Spring Break NCAA Style

I’m back from spring break, aren’t you happy? Anyway as you all probably know I went to Salt Lake City and got to see the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament. Here are my observations:

• I have BC in the championship game, so I was a little worried when Pacific took them to double OT. BC waited about 45 minutes to long to start going into the full court press. When they finally started pressing in the 2^nd OT, Pacific had no answer and completely got shut down and BC went on their run. Although I personally cheered for BC center John Oates for some reason, I do not know why he starts. #51 Shaun Williams comes off the bench and is much better, he is taller, athletic, he can throw down and he is a great shot blocker. He completely owned Montana in round two of the tournament with his shot blocking alone. I was not overly impressed with Jared Dudley, but he is pretty solid. Craig Smith, however, was amazing. I know he was playing non power conference teams, but he completely owned the inside in both games I saw. Needless to say, BC looks pretty good. They will beat Villanova!
• Montana was a fun team to root for. Although I originally wanted Nevada to win because I had picked them in my bracket I very quickly found myself rooting for Montana. They are fun to watch, well coached and have some good players. Their best player is #34 Andrew Straight. He is about 6-7, only a sophomore and is always around the basket playing the power forward position. The kid I liked the most on their team was Jordan Hasquet. He is a 6-9 freshmen center from the heart of Montana. He has a developing inside game, but he can shoot and hit the three. He also played good defense on Nick Fazekias (I know I spelled that wrong) although I was shocked to find out in the box score that Fazekias had 22 and 14. He did not play well at all in that game, I have no clue how he got that line. Anyway I was very impressed with Hasquet, he had to guard Fazekias all game and did a good job on him I thought. Plus he killed Nevada by hitting three pointers and stretching the D while playing the center position. He is the next Adam Morrison (maybe less scoring and more inside/defense) but he is gonna be damn good. Watch out for Montana, the majority of their best players are back next year.
• Gonzaga is good. They are talented, deep and they play good defense this time around. Morrison is great, and he saved that team from losing at the hands of Xavier (just another example of a highly seeded team sleep walking for the first half of their first game, but when they wake up and come back to win it seems to help propel these high seeds in the next round). Morrison hit big shot after big shot down the stretch was pretty much was their whole offense while Ravio was killing them on offense (Gonzaga seemed to make their run after he fouled out, he played much better in the 2^nd game). Batista was in foul trouble too and Goznaga was getting beat down. But Morrison brought them back. In the 2^nd game Morrison played like crap, but it was impressive to see Gonzaga play much better with him having a bad game. Batista played great and completely took Marco Killingsworth(less) out of the game. Marco did not even play late in the 2^nd half when Indiana kind of made a run (when they hit every three they put up. Seriously, look it up).
• Marco Killingsworth should have stayed at Auburn and be a very very very very very very very poor man’s Charles Barkely.
• It was funny sitting behind two Xavier fans on Thursday and they were just ripping on Adam Morrison. Saying how he takes 600 shots a game in order to get his 28 points and saying how he is overrated and never passes and how he will suck in the NBA. I just wanted to turn around and say, “HELLO! This is the same guy who is single handedly 0wning your team right now.” I don’t mind people being fans of their team, but take the blinders off please.
• It is amazing how EVERYONE roots for the underdog. In the BC-Pacific game the place was 90% for Pacific. People who have no idea what the school is or where it’s at just want and underdog to win so hardcore. It was even worse when BC played Montana; the crowd was a rowdy, pro-Montana crowd. So let’s just say BC fans did not travel at all. It was a shame they had to end up in the Salt Lake area to start out (not for me, I liked watching them play) but those in essence played two road games, not neutral site games. Only when Gonzaga was playing was the underdog not rooted for. The majority of people who bought tickets to the sessions defiantly were there for Gonzaga.
• It’s amazing how everyone thinks everyone travels on every play. If the refs called as many travels as the fans sitting next to me wanted to be called, we all would have witness the most mind numbingly annoying basketball games in American history.
• The NCAA tournament is amazing. It’s an absolute blast, the best sporting event out there. There will always be close games and its amazing how a 12 will always beat a 5. Its always fun to root for the underdog and see the big time players step it up when their teams need them the most (a la Craig Smith and Adam Morrison). Without further delay I give you my all Salt Lake City tourney team: F Craig Smith (BC), F Adam Morrison (Gonzanga), C Jordan Hasquet (Montana), G Eric Calloway (Indiana), G Tyrice Rice (BC, because he completely destroyed Montana with his three point shooting in the 2^nd half). Sixth Man: Andrew Straight (Montana).

A few non salt lake city tournament points:

• I hate Northwestern State
• Billy Packer made a complete fool out of himself this past week. He hates on mid-major schools, especially the ones from the Missouri Valley conference. Then admits he has not seen a Missouri Valley conference game. Are you kidding me you are a college basketball analyst. I don’t even watch much college basketball and I still know more about the Missouri Valley then him! That’s insane. He got ripped apart by some guy on the selection committee (it was well deserved). So he goes on PTI to defend himself by restating his point that bigger conference teams should be in over Missouri valley teams. When Wilbon asks how these teams from mid major conferences are supposed to get recognition Packer says, in a completely unnecessary condescending tone, “Have you ever heard of the NCAA tournament?” If I was Wilbon I would have gone off on him. At the end of the interview Packer says he would love nothing more then to have an all Missouri Valley conference final four, and he loves it when underdogs win. So to summarize Billy Packer would love to see the mid-major tournament teams win in the NCAA tourney, he just doesn’t want them to be there in the first place (this led to about 1,000 jokes between me and the crew up in Utah the past week. Something along the lines of, “man I really love watching Montana play I just don’t think they should be in the tournament.”) Thanks Billy Packer for making a fool of yourself, I never really liked him all that much to being with. Now I will never listen to anything he has to say.
• Speaking of mid majors, they had a great tournament. Some big upsets some unlikely sweet 16 teams (Bradley, Wichita State and George Mason) and a number of close calls (the most shocking moment of the tournament so far was seeing Albany had a 10 point lead with 10 minutes to go.) Good job by mid majors this past weekend, I say let more in. People love rooting for them.

Overall it was a good weekend. Park City, Utah (where the cabin we stayed at was) was very pretty and it snowed a lot. I have seen snow like 3 times in my life so it was pretty cool. The cabin was real nice, it included a gas fireplace that was always on and some HD TVs with surround sound, you really cant beat that. I had to rent a car and drive back from Salt Lake City to Phoenix though due to complications from flying with a buddy pass (flying standby is seriously the worst idea one could ever envision. The only worse idea ever was when Eve ate that forbidden apple). The drive was long (10 hours) and it stormed the whole way (seriously the storm system stretched from SLC to Phoenix, I have never seen anything like that). Staying in the cabin along with me were the Baker Bros and their father, Jordan and his dad, boomsquad Eric and Will, Mark and Ben. So it was quite the fun time. But now I am back in the real world, and I have a lot of work to do until the semester ends. So it should be fun.