Every Single Damn Thing You Need To Know For The Most Intriguing Day Of The NCAA Tournament
We are coming off a terrible first round, I'll have more on that later. Nothing really to say there besides that, so watch some upsets on YouTube to try and will some today. I sneaky love the Round of 32. It doesn't get enough shine because it's stuck after the best two days of the sport every single year. But this is the round that really defines how people view the Tournament. You get a team like McNeese fighting for a Sweet 16 while others expect to be there. You get the standalone games early before getting smacked in the face with games later. The nerves keep growing with each game if your team advanced knowing all you want is that 4 day break or so to read everything on the Internet, let your imagination run with the team and where it goes in March. Let's get into it.
Bracket
We're staring at a potential monster week next week. I'm sure we'll get a couple upsets, right? But either way those upsets are really good mid-majors or a double digit major conference team. This is where the lack of upsets can be fine, as long as these games are good. We deserve monster matchups.
3 Best Games Today
1. BYU vs Wisconsin
2. Arkansas vs St. John's
3. Texas Tech vs Drake
Five Most Electric Players
This isn't about the best. Every March there are guys you just want to watch no matter what. They are the names you bring up with a pal 15 years down the road and can picture everything about them. They could go for 40, might launch shots, they could pull a Kemba, whatever it might be. These are the guys you should enjoy watching play basketball today, not Johni Broome who everyone knows.
1. John Blackwell (Wisconsin)
2. Quadir Copeland (McNeese)
3. Christian Anderson (Texas Tech)
4. Jamiya Neal (Creighton)
5. Miles Kelly (Auburn)
Five Storylines/Game Previews
1. Why the hell would I say intriguing?
Okay, so I used the word intriguing here because I truly think it is based on how the tournament has gone. I love the second round. You get the mix of big time matchups, the darlings of the 1st round trying to make history vs a big time name. There's an extra level of nervousness of getting out of the first weekend. You need that break as a fan to regroup and get ready for 2 more games next week. We're really looking at a perfect day of TV right now. We'll touch on the games later but look at the matchups we have today. Drake/Texas Tech is a stylistic mismatch. Pitino/Cal. Auburn against Kalkbrenner and defense there. BYU/Wisconsin could be the game of the tournament.
2. Pitino vs Cal
Come on, like anything else would be here? It's Pitino vs Calipari, it's the coaching matchup that all of America looked at the moment the bracket came out. They are similar teams in the sense of having these wings who are bigger, athletic and they want to bottle you up defensively. Arkansas has figured something out with its rotation and people like Big Z getting benched for Aidoo, Karter knox figuring it out. However, Fland is back and Theiro reportedly could be back today. That means the rotation is getting changed for this game and how long they get comfortable again. For St. John's it's the same story. They look bad to start, smother you and blow you out in the second half. But it doesn't matter. It's Pitino vs Cal. It's Cal vs Pitino. That's the story.
3. Winner of Wisconsin/BYU is the scariest team in that bracket
I can't stress how much I love watching both of these teams. I never thought I'd say that about Wisconsin, especially offensively. But Tonje and Blackwell are as good of a 1-2 combo as you can have. The style of play is what I'm interested in here. BYU's defense is based on taking away the rim. However, Wisconsin is more than happy shooting the shit out of the ball and BYU will have to change that. Same goes on the other way. Wisconsin runs drop coverage more often than not and BYU just destroys that. But this is the game I'm most interested in. I think the winner of this goes to the Final Four, that's how good I think these teams are.
4. Houston getting screwed by the committee
I think Houston is the best team in the country at full strength and you won't ever hear them complain about anything. But he fact they have Gonzaga, a top-10 KenPom team, in the 2nd round as a 1/8 game is asinine. Gonzaga should have been a 7. You have to look at the resume and not just metrics but everyone in the world agreed they were a 7. This is officially the toughest draw ever for a 1 seed in the 2nd round. They don't play top-10 KenPom teams. This award used to go to 2014 Kentucky vs undefeated Wichita State, Gonzaga gets it now. This is where we need basketball people on the selection committee to understand resume and metrics so a 1 seed doesn't have to deal with this right off the bat.
5. Two mid-majors staying alive
We don't have that massive Cinderella this year and really just have 2 going today. McNeese and Drake. I don't even know if you can qualify Drake as a Cinderella. Yeah they won their first real tournament game since 1971 but they are always in the Tournament. McNeese has Will Wade and all these former high-major transfers. And now? Intriguing games. McNeese got the lead on Clemson by just getting after it defensively. Clemson couldn't dribble the ball let alone score. For them today it's simple. Limit Braden Smith having the ball in his hand and take away the Smith/TKR 2-man game. Wade will make the secondary people on Purdue beat him and don't be surprised to see about 14 different defenses to confuse Purdue. For Drake, they are the slowest team in the country. They just system you to death before Bennett Stirtz rips your soul out. Dude hit a one-legged runner three for the hell of it against Mizzou. They have a complete stylistic opposite in Texas Tech who wants to run, launch and beat you on offense first.
Picks
10-3 so far in the NCAA Tournament, +8.14 units
Arkansas +7.5
Texas A&M -2.5
BYU/Wisconsin over 155.5
UCLA +5.5
McNeese +7
Houston -4.5
