Welcome to March

Despite the feet of snowbanks littering our landscape, March has arrived.  By next Saturday we will be seeing teams clinch their trips to the dance.  Some conferences will get one bid, others will get multiple bids as teams steal bids and we will here the word madness ad nauseum.

Yesterday may have shown us some things as move forward.

1. Syracuse has issues.  They had a chance to win or tie late an Michael Carter-Williams jacked up a terribel 3 and Brandon Triche had his pocket picked.  Worse yet, CJ Fair nor James Southerland touched the ball late.  The Orange are trending wrong.
2. Doug McDermott won't be POY but was fantastic yesterday dropping 36 on Wichita State clinching the Valley regular season title in what has been a struggle at times for Creighton.  I'm calling my shot and say he drops 40 in a tournament game this year.
3. Butler has been a mainstay in the Top 20 since Hawaii but lack a guard who can run their offense as shown yesterday in their walloping by VCU.  St. Louis also exposed this issue earlier.  They own wins over Marquette, IU & Gonzaga on buzzer beaters.  Wins are wins and those are huge wins that guarantee a bid but sports has a measure of luck.  Those games go the other way and Butler is long out of the Top 20.
4. Buzz Williams is one of the top coaches in the nation.  He's worth every dollar Marquette is paying him.  They're going to be in the discussion as a pre-season Final 4 team in 2013-14.
5. Miami may have lost last night at Duke but make no bones about it, they showed as much in defeat as a team could.  Shane Larkin is oozing confidence right now and his supporting cast played well save Reggie Johnson who no-showed.  Cameron was full-tilt and the Hurricanes never wavered and even down 10 under 2 minutes almost pulled off a big comeback as Duke went Ryan evans at the FT line.  Miami struggled recently against inferior competetion but yesterday's game is a truer indicator of their toughness and capabilities.
6. And finally, Duke with Ryan Kelly is a completely different animal.  Teams can't double Plumlee.  Kelly won't get 36 every night and played in the Jordan zone yesterday but his presence showed why Duke will be a favorite to cut the nets down.  They're 16-0 with him this year.  And I still think, despite the losses they had without him, the court time others got will be important as the devils move forward.  This team is much better than last year's and are better defensively.  People rightfully question their toughness but they withstood a physical and tough Miami team yesterday in Kelly's 1st game back.  Rasheed Sulaimon has struggled recently but was fantastic down the stretch yesterday making two big plays.
7. Welcome to March!