It's the most wonderful time of the year (NCAA tourney, baby!)

[Ghoulish Delight]

Consider it payback for all your baseball posts

Truthfully, I'll watch post season of just about any sport. I just find the "madness" behind March Madness overblown.

I also admit to being a fair weather fan in that I only care about MM at all if UCLA's in it. And boy are they in it this year. It would have been easy for them to roll over in the second round, coming out soft after the laugher against Miss Valley. But now they've won in two radically different ways. I'm liking their odds.

[scaeagles]

Is baseball even a sport?

[wendybeth]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

But your WSU Cougars look good!

So, you admit you like cougars?



I'm glad for the Cougs, but in college b-ball I am a Zags fan- it's our family alma mater. I was so pissed at the end of that game- the only thing I could think was that something happened with the players the coach had benched and wasn't using, like maybe they were being punished for partying or something. It defied logic- even the commentators were like 'wtf'? They showed a shot of Morrison on the sidelines (his hair is really long now- looks a bit like Jesus) and he looked absolutely disgusted.

[scaeagles]

Holy Guacamole!

What a couple of great games! Tennessee beats Butler in OT, and Davidson shocks the world by beating Georgetown....they were down 17 in the second half and came back to win by four. I love this game!

I was about to call them Cinderella, but has anyone else seen the "There are no Cinderellas" commercial? My new favorite commercial of all time.

[Strangler Lewis]

I can watch a post-season college basketball game and get drawn into it. What I don't understand is why early round post-season games were on the radio preempting critical sports talk. Who would listen to a game where you have no idea who any of the players are?

Also, NCAA basketball has taken a giant step down in relevance to me as 1) more and more of the best players went pro earlier and earlier or skipped "college" entirely and 2) talented foreign players infiltrated the pros.

[scaeagles]

I find that the departure of the hugest talent makes it all the more interesting because it has balanced the talent pool (or made it more balanced) between the major programs and the mid majors, giving the schools like Sienna, Western Kentucky, and Davidson a better opportunity to beat the bigger schools.

[Stan4dSteph]

Woot! Go Stanford!

[Strangler Lewis]

Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson and Lamar Odom played all 53 minutes of last night's Warriors/Lakers overtime game, and Kobe played almost 52. Now, that's ballin' by men. That's madness.

And when is the Sweet Sixteen? Some time next week, right?

[scaeagles]

Sweet 16 play has four games Thursday and four on Friday. Final Four determined with two games on Sat and two on Sun.

One thing that makes me sad about the growing popularity is the price of tickets. I looked into getting some tix to the games in Phoenix on Thursday and Sunday and they are running over 100 per ticket per game. 15 years ago or so I went to the first two rounds in Tuscon - a total of 6 games - and paid 35 total for the 6 games. In 1998 or 1999, when a regional final was hosted in Phoenix, I got all three games for 75 or so. Too expensive.

[Ghoulish Delight]

God I hate full court press.

Or rather, I hate that college teams tend to be so susceptible to it. The 2nd half of the UCLA/Western Kentucky game is exactly what I mean by "amateur". There's a reason you don't see NBA teams continually full court pressing except when absolutely necessary. Because it's ineffective, 99% of the time for professionals it just means your defense isn't going to be back in time. But in college? Oh yeah, it'll screw with an offense big time. So all you get is a game of alternating between sloppy turnovers and break away baskets as the press is either effective or defeated over and over. y-a-w-n.

On the plus side, 3rd win, 3rd style of win for UCLA. It's gone 'cakewalk', 'come from behind', 'nearly squander lead and hang on'. I wonder what next round's win will look like.