Saturday, March 11, 2017

Conference Tournament Thoughts

AAC: The honeymoon for Tubby Smith ended fast in Memphis. Two blowouts to end the year won't sit well. Plenty of seats available in Hartford.

ACC: Duke-Carolina III was amazing. Carolina looked effortless in jumping to a 61-48 lead. Joel Berry picked up his 4th and Roy Williams sat him. Duke took advantage and shot Carolina out of the gym. Big minutes and moments from Harry Giles ought to scare other teams. This was a regional final on steroids.

Big East: Great theater in the Garden last night. Villanova and Seton Hall played a rock fight in the first game but Josh Hart put Nova on his shoulders over the final minutes to win the game and survive. Not aesthetically pleasing but a good type of win for Nova. Creighton and Xavier put on a game you'd think you'd see from the 2 and 3 seeds, not the 6 and 7. Creighton survived but Xavier solidified a tourney spot.

Big XII: West Virginia beat Kansas State in a game no one should ever discuss.

Big 14: Michigan continued their remarkable week with an overtime win over Purdue. Have to imagine fatigue catches up to them. Michigan State and Izzo is Early Exits lost to Minnesota and that's neat. Northwestern isn't just a story, it's a good team that beat the home crowd favorite and lead to saw teeth gnashing about Mark Turgeon. Speaking of which, we enter the dance between Tom Crean and Indiana. A fan verbally accosted him after the game and it was caught on tape. Bad look for Indiana fan. Crean's pride probably keeps him in Bloomington but he should move on. It'll get uglier sooner than later.

A-10: With Dayton's loss, the A-10 has a chance at thieving a bid. Unless VCU wins and VCU is quite beatable. The opportunity is there for Rhode Island.

Conference USA: Middle Tennessee had a quietly nice win over a hot UTEP team yesterday. They get Marshall today. Marshall loves to push pace. Even as a 6-seed, Marshall will pose a hefty challenge for Middle Tennessee.

SEC: Vandy probably sealed a bid last night. More importantly to me, I think it exposes Florida as a computer fraud. The numbers love them but they don't pass the eye test. Good team but not a legit contender. South Carolina is not good. They want to play ugly and they play ugly. It's terrible basketball.

Pac-12: All 3 of the big 3 in the league could run to the Final 4. All 3 could go bust by next Sunday night. Out of all the games today, though, this is the one I'm most looking forward to.

Have to say, yesterday is the most underrated day on the hoops schedule. Enough day action to get the juices flowing and then action all over the place in the evening. Let's do it again


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