What we learned from the first round:
Tampa was the place to be for underdogs: One site, four games, four upsets, two overtimes, two buzzer beaters. You can’t get much better than that. No. 12 Villanova beat No. 5 Clemson, No. 12 Western Kentucky stunned No. 5 Drake in OT at the buzzer, No. 13 San Diego held off No. 4 Connecticut’s surge, and finally, No. 13 Siena dismantled No. 4 Vanderbilt. While the first day didn’t prove much for the underdogs, the second day was full of excitement and was showcasing teams that could do damage later in the tournament.
Duke ain’t that good: Duke should not have won their game. No Duke apologists need to come and start defending their team. It’s not worth it. Who knows, maybe Coach K. was looking forward to coaching real athletes in the summer for Team USA in the Olympics. The fact is Belmont played Duke as tough as anyone could have and they didn’t even have a true big man. They were hitting their jump shots and that’s how upsets are usually made. Once Duke runs into a big boy down low though, it’ll be a swift exit for the Blue Devils of Durham.
Individual performances or the lack thereof can only take you so far: Some stars truly didn’t step up for their teams and it showed in the loss column. Others did but their supporting casts did nothing to complement them. Take O.J. Mayo of USC for example. 20 points on 6-16 shooting. Only two other players were in double figures for his team, most with horrible shooting percentages. On the other hand, Eric Gordon from Indiana, another star freshman, scored only 8 points on 3-15. He’s a guy who has scored 20+ points most games this season for the Hoosiers, so losing that scoring load against an athletic team like Arkansas can be trouble. Elsewhere, Joe Crawford of Kentucky scored 35 in a loss, almost taking the entire team on his back. The teams with better talent overall usually win. One player can’t do it all. In the case of IU, they had other factors affecting them because they were clearly the more talented team as a whole.
What to look for in the second round:
Potential bracket busters: There will be two 12/13 seeds advancing to likely play number ones in Kansas and UCLA. My guess is it’s Siena in the Midwest and Western Kentucky in the West. It’ll be interesting to see if WKU can continue keeping the pace they want, which is the video game run-and-gun style, against San Diego. Siena shot lights out from the field against Vanderbilt, including almost 50% from beyond the arc. Can Villanova stop them? I doubt it.
Good guard play versus good big man play: Marquette and Stanford will feature this in their game. Marquette has extremely athletic guards in Dominic James and Jerel McNeal. Stanford has the twin towers in the Lopez brothers. Which combo will do more damage? I think Stanford’s more disciplined play will help them move on, but it should be a very fun one for basketball fans to watch though.
Better athletes sometimes translates into wins: This goes for Xavier and Kansas State, who I think will outclass Purdue and Wisconsin respectively. The Big 10 grind it out style can go only go so far and Wisconsin won’t have seen two athletes like Bill Walker or Michael Beasley in a long time. One of these two games could get ugly. Xavier’s stingy defense will finally affect Purdue’s simple offense. Credit Purdue for loading their team up but they are going to have to ask a lot of their freshmen to get a win in the second round.
Potential upsets: Siena over Villanova, Kansas State over Wisconsin, Notre Dame over Washington State, and West Virginia over Duke.
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