Here are 10, among many, reactions to the NCAA Tournament bracket:
*Kansas State, and Michael Beasley and Bill Walker vs. USC and O.J. Mayo in a Midwest Regional game in Omaha Thursday night?
Thank you, NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship Committee!
*Davidson vs. Gonzaga in a Midwest Regional first-round clash in Raleigh Friday night.
Here’s another “thank you” coming your way, guys!
*Pods That Make For More Convenient Scouting: Both of the lower-bracket pods in the West and East (Washington, D.C., and Birmingham, respectively) are located at the same site.
This means, for example, that the Tennessee coaching staff can scout a potential second-round opponent (Butler vs. South Alabama) on Friday, as well as a potential Sweet 16 foe (Oklahoma/Saint Joseph’s vs. Louisville/Boise State) on Sunday.
Those situations arose when the No. 2 (Tennessee) and 3 (Louisville) seeds in the East shared the same geographically advantageous first- and second-round site (Birmingham), as did the No. 2 (Duke) and 3 (Xavier) in the West (Washington, D.C.).
*Stanford vs. Cornell (Thursday/Anaheim/South): OK, is this a basketball game or “College Bowl” matchup?
Somewhere, within the intellects possessed by the players on the respective rosters, must lie germs of ideas for, a) solving global warming; b) calming the crisis in the housing mark; c) stunting world hunger.
Stanford will roll in the “on-court” debate, though, because on Coach Trent Johnson’s roster are a couple of future NBA Draft lottery selections, Brook Lopez and Robin Lopez.
*Kentucky vs. Marquette (Thursday/Anaheim/South): These teams could provide a couple of pretty effective entries into any national “3 on 3, 6-5 or under” tournaments that The Gazelle Group might want to promote: Ramel Bradley, Joe Crawford and Jodie Meeks (Kentucky) vs. Dominic James, Jerel McNeal and Wesley Matthews (Marquette).
*Totally understandable falls from seeding grace: Indiana ending up as an 8 seed (while a probable 2 or, at worst, 3 late last month) after splitting its six games under interim coach Dan Dakich following the departure of Kelvin Sampson, and Kansas State coming in as an 11, after losing seven of the 12 games they played following their win over Kansas. Beating the Jayhawks made them 15-4 and gave them the appearances of a 4 or 5 seed.
*That was nice of the committee to create some cool “non-power conference” first-round matchups: No. 5 Drake vs. No. 12 Western Kentucky (Thursday/Tampa/West), No. 7 Gonzaga vs. No. 10 Davidson (Friday/Raleigh/Midwest) and No. 7 Butler vs. No. 10 South Alabama (Friday/Birmingham/East).
I promise not to refer to you as “mid-majors”, guys.
*The last of the 2s department: Wisconsin’s seeding resume’ (which included an outright regular-season Big Ten title at 15-3, a Big Ten tourney championship and a win at Texas) appeared more impressive than Duke’s (second-lace in the ACC, ousted in the second round of the ACC Tourney). But the Blue Devils’ shellacking of the Badgers, 82-58, in Durham on Nov. 27 may have made things clearer for committee members when they were deciding to give Duke or Wisconsin the last of the 2 seeds.
*Possible major “seed” first-round upsets that wouldn’t shock me (although I’m leaving toward picking the favorites, anyway): No. 12 over No. 5 Notre Dame, and No. 13 Winthrop over No. 4 Washington State (both Thursday/Denver/East), No. 12 Villanova over No. 5 Clemson (Friday/Tampa/Midwest), No. 12 Temple over No. 5 Michigan State (Friday/Denver/South) and No. 14 Georgia over No. 3 Xavier (Friday/Washington, D.C./West).
*The “11 over 6 upset” we’re most likely to see: Saint Joseph’s over Oklahoma (Friday/Birmingham/East).
Inducted into the USBWA Hall of
Fame in April, 2005, Frank Burlison is Scout.com’s national basketball expert and is
also a columnist for the Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram. He can be reached at
frank.burlison@presstelegram.com. Read more of Burlison’s pieces at
www.collegehoops.scout.com