What we learned from the second round:
Conference struggles for pre-season elite might equal success in tourney: This easily applies to two teams who many picked to lose in their first round games: Michigan State and Texas A&M. The Spartans took down Final Four favorite Pittsburgh and the Aggies nearly knocked off the powerhouse that is the UCLA Bruins, losing in the final seconds to a special freshman named Kevin Love. Both these teams were picked to do special things in their respective conferences this season but failed to live up to expectations.
In MSU’s case, they still have a coach in Tom Izzo who has been one of the most successful coaches in the country. Let’s not forget that Izzo has reached the Final Four in four of the past nine seasons, more than any other team during that time. MSU went through an up and down Big 10 conference schedule which included two bad road losses at Iowa and Penn State. A&M started out 16-1 but upon entering the heart of Big 12 play was handed two blowout losses on the road against Texas Tech and Kansas State. It’s hard to discredit what goes on in conference play but there is something about the tournament that allows teams to play significantly better. Unlike conference play where every team knows every other inside-out, the tournament, at least in the early rounds, puts together teams with different styles and contrasting strategies. It is here where upsets are made.
Several tops seeds get their first real tests: The top four seeds in each region were a combined 14-2 in the first round, with the two losses by Vanderbilt to Siena and Connecticut to San Diego. Things got interesting for the remaining top four seeds in the second round, where several experienced heart breaking losses and others had extremely close calls. Duke was ripe for a loss after their first round struggles against Belmont and West Virginia exploited Duke for everything they were worth, which wasn’t much. Memo to Coach-K: YOU NEED A BIG MAN. Speaking of a big man, what looked like it was going to be a tough game for Wisconsin turned out to be nothing really special as the Badgers rolled over Kansas State and Michael Beasley. Michael, we will see you in the pros next year.
Stanford is loving the Lopez twins after both came up huge in their overtime win against Marquette. Tennessee survived a real scare by Butler, who didn’t even play their top game but still managed to get the game into overtime where Tyler Smith and Wayne Chism of the Volunteers took over down low. With that said, I haven’t even gotten to the biggest upset of the second round…
One special guard can ALWAYS make a difference come March: Cue up the Mike Patrick “are you kidding me?” soundbyte. Stephen Curry, welcome to the Big Dance. After scoring 40 points in the first round for Davidson, you scored 30 more against number two seeded Georgetown, 25 of which came after the break, leading to an improbable upset. The son of former NBA player Dell Curry is the definition of a gamer, a guy who doesn’t sulk after a rough stretch where his shots aren’t falling. This sophomore has ice in his veins and hasn’t found a spot on the court he doesn’t like taking a shot from. And while he had a performance that will be remembered for a long time by Davidson fans, people must realize that his team only shot 39% from the field while giving up nearly 64% to the Hoyas!
Roy Hibbert proved to be as clutch as Shawn Bradley for the Mavericks. Six points with only three field goal attempts? Hibbert, we will see you in the pros too. The Princeton offense which usually gives fits to teams in the tournament who aren’t used to the constant motion did not seem to faze the Wildcats at all. They just kept on chomping away and truly believed they could do it.
This is what March Madness is all about baby.
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