NCAA Thoughts

The conference tournaments are finally over, and everyone is either creating their excuses for missing work on Thursday, filling out their brackets, and calling their bookies. Ladies and Gentlemen are you ready for the greatest 2 days of the year? I tell you what, I am!! So without further ado, I give you Durty's NCAA Dance Dissertation!

-First for those of you who are faithful readers. We have created a yahoo group NCAA Pick'em. To enter, just follow this DurtyButter Link. The password is durtybutter. Be warned though, I will be updating the leaderboard here on our lovely blog, and I will most likely make fun of bad picks. So if you are sensitive, take heed, because I can get really bitter when I am not winning.

- As for my predictions 3 weeks ago on seeds for the tournament I did pretty good. You can read it here. I was right about Michigan State at #2, Purdue at #5, and Minny at #10. I had Illinois at #4, Ohio State at #9, Wisconsin and Michigan out and Penn State in at #7. That was 3 weeks ago, suck it Lunardi!

- This will be the greatest NCAA tournament of all-time!! It will have nothing to do with the teams, or the parity, or even the chance that a lower seed will make another magical run like Davidson or George Mason. This will be the greatest NCAA tournament of all-time for one simple fact....... we no longer have to listen to BILLY PACKER!!! This is the single greatest thing that has happened to college basketball since they expanded the field to 64 teams. However, as Pacman pointed out to me: "Without Billy Packer, how am I going to know when a players legs are tired, and that is why his shot is short?" This was Billy's go to line. He anxiously waited for a player to miss a shot short so he could impart this little gem. I always wanted to ask Billy if a shot that was long meant that a players legs were too rested?

- I am rewatching the Illinois Purdue game right now, and goodnight we could not hit an open shot! Give the bench credit though, because they played very hard. For a minute in this game I didn't know if it was Chester Frazier with the broken hand or Demitri McCamey. I was a little surprised that it took over 30 minutes for us to post up Mike Tisdale, but oh well. Purdue is playing great basketball, and I look for them to make the Sweet Sixteen at least, especially since they crapped down their leg last year in the dance.

- Every announcer in the game now just makes up words like it is commonly used in basketball to sound like they know what they are talking about. Clark Kellog (whom I do like) just puts "ability" at the end of words and makes it seem like this is typical basketball jargon. Here is an example from the Illini - Purdue game. "Jim, Mike Davis is such a good rebounder because he is long, has a great wing-span, and has great jumpability." So instead of saying "jumping ability" it is now "jumpability". I have heard him use this method at least 3 other times. I wonder if Bud Light is making fun of him with their drinkability commercials? I for one think we should embrace this and just do away with "ing" in the English language. For example: So I for one am excited to go a bar on Thursday, have a lot of beers to show off my consumeability, my class skipability and pray that my NCAA Tournament bracket pickabilty is good. Over the last 2 years my betability has been great, so hopefully my money makeability will hold true this year as well. What do you think?

- Aside from Clark Kellog, I also really like Greg Anthony. However I can't imagine that Yerk and I are the only 2 people who are shocked that Greg Anthony is as good of an announcer as he is. 15 years ago if you had to choose between Gangsta Rapper and CBS announcer for Greg's Post NBA career, how many basketball fans would have picked announcer? When asking a question to the NCAA selection committee chairman Greg used criteria, utilized, familiarity, and prioritized all in the same sentence. I'm pretty sure that Greg Gumble shit himself when he heard the question. Anthony is amazing, not only is his analyizability great, but he sounds like he belongs with the big boys. I think the bad perception is based on the fact that Jerry Tarkanian was the coach, and every school he coached at was sanctioned after he left. Here is a NY Times article about it all. Needless to say the only thing that would be more shocking to me than Greg Anthony would be if I found out that Anderson Hunt is now a brain sugeon.

- Doug Gottlieb needs to get a damn grip! Being opinionated is refreshing nowadays, especially on ESPN, because it seems like no one on that channel wants to say anything bad about the ACC or the Big East. Watching ESPN is like watching a big time sporting event with a frontrunner sports fan. ESPN is the guy at the bar who is from Montana but is a Patriots/Yankees/USC/UNC fan, the guys whose closet looks like a rainbow. Yet Doug takes bashing to another level. He just yells at the person who is sitting with him, and could care less who he is destroying. He is college basketball's version of Screaming A Smith. He is 3 weeks away from being on First and 10 with Skip Bayless. When you are on TV, it is not smart alienate every member of your audience, which is what he has done. Basically if you are not a Top 10 team then Doug thinks that you should just go out back and shoot yourself because you are worthless to the sport and society would be much better off without you. This has to be the reason that he is on ESPN 2, because if he ever went head to head with Vitale, Dickie would either start crying, or his head would explode. God created Doug Gottlieb to restore balance to the universe because of Dick Vitale's positivity.

- I can't wait for Jim Nantz to turn and blankly stare at Clark Kellog during the Final Four and say "Your not Billy" Just like Brick does to Veronica Corningstone when Ron Burgondy gets fired in "Anchorman"

- Here are some of my thoughts on the Bracket:
1) How does Arizona consistently get into the tournament? You lose 5 out of your last 6 and still get in?

2) Thank God Memphis did not get a #1 seed, but they did get the best #2 seed. This will happen for the next 5 years, because there is no one in Conference USA who will beat them.

3) Syracuse basically went from a #5 seed to a #3 seed by making the Big East Finals. 5 of the 7 Big East teams have #3 seeds or better, so they better get 5 teams into the Sweet Sixteen. Marquette and West Virginia are both #6 seeds. So if anyone bitches about only getting 7 teams, tell them that the NCAA gave them 5 sweet sixteen bids and probably 2 Final Four bids. If James didn't get hurt for Marquette, you could have had another team with a #3 seed or better.

4) Clemson dropping all the way to a #7 seed is amazing. This team 2 weeks ago was a #3 seed. I think that they will beat Oklahoma, unless Michigan gets hot and knocks them out in the first round.

5) As much as I have hated Minnesota, I would love to see, and actually think that they have a good chance to beat Texas. Minnesota plays great defense, and has the size to make this a tough game on Texas.

6) Illinois getting a #5 seed is amazing. I thought we deserved a #6, but could have easily gotten a #7. Also getting Western Kentucky is much better than getting Arizona as a #12 seed. The committee asks for a injury report, and uses that for your seed. So maybe Chester will play, everything he is saying leads you to believe that he will do anything he can to play.

7) I would have loved to see St. Mary's in the field, because Patrick Mills is awesome, and if he didn't get hurt, not only would they have made it, but they could have actually challenged Gonzaga for the conference title. He is a chucker, but he was fun to watch in the Olympics for Australia, when he dropped 20 on the USA.

8) Overall, this tournament will be dominated by the ACC and Big East, and rightly so. At least 8 teams out of those 2 conferences should be in the Sweet Sixteen. Don't be surprised to see 10.

9) Here a few teams that I think can make a crazy run in the tournament:
UCLA - They have been to the Final Four the last 3 years, and have 2 senior guards who took them there
Wake Forest - They have beaten tourney teams BYU, UNC, BC twice, Clemson twice, Duke, Florida State, and Maryland.
Dayton - They have beaten Marquette and Xavier. They are the epitome of a Cinderella.
Wisconsin - If they can control the tempo, they can win. After their losing streak, they won 5 straight. The opposing teams scored: 50, 44, 52, 51, 50. Shut down Tony Douglas who averages 21 a game, and FSU is toast.