[Guest post by DRJ]
The brackets are out. The four No. 1s are: North Carolina (East), UCLA (West), Kansas (Midwest), and Memphis (South).
A good viewable bracket is at CBS Sportsline. Pick away and enjoy what promises to be a good basketball tourney.
I, of course, pick Texas and the Big 12. The rest of my family knows I’m an easy mark but I can’t help it.
— DRJ
Pronounced "Patter-EE-koh"
E-mail: Just use my moniker Patterico, followed by the @ symbol, followed by gmail.com
Disclaimer: Simpsons avatar may resemble a younger Patterico...
The statements made on this web site reflect the personal opinions of the author. They are not made in any official capacity, and do not represent the opinions of the author's employer.
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Being from San Diego, I am throwing Univ of San Diego into the cinderella bracket. You lawyers might even show ’em some love. I hear it’s got a top flight law dept. That is, if your own alma mater didn’t make to the Dance.
allan (958a5e) — 3/16/2008 @ 3:28 pmIn spite of today’s loss, in my opinion the Horns are playing better than at anytime this season (including early on when they beat UCLA). Their defense is much improved.
capitano (03e5ec) — 3/16/2008 @ 3:32 pmI agree, Capitano, and in a perverse way they may be lucky they lost. I hope this doesn’t jinx them but if they make it to the Regionals in the South bracket, they will get what is basically a home-field court in Houston. Had they won today, they probably would have been in the Midwest bracket.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/16/2008 @ 3:39 pmI’m not that much of a fan, but I’ve got a local team (Miami) in the crowd this year.
But I wish, for the sake of clarity and the English language, they would drop the geographical terms.
South Tournament: Stanford and Cornell play in Anaheim.
The Midwest tournament includes games played in Tampa and Raleigh.
The East Tournament is being played in Raleigh, Denver and Birmingham. Well, I suppose you can argue for Raleigh and Birmingham, but Denver?
Meanwhile, in the South tournament, we get games (including the Stanford Cornell matchup)played in Anaheim, Denver, and Little Rock. Only one of those three is in the South, and even that one just barely. Raleigh, Birmingham, and Tampa, which are in the South, are not part of the South tournament.
I know of course that matching up 64 teams does require some bending and scraping. But one hopes for some display of geographical knowledge from an association whose members consist of SCHOOLS.
kishnevi (4fe729) — 3/16/2008 @ 4:19 pmTexas really got a favorable draw. It’s almost like the NCAAs want them in the final four.
That would actually be a pretty good final four, Texas, Kansas, North Carolina, UCLA. Or swap in Duke to add another second seed.
But that’s unlikely to happen, and if I’d have to guess, the West regional will be where the dark horse comes from. Say, UCLA gets beaten by Conn, Duke by, er, whoever they play in the second game.
Skip (7ef1e3) — 3/16/2008 @ 4:30 pmlet’s go bruins!
assistant devil's advocate (65cb1f) — 3/16/2008 @ 4:30 pmI think the East bracket is really tough, followed by the West bracket. I can’t decide about the South and Midwest but I think we’ll see some upsets in every bracket. For instance, I would never have slotted Indiana above/equal to Arkansas. Arkansas seems to be playing much better than Indiana, but we’ll see if I’m right next week.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/16/2008 @ 4:46 pmI think we’ll see UT in the final game, however I think its the one from back east. I might even be inclined to pick an all Tennessee final game. A rematch between 1 & 2
chas (fb7ad4) — 3/16/2008 @ 5:12 pmI don’t think Tennessee was motivated in the SEC tournament but we’ll see a different team in the NCAA tournament. I feel the same way about Duke. Texas is peaking (which is good) but they haven’t been as consistent as those teams and Kansas. And NC is the elephant in the room that I’ll just ignore for now.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/16/2008 @ 5:48 pmSome basketball mascots are more competitive than others.
DRJ (a431ca) — 3/16/2008 @ 6:10 pmHook ’em.
Beldar (433d17) — 3/16/2008 @ 9:55 pmDRJ – The Longhorns got a very generous seed, considering they were seeded ahead of the winner of the Big 10 regular season and tournament champion, who also happens to have won on UT’s home court. Granted, the Big 10 was pretty much of a cesspool this year (witness my Illini making it to the championship), but Wisconsin got assbanged. And Butler got it even worse.
JD (75f5c3) — 3/17/2008 @ 5:01 amI wonder if there is a line on how many minutes it will take the commentators covering the of U. of San Diego – UConn game to mention that forward Rob Jones is the grandson of Jim Jones.
Yeah — THAT Jim Jones.
L.N. Smithee (b048eb) — 3/17/2008 @ 9:22 amDRJ: Great clip of the ORU and IUPUI mascot brawl. Best part: The ORU guy getting his head taken off, retrieves it, puts it back on, and continues the fight!
I don’t know what started that fight, but in the case of the Oregon Duck vs. the Houston Cougar, the Cougar had it coming.
BTW, nice to see Western Kentucky in the tourney. I love that big goofy red/orange thing, whatever it is.
L.N. Smithee (b048eb) — 3/17/2008 @ 9:40 amassistant devil’s advocate wrote: let’s go bruins!
To quote Pac-10 referees.
L.N. Smithee (b048eb) — 3/17/2008 @ 9:54 amucla beat cal twice in five days, so naturally some people will blame the officiating. great duck v. cougar clip, the duck was clearly the aggressor and if he’d done that in houston instead of eugene, he might have been arrested.
assistant devil's advocate (b6d44f) — 3/17/2008 @ 10:54 amassistant devil’s advocate wrote: ucla beat cal twice in five days, so naturally some people will blame the officiating.
UCLA is beyond shadow of a doubt the superior team, especially in a surprisingly weak season for Cal. That being said, just days earlier was the game against Stanford, in which even the Bruins admitted they got a gift foul on a clean block of Darren Collison, leading UCLA to free throws that sent the game to OT. Between that travesty and the no-foul call on an obvious final-seconds attempt by UCLA to put Cal star Ryan Anderson on the foul line, nobody at the Pac-10 should be insulted about the questioning the integrity of its officials.
The over-the-backboard game-winning shot was just icing on UCLA’s top-seed cake (bold mine):
The conference’s head oaf-ficial doesn’t have the intellectual honesty to say, “We blew it…again.” Josh Shipp said after the game, “Lucky I play H-O-R-S-E.” He’s right. It sure looked like a H-O-R-S-E-shot call to anyone but Bruin fans. It shouldn’t matter that UCLA could beat Cal nine times out of ten, you’re still supposed to call the game fairly if that one time Cal could win happens on your watch. This is NCAA BASKETBALL, not NCAA football, which is congenitally unfair to underdogs.
the duck was clearly the aggressor and if he’d done that in houston instead of eugene, he might have been arrested.
One would presume the duck would have known better than to attempt to show up a team on its home field. It’s reminiscent of Terrell Owens — back when he was a 49er — dashing to the Dallas Cowboys’ star logo at midfield of Texas Stadium after scoring the first of two touchdowns. Even some Niners anonymously endorsed a Dallas player clocking him as he did it a second time. I was just as pleased to see Owens knocked on his keister as I was to see my Niners score.
L.N. Smithee (b048eb) — 3/17/2008 @ 3:26 pmI can’t believe that Memphis lost it at the end. I guess that it goes to show the game begins and ends at the charity stripe.
Layla (e0c882) — 4/10/2008 @ 10:37 am