One Fine Tournament

Monday night, I watched one of the best-ever, if not the best NCAA National Championship games ever. Even though I have been a Duke fan for over thirty years, I was cheering all the way for Butler. Had that last midcourt shot at the buzzer gone in, this would have replaced the Duke-Kentucky game as my favorite all-time college game as well.

I can definitely live with the Duke win, but Butler can hold its head up. Like Gonzaga, they will never again be able to sneak up on anyone. Everybody knows 'em now. I have been watching them the last several years when they first started cracking the top 25.

Of course, now Butler has to worry about keeping their coach and the Horizon League has to worry about Butler staying in it.


AND THEN, THAT TOURNAMENT!!

The Chicago Sun-Times was nice enough to print up the whole tournament bracket with all scores and games.

In the first round, I counted 11 really good games which were either really close or an upset or both.

There were seven such games in the second round. So, out of 48 games, there were 18 really good ones.

What was really great about the Sweet Sixteen was that there were five teams I would consider Little Guys in the athletic world still playing: Northern Iowa, Butler, Xavier, Cornell and St. Mary's. That and along with five Big Guy schools that you don't expect to see still around at this point: Tennessee, Kansas State, Washington, west Virginia and Baylor. This makes for some excitement instead of the same-old, same-old.

Then three of the Sweet Sixteen games were really good and all four of the Elite 8. Who could ask for a better Final Four game than that between Michigan State and Butler, and then that Championship Game.

Great job to the selection committee,

Counting Down the Days Until the Next College B-Ball Season Starts. --RoadDog


North and South Differences:

In the Nawth you have dating services. In the south you have family reunions. Ooh!! Low One.