advantage, no matter who he matches up with. But the Wildcats should have the advantage everywhere else. Denis Clemente, Jacob Pullen, Curtis Kelly and Dominique Sutton each scored in double figures (and other than Clemente, none of them played 30 minutes). Another performance like that should put KSU in the Sweet 16.
Pick: Kansas State 75, BYU 69