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Posted 03/18/2007 at 05:50 AM
There's still nothing in the world like March Madness. That feeling you get when you're surrounded by people whipping out brackets and talking about Cinderella. When your little sister calls and wants to know if she should take Texas or Carolina in the third round because she just has to win her office pool.
Here's some observations from the first few days of this years NCAA tournament
1. Greg Paulus is a lousy point guard. Don't tell me about his career high in points in the loss to VCU. If you look into the box score, you'll see that Paulus went 6-11 (54%) from the free throw line and had six turnovers. Maybe I'm just bitter because I had Duke in the Sweet 16?
2. The SEC "East" is the best half conference in basketball. Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Florida, and Tennessee all cleaned house in the first round. Florida and Tennessee both toppled the 100 point mark against their respective opponents.
3. Georgia Tech needs rebounding lessons. Don't look at the boxscore on this one, just trust me. I know they out-rebounded UNLV 38-32 but the Yellow Jackets couldn't grab the ball in the final minutes that led to their 67-64 loss. If you give a team five chances to get the go ahead basket, you're going to lose. And what was coach Paul Hewitt thinking at the end of the game with his team down five with under 30 seconds remaining? I could have sworn it looked like they were holding for the last shot?
4. It was nice to see that Wisconsin decided to play at least one half of basketball against Texas A&M-CC. There is just no excuse for a number two seed to be down 18 to anyone. In any round. Bad Bo Ryan, bad.
5. Miami (OH) would have liked to get that 2nd to last possession back. Needing three points to tie, they couldn't get off a great shot, lost the ball, and fouled. Now down five with two seconds left, Michael Bramos launches a three from half court that hits the bottom of the net. If that meaningless launch would have only come on the previous possession we'd have seen OT
6. Maryland is down three without the ball and only 38 ticks left on the clock. What does coach Gary Williams have his players do? Nothing. Not a thing. Butler throws up a shot with four seconds left leaving the Terps almost zero time left to attempt a shot. Williams, what were you thinking? Every other team fouls in this situation and there's a reason for that. Now you go home a loser. Congrats.
7. Ohio State may be better without Greg Oden? Down nine in the final minutes, the Buckeyes lose Oden to fouls only to make a comeback, send the game into OT, and win by seven in the extra session. That doesn't look good for a man trying to be the number one pick in the upcoming draft.
8. Why does the Direct TV CBS broadcast need to do "look ins" on other games? If you bought the package and wanted to "look in," you'd just change the channel!
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