One of the major upsides to UNC playing and winning yesterday is I get to enjoy the games tonight without worrying about UNC playing later in the evening or brooding over the loss.
On the schedule this evening we have the other half of the North Carolina delegation to the NCAAs, #10 Davidson playing #3 Wisconsin in what is sure to be more defensive fortitude and possibly ugly basketball along the lines of what WSU tried to pull last night. We will see if Stephen Curry has any magic left.
The game of the night might be #2 Texas vs #3 Stanford since there are clear matchup advantages for each team. During the late session you the two #1 seeds playing: Kansas should handle #12 Villanova with ease but a win by #5 Michigan State over Memphis would not shock me.
Open thread for your comments, have at it.
March 28, 2008 at 7:15 pm |
I was thinking exactly the same thing, THF. I am rooting hard for Davidson. I really like Davidson, but I don’t LOVE Davidson, so I can sit back a little more and enjoy the game. The Super Bowl is like that, too. I probably enjoyed watching the Giants beat N.E. a lot more than I enjoyed the Panthers vs. N.E., where I was too busy yelling epithets against Boston and the referees to enjoy the play.
It’s currently Davidson tied with Wisconsin, 5 all. Go, Wildcats!
March 28, 2008 at 7:18 pm |
About the game style between Davidson and Wisconsin, THF, the difference is that Wisconsin is the WSU in this game, ranking towards the bottom in pace. Davidson plays at a healthy 117 in adjusted tempo. Wildcats lead it, 7-5. How come Davidson doesn’t have to slow the game down to have success, Coach Bennett?
March 28, 2008 at 7:23 pm |
damn, Duke would be proud of that flop!
March 28, 2008 at 7:24 pm |
btw, what time does Duke play tonight? oh, wait…
March 28, 2008 at 7:30 pm |
wow–they just showed the shot that Scott beat Davidson on!!
March 28, 2008 at 7:37 pm |
Can you imagine how good Davidson would have been with Scott? We are talking almost UCLA good!
March 28, 2008 at 7:42 pm |
too true-I’m quite sure Lefty never got over that entirely.
check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GutUy4GGLg
2 swwweet jumpers!
March 28, 2008 at 7:45 pm |
Lefty was a great coach and a great man. Even Len Elmore admits this.
March 28, 2008 at 7:47 pm |
If Davidson can win this, that would make 2 NC schools in the final 8. Maybe Davidson should join the ACC. We could kick out Boston College. Sure, Davidson doesn’t field a Division I football squad, but that hasn’t prevented Duke from being in the ACC….
March 28, 2008 at 7:50 pm |
lol!
March 28, 2008 at 7:52 pm |
Wisconsin doesn’t look very good, but I can’t say that we were world-beaters against Davidson either!
March 28, 2008 at 7:52 pm |
man an upset would be sweet–I guess we shouldn’t be at all surprised.
March 28, 2008 at 7:54 pm |
Ref’s bailed out Wisconsin on that last second shot. Michael Flowers, the Badgers’ guard has befriended a five year old leukemia patient in the DC area and invites him to games and into the locker room to meet the players, which really pisses me off, because it makes it hard for me to hate the Badgers, and oh, I really want to….
March 28, 2008 at 7:56 pm |
Brian Butch and David Padgett have been playing college ball forever….
March 28, 2008 at 7:59 pm |
I was lucky that CSTV re-played the Davidson-Georgetown game today and I was able to record it in HD. Apparently, they alone have the rights to replays of games and highlights, so ESPN is getting the big freeze.
Should I record the second half of this game? Hmm. Maybe I will put it on a rewritable disk, in case Wisconsin shrugs Davidson off and wins easily. I put the ACC tourney final on a non-rewritable disk, against Clemson, and that is why we won, because I had so much faith in the Heels as to chance a non-rewritable disk. I would have had to shatter it if Clemson had won, but with a re-writable one, you can just record over it.
March 28, 2008 at 8:02 pm |
I guess we should be rooting for Stanford to lose to Texas, because i think Stanford would be tougher for us than Texas….
March 28, 2008 at 8:08 pm |
yeah but like my son says, it’s hard to pull for Texas, no matter the stakes.
March 28, 2008 at 8:14 pm |
That’s true. When it was BYU vs. Texas, it was a match-up of my two least favorite states, along with Oklahoma. Oklahoma vs. Texas is like Hillary Clinton vs. Bush, you probably root for whoever lost the last time, but you don’t feel good about it.
Oklahomas has only been a state for 100 years and I feel that 100 years is a good period for us to all reflect and decide whether that was a good decision….
March 28, 2008 at 8:16 pm |
I wonder where THF fan is. Maybe he decided to watch tonight instead of blog. I know some games I too nervous to leave comments and other games, it doesn’t bother me, not sure why.
March 28, 2008 at 8:19 pm |
I do think it is funny that the Tennessee people were said to be rooting for Carolina because they thought WSU would be tougher for them to beat…. I guess when it is your own team (or child), you just don’t see the defects in them that are obvious to everyone else. It has been pretty clear to me since Vandy beat Tennessee (I know it was a rivalry game, but still) that Tennessee was not all that great….
For all they say about Pearl, he only took them where the former coach took them back in 2000, the Sweet 16, where they lost to UNC….
March 28, 2008 at 8:24 pm |
yeah, but Pearl is the PT Barnum of college hoops, and a tireless self-promoter. I liked their athleticism, but they sure dint play too smurt at times.
March 28, 2008 at 8:29 pm |
He and Pat (no longer my married name) Summitt, both.
March 28, 2008 at 8:30 pm |
speaking of game tension, my great Uncle used to have a favorite easy chair (think Frasier’s dad Martin) that he used to watch games in. I once asked him why he didn’t seem to get into it like he used to. He told me that he knew it was time to back away when my Aunt pointed out the claw-marks on the chair-arms, lol.
March 28, 2008 at 8:30 pm |
Wow. Wisconsin probably is not that great acomeback team. They better not get too far behind.
March 28, 2008 at 8:32 pm |
James, I wrote that article that we talked about. I sent it to THF, but he hasn’t put it up yet. Since it is just you and me, it seems, if you want a sneak preview, here is a link. It has some stuff about last night’s game and this Wisconsin game.
http://quakerfox.blogspot.com/2008/03/more-march-madness-math.html
March 28, 2008 at 8:32 pm |
doubter!
March 28, 2008 at 8:43 pm |
Curry is a cold-blooded killer! I second your ACC-nomination william!
March 28, 2008 at 8:44 pm |
This just in: Stephen Curry has some magic left.
March 28, 2008 at 8:47 pm |
good piece william–is that your blog?
March 28, 2008 at 9:16 pm |
Yes, that is my blog. I keep hearing that Ryan and Bennett are such great coaches. Apparently, neither WSU nor Wisconsin practices endgame situations where they are behind. Both teams were pathetic down the stretch, just letting the clock run on both ends and not altering their game one whit.
March 28, 2008 at 9:16 pm |
william – are you saying you have an high definition DVD recorder you are recording the games on? is that Blu Ray or HD-DVD. I could really use one of those. How much recording time does a disc get?
March 28, 2008 at 9:17 pm |
Unbelievable! Could Davidson beat Kansas?
March 28, 2008 at 9:19 pm |
No, it is only regular DVD, but if you have bought either a television or DVD player in the last two years, the television or DVD player will do something called upsampling that improves the image to almost hi-def quality. I really can’t tell the difference.
The only snag is that you cannot compress the recording any more than the higest quality standard, which give you 110 minutes on a standard disk.
March 28, 2008 at 9:27 pm |
I feel like the difference in Davidson and Kansas is too great. Curry will have to score over 40 for Davidson to have a chance. Kansas is a LOT better than Wisconsin.
March 28, 2008 at 9:51 pm |
When I say, 110 minutes, what I meant to say was 70 minutes….
March 28, 2008 at 9:53 pm |
I am just sitting here in shock. Davidson’s three games so far have featured some of the most sensational play that I have ever seen in my whole life. Why doesn’t Davidson have to slow down the pace to beat the bigs? Apparently, it isn’t always necessary to play slow to win without top talent….
March 28, 2008 at 9:53 pm |
Is Kansas a lot better than Georgetown, Wilson?
March 28, 2008 at 10:00 pm |
You know, James, I had a fraternity brother whose father was a Clemson grad, but he got the Morehead and went to Carolina instead. When we would watch Carolina against Clemson, he was always very quiet and we would ask him who is he rooting for and he wouldn’t say anything.
Well, I am from Davidson and grew up going to their games more than UNC games, and I didn’t go there because it was so expensive, but if somehow Davidson and Carolina end up playing in the Final four, please don’t ask me who I am rooting for…. because I am not sure….
March 28, 2008 at 10:08 pm |
I can relate-you aren’t a true hoops aficionado if you can’t appreciate this Wildcat team. If I knew they wouldn’t waste it, and go ahead & take the crown, I might would be conflicted too. They really are playing quality ball–reminds me a little of the Ed Pinckney Villanova Champs.
March 28, 2008 at 10:11 pm |
I rooted for Carolina against George Mason in 2006, which is where I went to law school, but I am not sure that I would have had it been a regional final. I figured then that GMU would just go out in the next round, but it is such a huge deal for a George Mason or Davidson to go to the Final Four and Carolina has already been a few times. I better be careful lest someone yank my true fan credentials and oh, by the way, America, just to be fair, George Mason was the UNCC of the 2006 tournament….
March 28, 2008 at 10:13 pm |
I can’t believe Davidson won that game.
Based on what we are seeing from Kansas right now I would be hard pressed to believe Davidson could beat them
March 28, 2008 at 10:30 pm |
yes but Clemson was blowing them out in the first half too.
March 28, 2008 at 10:32 pm |
Well they rallied to within seven and I flipped channels for five minutes and came back to Kansas up 15.
March 28, 2008 at 10:41 pm |
well, KU appears to be slightly more than Clemson–probably a lot like Carolina in that they’ve just been waiting for the Dance to step on the accelerator.
March 28, 2008 at 10:43 pm |
Someone needs to talk the CBS execs off the ledge…two blowouts in progress here with little hope it is going to change.
March 28, 2008 at 10:52 pm |
well, for tonight maybe, but it could be shaping up to be one hell of an epic FF.
March 28, 2008 at 11:12 pm |
Well, 2 North Carolina schools in the final 8. I don’t thinkany other states have that. No SEC teams or Big 11 teams in the Final 8. 1 ACC team, 1 Pac Ten team, 1 A-14 team, 1 Southern Conference team, 2 Big 12 teams, 1 Big East team, 1 Conference USA team.
The Big Ten Wonk must be rolling in his grave. Now we know why the ACC won the Challenge this year. The Little 11 play lumbering, bad basketball….
March 28, 2008 at 11:25 pm |
i think in 1981 they had three number one seeds and a two, but you have to think that right now there is about a 25% chance that you could have all four top seeds make it.
March 28, 2008 at 11:29 pm |
I remember back in 1982, in spite of being number one, Carolina fans were not sure whether we could beat Georgetown or not. They were like a wrecking ball in the West Region, while most of Carolina’s games were fairly tight.
I think one thing is that Carolina did not know until that game just how good Michael Jordan was. He did things that game that either Dean hadn’t allowed or he hadn’t had the inclination to try up to that point.
Anyway, I am not sure that play in the NCAA Regionals is a better predictor of future success than the regular season, where Georgetown had lost a few more than we had.
March 28, 2008 at 11:31 pm |
If Carolina is fortunate enough to get past Louisville, I don’t think that they are going to be thrilled with the media build-up regarding either of their potential Final Four opponents, either a week of build-up about Davidson against Goliath, or a week of re-hashing Roy’s job change….
March 28, 2008 at 11:36 pm |
MSU has gotten 17 points in a row against Mamphis, now they only trail by 19!
March 28, 2008 at 11:37 pm |
At least MSU is pressing, unlike the gutless Badgers and Cougars, who really never even tried to get back in their games….
March 28, 2008 at 11:43 pm |
Okay, here is something amazing. Jason Richards had an assist to turnover ratio that was undefined! The kid had 13 assists and no turn-overs! That is unbelievable!
March 29, 2008 at 12:01 am |
Word just in: Apparently Seth Greenberg at VPI has found an extra scholarship and informed Stephen Curry that he is welcome to transfer from Davidson….
March 29, 2008 at 2:17 am |
Williams, to answer your question from earlier: yes, I do believe that KU is a LOT better than Georgetown. KU and UNC are playing the best basketball in the country, although I would put Davidson at #3 or 4 after them. They played sensational basketball tonight. It was so fun to watch.