5 Thoughts On Day 3 Of The NCAA Tournament

1) Wait...isn't the men's tourney supposed to have the Cinderellas and the parity? We're halfway through the second round and already a 7 and two 6's are in the Sweet 16. An 11 nearly beat a 3 on the 3's home floor and a 12 nearly made the Sweet 16 for the first time ever. Meanwhile on the men's side, all 1-3 seeds are in the Sweet 16 for the first time since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985 and the only team left that's worse than a 5 seed is 12 seed Arizona. And this isn't the first year in recent memory where something like this has happened. In 2007, the women's tourney had 13 seed Marist, 10 seed Florida State, and 7 seeds Mississippi (sorry for the reminder, Terps fans) and Bowling Green in its Sweet 16 while the men only had two teams worse than a 5 seed in their Sweet 16 (6 seed Vanderbilt and 7 seed UNLV.) In short, this is very, very good news for the women's tournament. Why did the men's tournament get so popular in the 1980's? Because that's when people realized that small schools could beat big powerhouse programs and "Cinderellas" were born. People love the underdog and when the underdog can win, they're going to be drawn to that. Cleveland State in 1986, Valpariaso in 1997, George Mason in 2006, Davidson last year...they're the charm, the lifeblood, and the meaning of "March Madness." Until recently, the women's tournament didn't have the Cleveland States, Valpos, and George Masons. In a lot of ways, they still don't. Again, no 12 has made the Sweet 16 ever, which is unthinkable in the men's game, and no 14 or 15 seed has ever won a game (and no 16 has won without a gigantic asterisk.) But more and more upsets are happening and more and more Cinderella stories are being created. Think Marist has any chance at getting to the second weekend a decade ago? How about Liberty? How about the increase in 12 over 5 upsets and 13 over 4's in recent years? And how about what we're witnessing this year with a Sweet 16 potentially full of 6's and 7's along with the 1's and 2's. Parity is increasing in women's college basketball and that means more underdogs, more Cinderellas, and more attention paid to the tournament, which means more growth of the game; something we all are rooting for. Don't believe me on this point? Just look at all the attention Ball State has gotten in the past 24 hours. Now just imagine if they knock off Iowa State tomorrow and keep this run going.

2) Is "Turning It On In March 101" a course offered at Rutgers? I've got a few friends up there so I'll have to verify, but it sure seems like C. Vivian Stringer has forced her players to enroll in such a class and they're currently acing it. We all remember the day after Valentine's Day when Maryland smashed Rutgers, right? On that day, the Scarlet Knights looked absolutely horrid. They were helpless on offense and couldn't stop the Terps on defense. They lost by 20, couldn't even hit the half century mark, and dropped to 14-10 overall and were in danger of missing the NCAA tournament just a year removed from the Elite Eight and two years removed from a National Runner-Up. Now? They might have taken the mantle from Maryland as the hottest non-UConn team in college hoops. Since that 67-47 crushing at the hands of the Terps on February 15, RU has won 7 of 9 with the two losses being by 10 to UConn and by 5 in overtime to Louisville in the Big East tournament. Their latest victory was not just a victory, but an absolute BEAT DOWN of 2nd seeded Auburn 80-52. The Scarlet Knights got out 9-0, led 13-2 at the under 16 timeout, and then 22-4 with 11:48 to go in the first half, 40-20 at the 3:26 mark, and then after the Tigers cut it to 10 in the second half, they outscored Auburn by 18 the rest of the way. This wasn't a rewind of round 1 when they nearly blew a huge lead against VCU late; they EXPANDED on their lead and their largest lead was the final margin of victory. What a performance. Epiphany Prince had 27 points, Kia Vaughn had 15 points and 11 rebounds, Heather Zurich had 12 points, and Khadijah Rushdan had 9 points, 10 rebounds, and 6 assists. Four players scored in double figures, not including Rushdan's 9 points or else it would've been the entire starting 5. Absolutely unbelievable for a team that couldn't scrape together 50 as a unit in their trip to College Park six weeks ago. They've gone from squarely on the NCAA tournament bubble to perhaps one of the favorites to get to St. Louis if they keep playing like this. And hey, they fought UConn gamely on March 2 on Senior Night...maybe if a few breaks go the other way in a potential national title game rematch?...As for Auburn, I had an inkling that they were a bit overrated all year due to not being tested by elite competiton in the SEC, but never did I think it would end quite like this for them. The offensive power shortage in the SEC title game against Vanderbilt was nothing compared to this. They were just out and out humiliated tonight. Their NCAA tournament inexperienced showed and they literally wilted in the Rutgers Athletic Center. But it's not like they can complain about having to play on the road when they just lost by 28.

3) Is North Carolina the anti-Rutgers or is it the other way around? "Never did I think it would end quite like this for Auburn"...I could say the exact same thing about the Tar Heels. When I saw that Purdue had beat them tonight, that wasn't too much of a shock. The Heels were in poor form and the Boilers were looking great coming in to tonight. But 85-70? 55 points allowed in the second half? Good lord, what happened to them?! Not to make light of post traumatic stress disorder, but are they suffering from some form of it after UConn decimated them on January 19? Remember, they were unbeaten and # 2 in the country coming in to that game. Since it, they were just 11-6, including failing to perform above .500 in March. Heck, their only wins in March were over the ACC's last place team in Clemson (in a game they struggled with for a half), South Dakota (won by 6), and Central Florida (won by 5.) This team has been an absolute MESS for at least the past three games and honestly, they've been a mess for much longer than that and I've traced it back before to the UConn game and I will again. They honestly have not been the same team since UConn pantsed them. That was an utter humiliation on a national stage with the entire women's college basketball world watching. They were the unquestioned # 2 coming in and they haven't even really sniffed the top 5 again since. I doubt it's a coincidence. Furthermore, what the heck happened to Cetera DeGraffenreid? 2/8, 1 assist, 8 turnovers on March 1 against Duke. 2/6 in the Clemson blowout. 4/13, 3 assists, 3 turnovers in the ACC semis against Maryland. She had a team high 19 points against South Dakota, making you think that maybe she'd figured it out going in to the tournament, but she was just 3/10 in round 1 and an even-worse 2/10 tonight. She absolutely killed her team in the stretch run, there's no other way to put it. But she's not the only culprit. Rashanda McCants, the girl who's supposed to be this team's "superstar", was 3/15 from the floor tonight. 3/15. She had half as many turnovers (3) as points (6.) It might not be a stretch to say that she closed out her career with her worst performance in its history and that's really a shame. It's a huge disappointment; something this entire Chapel Hill bunch has been ever since that fateful January 19 evening.

4) What goes up...must come down. Want a bad omen for Maryland's chances tomorrow? "Not particularly," I'm sure you're saying, but you're going to get one anyway. The ACC went unbeaten in round 1. 6-0 with 5 of the wins being by double digits and one of them coming on an opponent's home court (Georgia Tech.) So far in round 2 though, it's been 0 for 3 as Florida State and Virginia joined the aformentioned Heels in this year's NCAA tournament graveyard tonight, with the Noles losing 63-58 to upstart Arizona State and the Cavaliers getting shellacked 99-73 in L.A. against a Cal team that was reeling coming in to the tournament but seems to have found itself, with the help of Fresno State in round 1 and now the Wahoos. Beginning with Florida State, their result is the much less surprising of the two. After all, the Noles were challenged for a while by North Carolina A&T round 1 while the Sun Devils were building up confidence in a defensive lockdown of home-standing Georgia. Furthermore, FSU hadn't proved it could play at a high level in a big game outside Tallahassee whereas the Sun Devils closed the year hot with a 15 game winning streak that buoyoed them up from potentially the WNIT in to a favorable seed and high potential for a second round upset. They cashed in that potential tonight thanks to Danielle Orsillo's three with 32 seconds to go. So while FSU's loss made a lot of sense, UVA's made none. 99 points to a Cal team that hadn't scored more than 85 at all during the season and had only scored 70 in about a third of them? The Bears average in the 60's most night;s they were almost there by halftime tonight with 53 in the first 20 minutes. Worse yet, Virginia's vaunted trimuverate of Monica Wright, Lyndra Littles, and Aisha Mohammed wasn't even close to being the best threesome on the floor, as it almost always needs to be for the Cavaliers to be competitive. Ashley Walker, Alexis Gray-Lawson, and Devanei Hampton had 76 of the 99 Golden Bear points and it was Walker and Hampton who were just completely dominant on the interior, which made the difference. Cal was up double digits almost the entire way; expanding its lead late in the first half to around 20 before UVA fought back to get it to 11, but then Monica Wright picked up her fourth foul and that was that. Incredibly poor showing by the Cavs tonight, especially when they didn't have the ball. And as for the ACC, well, at least their women's teams lasted about a round longer than the men's teams did before almost all of them flamed out simultaneously. Again, not a good omen for the Terps tomorrow (or for Duke, if you're a glass-half-full kind of person.)

5) "Whiparound" coverage? Or is that exclusive to CBS for the men's tournament? Okay, with nothing else especially noteworthy happening tonight (yeah OSU got challenged a little bit by Miss. St, yeah Vandy won in Albuquerque again and set up a potential Sweet 16 matchup with the Terps again, yeah Stanford walloped San Diego State on the Aztecs home floor. Yawn), it's time for pick a bone with ESPN's sad, pathetic coverage of the late games tonight. Now, this isn't going to be too much of a hate filled, raging rant. There's not a ton of fury here. I mean, there is, but it's restrained because I feel absolutely helpless and depressed instead. I'm just going to bring up how Gonzaga/Pittsburgh was nip-and-tuck the entire second half while Virginia/Cal was a double digit Golden Bear lead the entire second half. Guess which game we saw all of on the ESPN2 in College Park? Guess which game we saw absolutely none of; no live look ins, no updates, no nothing? Sigh. Come on ESPN, you've GOTTA do better than that. At least take us to the compelling game when there are only a couple of minutes to go. I was honestly stunned when UVA/Cal went to the under 4 timeout...and then came back from the under 4 timeout. That would've been the perfect time to switch the viewers over to the dramatic conclusion in Seattle, where the Zags missed a potential game tying three pointer in the final 10 seconds to fall short of becoming the first 12 seed to make the Sweet 16 in the history of the tournament. But apparently Cal's reserves playing out the clock against Virginia's reserves in a Galen Center with maybe a couple hundred people inside of it and whose atmosphere was being openly mocked by the broadcast team for being so quiet and dead was more important and entertaining. Yeah, right. ESPN, if you're gonna brag about "whip around coverage" and "showing the best games" and "most compelling action" for the markets outside of those for the competing teams, please freakin' live up to it. I'm not living in Charlottesville or Berkeley (heck, I'm not even living in Virginia or California); there's NO REASON I should have been with the UVA/Cal game from start to finish when it became uncompetitive and there were other, more competitive, entertaining, and exciting games going on. Just absolutely disappointing, inexcusable, and pathetic on ESPN's end. But I can't ride them too much; they ARE broadcasting all 64 games and they ARE offering all 64 games on ESPN360.com, which is where I went to catch the waning moments of the Zags failed upset bid. Too bad not everyone is lucky enough to get ESPN360.com like I am.