March Madness

March Madness. It’s all over – and for the first time in my life I think I am going to add the word thankfully to the end of that statement. Maybe it was simply that Syracuse was eliminated in the round of 32 or maybe it’s that I have yet to get past the memory of what was easily one of the worst basketball games I have ever witnessed, but either way I am just glad this season is finished.

I had a feeling this particular tournament was going to be a disaster as soon as the brackets were announced. Here are some on my thoughts on the tourney as it progressed since I didn’t do any updates during the tournament itself:

The Round of 64:
When the brackets were first announced I had two major problems. My first issue was that VCU and UAB even made the tournament. Like most of the college basketball analysts I couldn’t quite figure out why the committee elected to place either team in the tourney, however, after seeing the run VCU made to the Final Four it appears they saw something I definitely missed. I still don’t think they should have been selected based upon the criteria the NCAA has laid out in the past, but it was certainly fun watching a true Cinderella dance all the way to the Final Four.

The downside of course to VCU making the Final Four is that anyone arguing for a 96 team tournament, a huge mistake in my opinion, has some pretty big ammunition now.

My other big gripe was that the NCAA did such a poor job of seeding the teams that deserved to make it. It was relatively simple to avoid having Big East teams playing each other in the second round, but apparently the committee couldn’t be bothered to go that extra step. In general they’re supposed to avoid having teams in the same conference match up that early, and with 11 teams it was going to be difficult, but it was possible.

As a result of the lazy seeding my beloved Orange as a 3 seed got stuck being matched up with a Marquette team (11 seed) in the second round that had already beaten them once this year. Quite the reward for a year’s worth of hard work!

The first round was fairly unspectacular with a few upsets, and after having a record number of teams make the tournament the Big East was already showing signs that they were going to struggle.

Round of 32:
The second round saw the Orange fall at the hands of Marquette, and the rest of the Big East mostly faltered as well with only Marquette and UConn advancing on to the Sweet 16. In the tournament’s most compelling game Pitt managed to lose to Butler with one of the most memorable, and stupidest fouls, in the history of the tournament.

Now the round of 32, and the entire tournament for that matter, left it’s most memorable mark in my mind with the absolutely horrendous officiating that played out on that Sunday. UNC vs. Washington, Arizona vs. Texas, and Syracuse vs. Marquette all had games that ended with the officials making game changing calls – incorrectly. Syracuse had an over the back violation that wasn’t. UNC vs. Washington has so many bad calls and new rule interpretations that I’m still confused to this day. And the Arizona vs. Texas game ended with an official calling a 5 second violation after he had only counted to 4. I’m still not sure how you make that mistake since counting doesn’t really seem to be a talent one would need as an official, we all just sort of know how to do it. I guess they should start asking if that’s something you have experience with before handing out assignments from now on. Great job guys!

Sweet 16:
Duke got blasted by Arizona! At this point I was still just bitter about Syracuse. Watching Duke go down in flames is always a nice pick me up though, and they really got destroyed by Arizona in the second half. Welcome back Arizona, it was nice to see you return to national relevance after a few down years.

Elite 8:
UConn wins again – could this team really win it all after playing five games in five days to win the Big East tourney a week before the NCAA Tournament began? At this point it was starting to seem like a realistic possibility, and UConn was the Big East’s last chance to regain some respectability. If the 9th place team in the Big East could win the whole thing maybe the Big East wasn’t as bad as the first two rounds suggested.
Final Four:

VCU is out. Butler is in. Why? Why are the basketball god’s subjecting me to another tourney filled with Gus Johnson and every other announcer yelling “And the Butler did it again…” I hear it in my sleep. It haunts me. Butler is one of those teams that people love and I’ll never understand why. They play hard, and they play good defense, but they clutch and grab and it just makes for ugly basketball. They also flop – a lot. I really don’t want to see them in the championship.

Championship:
Butler made it!!!! Ugh.

Well, the worst tournament in history ended with one of the worst basketball games ever played outside of the Big 10 conference regular season. It’s never a good sign when thirty minutes into the game I’m still wondering if whether I might be good enough to play for either of the teams involved in the game (at least on that day).

Now, some people (UConn and Butler fans) are trying to chalk it up to stellar defensive play, but anyone watching that game knows that no defense is capable of being played so well that it can make an offense look that bad. It was pretty much a competition to see which team could suck less – and UConn did it! They sucked slightly less than Butler!!

I just hope that nobody was watching basketball for the first time Monday night, because if they were they most assuredly will never watch the sport again.

Can’t wait till next year!