Hello and welcome to my new site... the March Madness Report. I'll be offering you daily updates leading up to the Big Dance including in depth previews of conference tournaments, and a complete breakdown of the NCAA brackets. I'll tell you who is going to win the Big 10 tournament, who deserves national player of the year, and what are the sleeper teams to watch for when filling out your brackets. So let's get right to it!
Saturday was a gigantic day in college basketball and I had the fortune of watching all or part of seven games (even though I have a big exam on Monday). The biggest games of the day were Florida-Kentucky and Texas-Oklahoma. As Dickie V kept saying (about 300 times) the winner of the Big 12 class between Texas and Oklahoma deserves a number 1 seed, and Texas certainly proved their worth. Newsflash: T.J. Ford has got skills. It's not just him though, the Longhorns have about seven huge white guys on their front line, Royal Ivey on the perimeter, and some dude from the Netherlands shooting 3s. Ford made some unbelievable plays down the stretch and showed why he is a National Player of the Year candidate. Another candidate, Hollis Price, couldn't rally Oklahoma to victory (even though they led almost the entire game). Oklahoma still has the chance to get a 1 seed if they win the Big 12 tournament, and they have no chance of falling below a 2 seed. Hollis Price and Oklahoma could easily be the Juan Dixon and Maryland of this year, and depending on the draw, I see them being one of the last four teams standing. Meanwhile, down south Kentucky proved that they are one of the top teams in America with a victory at Florida. Florida didn't play great (see Matt Walsh) but a victory at Florida is a huge win nonetheless. So Kentucky completed the regular season undefeated in the SEC and are a shoe in for a 1 seed.
These two games were by no means the only treats for college hoops fans. Marquette defeated Cincinatti to win an outright Conference USA title behind (my boy) Dwayne Wade. It seems like only yesterday that Wade was in my former town of Oak Lawn torching my former school Sandburg for 40 points. The key to Marquette's final four hopes is solid play from their big men Scott Merrit and Robert Jackson. Wake Forest won an outright ACC title behind Josh Howard. So what does all of these outstanding players mentioned so far Ford, Price, Howard, Wade, (plus a couple others) mean for you Illini fans? It means that Brian Cook will certainly not be a first team All American, and might not even be a second round All American. In the coming days I'll give the only list that matters, my All American list.
There was important action in the Big 10 Saturday as well. Purdue went into Ann Arbor and came out with a victory, meaning that win or lose tommorow Illinois will finish second in the Big 10. As I write this Indiana is down at Penn St. A loss would be disastorous for Mike Davis and crew. Michigan St. won at Ohio St. which takes the Spartans off the bubble. As for the game tommorow, Minnesota really needs a victory. It's up to Bill Self to rally the troops after the tough loss on Tuesday, however with it being the last game at the Hall for Cook, Harrington, (my boy) Ferguson, JHo, and oh yeah.. Clayton Thomas, he will not be short on ammo to get the team fired up. After the game tommorow I will post my Big 10 awards, including All Conference teams, the freshman of the year, and the Player of the Year (will it be BC or Penney?)
Today was the first day that teams earned automatic births and Troy St., UNC-Ashville, Austin Peay (let's go pee!), and East Tenessee St. all punched their tickets. I think that these early conference tournaments really have some negative effects on the winning teams. Sure UNC-Ashville has a losing record and has no chance to win in the NCAAs but a solid team such as Troy St. now must wait almost 2 weeks before playing another game. It's up to the coaches to keep the team focused during this period, but this time off must be a distraction. The reason these crappy conferences play so early is simple, TV. The exposure that the Big South, the Ohio Valley and other low profile conferences get outweighs the negatives. Or does it? The Big South championship game was played around 1 this afternoon. At that time I was watching the Florida-Kentucky game. When that game was a commercial I was watching the Marquette game, then there was the Big 10 game. In other words, UNC-Ashville's triumphant victory was my fourth option. I would assume that almost all college basketball fans were watching other games. It all comes down to recruiting I guess, and being able to say that you might have a chance to play on ESPN (or the "deuce") must be important. However, don't look for a very good Troy St. team (25-5, win at Arkansas) to spring a first round upset.
Well that's about it for today's update. Tommorow I will have a recap of the Thrillinois game, a Big 10 regular season recap (complete with my as promised awards list), and plenty of other updates. And of yeah, Penn St. has won their game. This creates massive problems for Indiana. They now need to win 2 games in the Big 10 tournament to assure themselves a trip to the NCAAs. It looks as if Illinois wins tommorow, Indiana will get a 8 seed and avoid Illinois in the second round (if my calculations are correct). It looks like Indiana will (most likely) have to beat Wisconsin in the second round to feel safe. So from what I can figure out if Illinois wins tommorow they will play the winner of Minnesota-Northwestern in the second round. But first they have to get the job done tommorow. That's it for today, Have fun watching Cook's last home game!
