Adam Glatczak writes the "Wednesday Onions" column for CollegeHoopsnet.  Bookmark the "Wednesday Onions" homepage and come back each week!

2000 tourney recycled?

It might seem like you’ve seen this year’s NCAA Tournament before, and in many ways you have. This year’s tourney has an eerie resemblance to the 2000 NCAAs, when upsets were sparse in the first round and almost the rule in the second round.

The 2000 tourney is well remembered for how few upsets there were in its first round. Only three lower seeds won first round games that year-things were so stale that 11 seed Pepperdine beating Indiana was a big deal. There wasn’t even a 12 seed upsetting a 5 seed-that tells you pretty much all you need to know about the lack of surprises.

The same was mostly true this year, with only four lower seeds winning opening round games. Two #12s-Pacific and Manhattan did win, but in a real oddity, 9 and 10 seeds were a combined 2-6 against 7 and 8 seeds.

What many forget about 2000, though, was just how many close calls there were. Louisiana-Lafayette lost by five to Tennessee. St. Bonaventure took Kentucky to double OT. Butler lost to Florida on Mike Miller’s buzzer-beater. St. John’s barely got by Northern Arizona, and SE Missouri State had a chance to tie LSU in the final seconds. In fact, every one of those games went down to the final 30 seconds.

The same happened this year. East Tennessee State just missed beating Cincinnati. VCU lost to Wake Forest by one. UTEP and Northern Iowa had final chances to tie Maryland and Georgia Tech, respectively. Air Force had control of North Carolina until tiring in the final 10 minutes, while BYU had a shot to tie in the last minute against Syracuse. And this isn’t even addressing nailbiters in the 8-9 and 7-10 games.

Both years, though, things quickly turned crazy in the second round. 2000: # 10 Seton Hall beat #2 Temple. #8 North Carolina over #1 Stanford. #7 Tulsa dropped #2 Cincinnati. #8 Wisconsin bested #1 Arizona. #10 Gonzaga knocked off #2 St. John’s. #6 seeds Purdue and Miami (Fla.) both beat 3 seeds.

Fast forward to 2004. #8 Alabama downs #1 Stanford. #10 Nevada rips #2 Gonzaga. #7 Xavier blows by #2 Mississippi State. #9 UAB beats #1 Kentucky. #6 Vanderbilt beats #3 North Carolina State.

Some might want to focus on the lack of upsets in the first round, but don’t read too much into it. 28 of 32 higher seeds won first round games, but that number is no indication of an imbalance in the field. Quite the opposite, because many of the first round games this year were evenly matched and very close. It wasn’t by fluke, either; if you saw Manhattan against Florida, for instance, you knew that the better all-around team won that game. And if there was anything fluky about Cincinnati and East Tennessee State’s dandy, it was the Bearcats hitting 13 three-pointers in the game.

Sixteen first round games this year were decided by 10 points or less. Oddly enough, that’s how many first round games were decided by 10 or less in 2000, too. You can say there weren’t many upsets, but don’t say the games weren’t competitive.

The variety of winners in the second round was a much better indicator of the talent pool in college basketball in this wider-than-wide-open year than the lack of surprises in the first round. Other than the surprise of seeing some new names in the spotlight, it wouldn’t be a shock at all if any of the 16 teams left makes the Final Four. Even surprise Sweet 16 teams like UAB and Nevada have already beaten teams as good as just about anyone else they could face the rest of the year.

-This topic is not going to be allowed to go away quietly. I didn’t like the pod system before this year, and after watching how it influenced several games this weekend, I detest it even more.

You have to feel bad for Illinois-Chicago and Pacific, two teams that would’ve had nearly 50/50 odds of beating Kansas on a neutral floor (especially the Tigers) but saw those chances decrease about 49% when they had to take on the Jayhawks in Kansas City. Pacific hung around and tried, but in the end they were put away by a team clearly charged up emotionally by the crowd backing them. Play that game anywhere else Sunday, and it goes down to the wire at least. Kansas proved this year it rarely plays with the fire and intensity it displayed this weekend if it isn’t playing in front of 15,000 of its fans. UIC didn’t even have a prayer once the crowd got into their first round game; you could see it at the first timeout that the Flames were done for. The Flames shoulder blame for not being tougher at the beginning, but it shouldn’t have even been an issue. And to think, Kansas “earned” this practical bye into the Sweet 16 because it finished 20-8 against Division I opponents this year and was a splendid 3-6 vs. the RPI top 50. If you put those numbers on a team named “Rice” you’re labeled a bubble team.

Also, what did Richmond do to deserve to have to face a comeback from a #6 seed with 18,000 Wisconsin fans working against them? The Spiders played a dandy game for about 25 minutes against the Badgers, but when UW started making its run, it received all the momentum it needed from the crowd. No 6 seed should be playing home games in the NCAAs-whether the Badgers were ripped off in their seeding is another issue entirely different from this. If the selection committee judged them to be a 6 seed, they shouldn’t be given such an advantage. In fact, no teams should be getting an advantage, but especially not middle seeds like KU, Wisconsin and Wake Forest, another team that benefited from having a sub-regional close to home.

If this is the way it’s going to be, why doesn’t the NCAA just move the tourney to campus sites? Seriously. That way sellouts are practically guaranteed, and we can at least cut the illusion that tourney qualifiers will be competing under mostly neutral circumstances. Jayhawk and Badger fans are certainly sick of hearing about this, but they did have unfair advantages, and yes, in these eyes their wins in the tourney are tarnished. Nobody’s saying they couldn’t have won their games on neutral sites, but the fact that they’re advancing under such ridiculously favorable conditions is cheapening what’s supposed to be a neutral, national tournament.

-In fact, don’t mean to overshadow all of the good things that happened this weekend, but there are becoming more and more things to dislike about the NCAA Tournament. It’s still a great event, but it has gone from something that couldn’t get much better to taking steps backward and definitely having room for improvement. Again, blame the NCAA for its constant tinkering with the event and its refusal to leave things alone.

Some problems:

-The bracket is so blasted confusing. How do you quickly locate teams in the bracket unless you literally memorize it? Heck, some of us still aren’t sure what regional Duke is playing in because of all the clutter, we just know the next opponent is Illinois. We can have eight teams playing in a regional site in one place, say, Kansas City. Problem is, of the two ‘pods’ or quads of four teams each at the site, one may be from the East Regional, which is called the East Rutherford Bracket. The other quad may be from the West, or Phoenix Bracket. It’s quite possible that neither quad any connection to the St. Louis Bracket, which is the closest regional site by far to said sub-regional. In another ‘great’ move, these bracket names are going to change every year now, making things even more confusing. Wasn’t it a hell of a lot easier to just have Midwest Regional teams play in midwest subregionals at midwest sites?

-Quality of play is down/ugly. Not so much a problem with the tourney as a symptom of college basketball in general, but it shows through in March when you’re expecting better. It used to be tourney games were marked by great plays matched by more great plays. Now, as often as that happens we get Dayton-DePaul or Utah-Boston College, games that were decided mostly by which teams stunk less down the stretch. Some games are close, but that doesn’t automatically make them good. Other games feature teams that look like they have stage fright for 40 minutes, like Louisiana-Lafayette did against N.C. State. Or else we get Pittsburgh, a team that wins partially because it beats opponents into submission. Not to diminish whatever Pitt has and will accomplish in this tourney, but do we really want them to win the title and set a trend where everyone in the country is trying to play Slamball?

-CBS still just doesn’t get it. Ripping CBS’s coverage is almost a ritual for some fans. We’ll give them credit for trying. People complained about them not switching from crappy games fast enough; now, they pull you away as soon as one team goes ahead of another by 10. People whined about not seeing scores often enough; now, scores are on the screen every second. And Clark Kellogg seems to have improved substantially in the studio and provides much more and better analysis now than “I suspect Team A’s superior talent will wear down Team B.”

What CBS does not do and never has done is give a national view of the tourney in the early rounds. It does not develop storylines-a few years ago Wally Szczerbiak scored 43 of his team’s 59 points in a first round game for Miami (Ohio), yet not once did the network tell you during or at the end of the game about his incredible feat. Sometimes CBS will switch you from game to game to game, but never do you get a feeling of what’s really happening in those games. All you see is a finish and scores.

Two main issues on this account:

1) The coverage is too regionalized. It’s nice to see local teams, but is that ALL we need to see? Regionalized coverage stinks for several reasons, mainly because it doesn’t allow for a real perspective of what happens elsewhere-those short 30-second “look-ins” don’t cut it. It treats every area like the only teams that matter in the tourney are the ones near them, and contrary to what TV execs like to think, this tourney is bigger than that. It also results in us being stuck with four games being played at the exact same time. Which leads into our next problem…

2) Tip times are too close together. This is the biggest problem, and it comes because CBS insists on regionalizing coverage. The network only wants four blocs of games in a day, and it wants all four blocs to start and finish around the same time. CBS claims it staggers times sufficiently, but usually the difference in starting times in an opening bloc is about 15 minutes between four games. Inevitably, some games will run shorter and others longer, and the result several times this past weekend was 3-4 games finishing at the same time. That leads to switching in-and-out of games every 30 seconds, driving everyone to confusion and worrying many that they’ll miss the end of their game. There’s just no excuse for that happening, because it doesn’t need to if the games are sufficiently spaced out.

What CBS needs to do is to follow the model ESPN used when it had the first round of the tourney in the 1980s. Pick a lineup of 4-5 games that will be sent to the majority of the country. And pick games that will be competitive; don’t pick Duke-Alabama State when you know that game will be over in 10 minutes. Stick with those games through most of their entirety; switch over to some others on occasion if they’re looking to be great finishes. And for crying out loud, stagger the tip times so we don’t have four games ending at the same time. If two games start around the same time, there’s no reason a third can’t start 45 minutes later and a fourth an hour or even two later.

If a local team is being shown at a certain time, simple: allow local affiliates the option to preempt the national game to show it. For those not satisfied with these arrangements, still offer the minidish packages where people can order all 63 games of the tourney. If they don’t want to pay for it, they can go to a sports bar, just like now. Otherwise, the coverage distributed to local networks will already have been improved. If certain games are featured and others are dropped in, fans will get a much better national feel for the tournament and the storylines taking place than they do now.

Finally, show more than four games in a day. Slip in another game in the afternoon instead of sending it back to affiliates so they can run Oprah and/or add a late game after the local newscasts. Back when ESPN ran the early rounds, CBS used to televise single first round games Thursday and Friday and start them at 11:30 p.m. eastern time. It satisfied the junkies who just hadn’t seen enough from the six games ESPN had already offered that day, and it allowed a national spotlight for a few teams, too. It would be a fun change-up from the normal schedule, and America will be just fine if David Letterman is skipped for two days.

If none of this works, maybe it’s time that CBS shared the opening rounds with another network…

-Back to the games on the court: Don’t mean to indict Kansas, Wisconsin or Pittsburgh for their roles in the pod rip-off or, in Pitt’s case, their style of play. All three teams played very well last weekend, and they’re only abiding by the rules they’re playing under. Kansas needs to show the fire they displayed more often, particularly in hostile territory. If they do they could end up in the title game like Indiana did in 2002. And even if it was somewhat hard to watch, Wisconsin-Pittsburgh was through and through one of the closest games of the tourney so far. It’s a darn shame those two had to play each other in the second round.

-UAB just may be as much fun as is allowed on a basketball court these days. Those traps they put on Kentucky late in their game were just priceless and true examples of a team defending the full 94 feet. Many teams claim to play up-tempo, but the Blazers are one of the only ones that actually deliver it. College basketball needs more teams playing like the Blazers. Under Mike Anderson, UAB has quickly become one of the best teams in the nation to watch. That 102-100 win over Washington on Friday night was as entertaining a game there’s been in the NCAA Tournament in some time.

-There were some good finishes-Cincy/East Tennessee State to name one-but the execution in the final minutes of some other games in the first round was miserable. Western Michigan and Air Force both had excellent chances to win their games before getting just handled down the stretch. Utah, VCU and BYU were just a few other teams that sputtered late in games in the first round. How does Utah get a shot-clock violation when it needs a three-pointer to tie in the final minute of their game with Boston College? And were DePaul and Dayton even trying to win their first round game against each other?

-If you didn’t see East Tennessee State against Cincinnati in the first round, you missed out because you weren’t watching Tim Smith. The ETSU guard is just a blast to watch (how wild would UAB be if he was their point guard?) His best move Friday, if also probably one of the less intelligent ones, was when he took on three much taller Bearcats on a 1-on-3 fast break, shook one with a ridiculous (but unlike Iverson) legal crossover, then split the other two defenders for a layup. Quite possibly the non-buzzer-beater play of the tournament.

-Of course, Gerry McNamara had the game of the tourney so far, going buck wild against BYU. That is why you don’t want to draw a team defending its championship. Those teams rarely go quietly, and Syracuse isn’t finished in this tournament yet.

-We know it’s cool now to try pushing the idea that the West Coast was just that bad this year, but do not say the seasons of Stanford and Gonzaga have been tarnished by losing in the second round. Ditto for Kentucky, Mississippi State and N.C. State. All had fantastic years. Instead, give credit to Alabama, Xavier, Nevada, UAB and Vanderbilt, teams that are playing very, very well right now. Nevada and Xavier would’ve beaten anyone the way they played against Gonzaga and Mississippi State, respectively, while Alabama, UAB and Vandy showed incredible toughness in their games. T

-Many are probably doubting if teams like Xavier, Alabama-Birmingham and Nevada can keep up their hot play for another weekend. I’m having some of the same doubts about teams like Illinois and Kansas. Both the Illini and Jayhawks looked better this past weekend than they did anytime I saw them this season, and it’s just hard to imagine them keeping it up.

-Isn’t it funny to think, though, that Nevada was down by 16 to Michigan State and trailed basically that whole game until the end? Credit the Wolf Pack for finally figuring out the Spartan offense, which is rather basic but relies on solid execution to get open looks. That was the type of game that lesser teams would’ve folded up in long before Nevada completed its comeback. Also, Xavier fell behind Louisville by 14 in the first half. The Musketeers’ comeback was just as methodical as Nevada’s and just as impressive.

-Probably in the minority on this, but it seemed the tourney officiating as a whole has been surprisingly good so far, at least in comparison to other years. There wasn’t all that much to nitpick about in the first round, though many second round games seemed to became brawlers and had some well-documented inconsistencies. Southern Illinois was victim of one of the most blatantly bad calls in the tourney for the second year in a row. Alabama’s Earnest Shelton got away with a Michael Jordan/Game 6/1998 NBA Finals-style push-off right before burying a three-pointer at the end of the half to give the Crimson Tide a 10-point lead at the break. Bama won by a point. We aren’t going to discredit the Tide’s win (Bama outplayed SIU in a great game) but it was still a terrible missed call.

I do know Stanford fans felt ripped in their game against Alabama, and Gonzaga fans felt the same about the game with Nevada. Can’t comment on the Stanford situation since I didn’t see much of the game (one of few games that could be said about all weekend) and only saw the first half of Nevada-GU in its entirety. However, from what was seen it looked like there wasn’t a whole lot to argue about. Ronny Turiaf’s third foul call was rotten, but the charges and most other calls appeared correct. It looked like the Zags were pressing in the first half, trying too hard to get to the rim when the Wolf Pack beat them to the spots. A lot of calls in a row went against GU, but there’s no law that says every call one way deserves a make-up call the other. Bottom line, the officiating didn’t change the momentum in this game. Nevada simply came out red-hot, stayed that way, and Gonzaga never got it going. If you want, you can say the Zags didn’t adjust well to the whistles, but either way, there’s no shame for them in getting beat by a team that was playing very, very well. And hopefully the game was a signal to Turiaf that he needs to stay in college for his senior season. He gets in way too much foul trouble, and as an NBA rookie he’s not going to be getting any favorable whistles.

-On that note: Chris Paul of Wake Forest is an excellent player, a heck of a player, but he doesn’t deserve the Jordan treatment he gets. Against Manhattan he was bailed out on more than a few plays with questionable calls. Again, like so many other games, the Deacons outplayed the Jaspers-barely-but we don’t need any artificial additives in these games.

-One thing Paul and Wake Forest among others exposed in this tourney is just how bad some teams are at guarding a simple pick-and-roll. Wake used this play on almost every possession down the stretch against Virginia Commonwealth; if the Rams had stopped it even a few times, they likely don’t blow a six-point lead in the final seven minutes. It was also burning Manhattan until they finally figured out what to do against it late when they started double-teaming Paul. Otherwise, both the Jaspers and Rams were so indecisive on how to guard it that it was money in the bank for the Demon Deacons. They weren’t alone-many other teams make the same mistake. Obviously Paul creates some problems on the pick-and-roll with his quickness, but it still shouldn’t work over and over when it’s obviously coming on every possession.

-Of course, there are also some teams that use this play effectively because the moving screen has become as much a staple in today’s offenses as the ball screen, and is seemingly just as permissible. Michigan State, Georgia Tech and Air Force are just a few of the teams that got away with more than a couple moving screens last weekend. No matter how much it slows the game down, these things need to be called and called all the time.

-It’s been a good news/bad news postseason for the Missouri Valley Conference. On the surface, it’s been all bad-the MVC went 0-4 in the NCAAs and NIT. Wichita State and Creighton both blew chances to beat BCS opponents at home, and league champ Southern Illinois lost to SEC also-ran Alabama. Not good.

On closer examination, though, Creighton and SIU both lost by a point, Wichita State lost in 2 OT’s, and Northern Iowa lost by just five to a 3 seed in the NCAAs. Creighton had a 5-point lead over Nebraska with less than two minutes left and simply blew it, a microcosm of their season. Still, CU had beaten Nebraska five straight times before that…if anything, the Huskers’ beating the Bluejays was an upset. Wichita State had a 15-point lead on Florida State and also just blew it. Not like North Carolina didn’t do the same thing against the Seminoles. Southern Illinois and Northern Iowa both lost to teams now in the Sweet 16, and SIU lost to a team that just upset the top-ranked team in the country. Northern Iowa gave a very solid account against Georgia Tech, a team that couldn’t have been a much worse matchup for them. It was a bad postseason but could’ve been a lot worse; moreover, it says something that a league like the MVC can even get four teams in the postseason. That’s just as many as the Pac-10 and only two less than the Big 10 this year.

-Hmmm…seems the team that “everyone” knew was overrated all season, St. Joseph’s, is still alive, while a number of teams that allegedly would embarrass them (Stanford, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Gonzaga, N.C. State to name a few) are all out already. And that “awful” conference the Hawks play in has two Sweet 16 teams, or the same number as the SEC and one more than the Big 10 and Pac-10 combined.

We just present this information as fact. We won’t gloat about backing the Hawks all season. Not our style, and it would be disrespectful to teams such as Stanford and Mississippi State, who had exceptional seasons. Dismissing them because they lost early in the tourney wouldn’t be taking into account the brutal truth that a lot of the NCAA Tournament is about matchups, or that sometimes you just run into an incredibly hot team.

The only soapboxing that will come from here is that we wish and hope this weekend’s results will stop people from drawing rash, baseless conclusions on teams just because they aren’t a big school, don’t play in a name conference or don’t have the sexiest schedule, lineup or statistics. Let the season play out, and if nothing else give teams the benefit of the doubt. All season, St. Joseph’s didn’t deserve to be criticized for its shortcomings any more than other teams deserved to be for theirs. Yet we never heard anyone going to great lengths to discredit Kentucky. Or Stanford. Or Mississippi State. All of these teams had faults, just like the Hawks do, but because they were members of marquee conferences, supposedly played much tougher schedules and didn’t play such a different style, all of their faults combined weren’t complained about a fraction as much as St. Joe’s inadequacies. The fact that Phil Martelli had to spend the season defending his team was ridiculous considering other programs were just as likely to be losing early in the NCAA. Those teams proved as much.

-As mentioned, it’s hard to draw many conclusions from the tourney, or at least it is for us. Gonna conclude this, though: the SEC wasn’t as good as everyone made it out to be this year. Eight SEC teams were in the RPI top 50, 11 in the top 100. The league had six teams in the NCAAs, three in the NIT. Despite all of this, there are only two SEC teams still playing in the postseason, and only because Alabama and Vanderbilt both pulled off near-miracle comebacks in their NCAA 2^nd Round games. The rest are gone by round two of the NCAAs or the first round of the NIT.

No matter what the circumstances of matchups were, if this league is really so strong that it’s supposed to have eight of the top 50 teams in the country, it should fare better. Not that the SEC will be called down for its performance. It’s mind-boggling how, while fans and the media are doing their darndest to discredit schools like St. Joseph’s, leagues like the Atlantic 10 or non-conferences schedules like those of Big East teams, the SEC always emerges scot-free from abuse. Many SEC teams don’t schedule anyone out of conference and they almost never leave home, but they know how to build up big RPI numbers that get them a lot of NCAA bids. Even the Big 10 and Pac-10 take more abuse, but from these eyes, the SEC isn’t a whole lot better than Conference USA or the A-10.

-CBS announcer Tim Brando tried to pump up the case for mid-pack teams in leagues like the SEC on Sunday when he observed all the upsets were coming in the second round and were by the “middle-of-the-pack major conference teams, not the ‘mid-majors.’” Might’ve sounded nice, but it was wrong. He made his comment before Vanderbilt had come back to beat N.C. State, and when he said it there had been four lower seeds to win second round games. One was Syracuse, the defending national champions and a team that finished in the top quarter of the Big East. Two were Xavier and Nevada, teams from leagues definitely not considered ‘major.’ Only Alabama was actually a mid-pack team from a BCS league. Nice try, Tim, but hopefully viewers were smart enough to do some research before believing it.

-Another conclusion we’ll jump to: Utah State would’ve performed just fine if it had been an at-large team in the tourney. Again, we’re not sure who would’ve been left out, but the tourney wouldn’t have been any worse if they were in. The Aggies and Pacific were basically one in the same this year-both swept through the Big West with 17-1 marks and they split their two meetings this year. With Pacific beating Providence, it’s pretty safe to conclude that Utah State could’ve knocked someone off if they had been in the field, too. Don’t let their sloppy NIT showing and result against Hawaii fool you otherwise.

-Pacific loses standout guard Miah Davis from this year’s team, but the Tigers will be just fine if forward Guillaume Yango returns and continues playing like he did in the NCAAs. Yango was one of the standout performers of the first two rounds, and developed an awful lot from the beginning of this season to the end. His emergence was reminiscent of that of Antonio Gates of Kent State in the 2002 tourney, though we doubt Yango will end up playing in the NFL. He should be one of the premier forces next year in a Big West Conference that has its share of good frontcourt players. In fact, Yango was much more impressive in the NCAAs against Providence and Pacific than more touted teammate Christian Maraker, who looked like he had a rough time with the physical play in March.

-Some are pointing to Kentucky’s fairly close call against Florida A&M in the first round as a signal of their demise, but despite their losing record, the Rattlers were actually playing very well at the end of this year. Didn’t get to see him much until these past few weeks, but Terrence Woods was as good a shooter as any in the country this year, and that includes J.J. you-know-who. The whole team was very dangerous if it was clicking from three-land, and in the postseason the Rattlers were. FAMU was also impressive in how it disposed of Lehigh in the play-in game.

-Wonder if the Lehigh players really feel like they played in the NCAA Tournament? As much as the pod system blows, the play-in game is as bad or worse.

-I’d really like to write something about the NIT because it’s still a worthwhile event, but this year’s field is just incredibly boring. Home teams are 27-5 in the tourney so far. Every one of the teams left has at least 11 losses, and one has 16. Whoever wins the NIT isn’t going to be able to complain that the title proves they should’ve been in the NCAA Tournament.

-As many problems as the men’s tournament is developing, the women’s tourney has just as many. I enjoy women’s basketball (keep guffaws to yourself, please) but how do lower seeds get to host much higher seeds in first and second round games? (Answer: the women’s tourney is trying to move to predetermined subregional sites eventually.) Also, as much as some of us complain about the use of RPI on the men’s side, it’s nothing compared to the way the women’s tourney abuses it. Here are the records of some at-large teams in the women’s tournament: 16-12, 17-14, 17-12, 17-13, 17-12, 17-12. If you think that shows a lack of good teams across the country, you’re wrong: nine 20+ win teams were left from the field and settled for the WNIT, including several teams with 22 wins. Not that I was asked, but here’s some free advice for those in charge of women’s basketball: you have a unique game that is very popular in some areas and continues to grow nationally. Accept it for what it is. You don’t need to make the women’s tourney a carbon copy of the men’s tournament.

-Some cool things seen in the women’s tourney: there were actually more first round upsets by lower seeds here (six) than in the D-I men’s tournament. A 13 seed (Middle Tennessee State) posted the biggest surprise, beating North Carolina. Many of the lower seeds also had very respectable performances against much higher seeds. Marist, Eastern Michigan, Valparaiso, Loyola Marymount and Maine were all seeded 13^th or lower but all played close games. That’s a good sign for the women’s game, which at times seems like Duke, Tennessee, Connecticut and everyone else. UC Santa Barbara’s Thunderdome also proved in its first and second round games that it is still one of the best arenas in the country to watch a TV game from when it has a lively crowd. Also, fun fact: Kate and Meg Bulger played for West Virginia, and they are the sisters of St. Louis Rams quarterback and former WVU QB Marc Bulger.

Looking ahead this week…

-Love the Texas-Xavier matchup. Some might remember that these two teams met in the Sweet 16 in 1990, when Pete Gillen and Tom Penders were the coaches at the two schools. Musketeers need to slow down the Longhorns’ three-point shooters.

-At least one of the surprising winners from the second round (UAB, Xavier, Nevada, Alabama, Vanderbilt) will make it to a regional final. Maybe more, and don’t be surprised if one finds its way to the Final Four.

-Isn’t it amazing that a huge school like Bama has never been past the Sweet 16 in the tourney?

-Vanderbilt will stay much closer to Connecticut than many are predicting. The UConn bandwagon is loading a little too quickly right now; the Huskies may win it all, but they are by no means a lock.

-If Duke loses to Illinois Thursday (or Friday, I have no idea with these brackets) it would be the third straight year Team ESPN has been eliminated in the regional semis.

-Will be interesting to see if Georgia Tech gets the pace back up against Nevada. The Yellow Jackets were slowed considerably by Northern Iowa and Boston College and didn’t look dominant in either game.

-Finally, was there any doubt that Billy Packer would be calling the St. Joseph’s-Wake Forest game? It sounds juicy, but we’re expecting both Packer and Phil Martelli to be completely professional about the whole thing. In fact, whether St. Joe’s wins or loses against Wake, we’re guessing Packer is going to be more impressed with the Hawks than he expects, much like he had respect for Air Force’s quickness when he saw them in person last week.

Feel free to email Adam with any questions or comments: arfboy37@yahoo.com