The dust has settled from the first 48 games of the NCAA Tournament and one thing is for certain: nothing that happened was all that surprising.
Sure, you could have gotten a lot of money if you had bet that the state of Alabama would have the same amount of teams in the Sweet 16 as North Carolina. And along the same lines, the odds on Alabama and Vanderbilt being the final two teams from the SEC left in the tourney also would have been long.
But is any of this shocking? No way.
Kentucky’s play this season could be described as inconsistent, at best. At times the Wildcats looked like the best team in the country and other times they were losing to Georgia. That a UAB team who plays 40 minutes of up-tempo basketball was able to beat a Kentucky team that essentially plays six players is not stunning. Nor is the fact that Stanford lost again in the 2nd round. NC State losing to Vanderbilt? Nevada beating Gonzaga? Sure, these were upsets in numerical terms, but in actuality they weren’t Villanova over Connecticut or even Shakespeare in Love over Saving Private Ryan.
Simply put, the middle-of-the-road schools have been slowly closing the talent gap between them and the powerhouses. And in a single-elimination tournament, where match-ups mean more than how many McDonald’s All-American players on your roster, anything can happen. Just ask Kentucky and Stanford.
Some thoughts from the greatest weekend in sports.

- Three ACC teams are going to the Sweet 16 while the other three are going home. Each of the six teams (save for Duke) played close games, but in the end, the three losers all had chances to win or tie at the buzzer but couldn’t get a decent shot off. Rashad McCants of UNC had the best look, and had his defender in the air, meaning he could have drawn a foul to send him to the line for three free throws. Instead he dribble-faked and ended up taking what would have been a meaningless two and Roy Williams was denied another shot at the National Championship. But at least McCants had a chance.
Maryland and NC State both had the ball with a chance to tie (the Terps were down only two and could have won with a three) but put the ball in the hands of inexperienced freshman who seemed more focused on being a hero than winning the game. Engin Atsur of State was dribbling the ball at the top of the key until four seconds remained on the game clock, then instead of handing off to Marcus Melvin (who is five inches taller than Atsur’s 6’3 and a better shooter) the freshman launched a deep three against a taller defender that was blocked and State lost after having a ten-point lead with under three minutes to play. (And yes, it was an intentional foul on Marcus Melvin. You have to make at least an effort to get the ball.) But, at least Atsur is a good shooter. Maryland’s DJ Strawberry is not. He is a scrappy defender and decent ball-handler, but his jump shot is uglier than Nick Horvath. In fairness, Maryland’s two starting guards John Gilchrist and Chris McCray had fouled out, so Strawberry was the only one on the floor who would have been bringing the ball up, but after DJ had gone to the baseline, Mike Jones (3-point specialist) was wide open. Instead DJ tried to be Drew Nicholas, took an awful shot, then hurried his attempted tap-in. Both Atsur and Strawberry are freshman, so their mistakes are excusable. But both players should have been looking for an open man somewhere else, instead of trying to be Jimmy Chitwood.

- It’s all about match-ups in the NCAA Tournament. And with only a day to prepare for the “40 minutes of hell – part II” of UAB, Kentucky had a serious problem. The Blazers play 40 minutes of high octane offense and defense, which presented a problem for a Kentucky team that only had six players playing significant minutes as well as two guards with less-than-stellar ball-handling abilities.
UAB played one of the best games in recent memory. After giving up a 13-point lead early in the 2nd half to the #1 seed in the tournament, most teams would have folded and let the Wildcats continue their run. But the Blazers hung tough and produced the most unexpected result of the weekend. Maybe with a few more days to prepare, Tubby Smith could have come up with a better game plan for his Wildcats. But he didn’t have four days, he had 24 hours, and UAB is going to its first Sweet 16 since 1981.

- Did you see that pass from UAB's Ronnell Taylor to his twin brother Donnell? The one where Ronnell intercepted a Kentucky pass on a fast break, did a 180 in the air and landed in the Kentucky key with his back to his own basket, then launched a no-look bullet pass over his head that hit his breaking brother squarely in the numbers en route to an uncontested dunk? That was maybe the best pass I’ve ever seen and guaranteed to be on highlight packages for the next 20 years.

- Classic Chris's Sports Blogs. A look back.
Nor should you expect much from Mississippi State. Don’t let the #6 ranking and probable #2 seed in the tournament fool you into thinking that this team is that good. Every year about this time I pick my “big tournament upset victim” (which usually ends up coming from the SEC or Big 10). Mississippi State is this year’s early favorite. This might change come tournament time if MSU gets an easy draw in the first round, but I still don’t like this team to do much in March.
- Chris’s Sports Blog - February 10, 2004
Now, I don’t want to toot my own horn, but “beep, beep”.

- Here are Stanford’s results from the last six NCAA Tournaments:
1999 - #2 seed, lost to #10 Gonzaga, 2nd round
2000 - #1 seed, lost to #8 North Carolina, 2nd round
2001 - #1 seed, lost to #3 Maryland, Regional Final
2002 - #8 seed, lost to #1 Kansas, 2nd round
2003 - #4 seed, lost to #5 Connecticut, 2nd round
2004 - #1 seed, lost to #8 Alabama, 2nd round
So here’s my question. Why does coach Mike Montgomery get a pass from the media despite woeful underachievement by his teams? In four of the last six years his Cardinal teams have been a #1 or #2 seed and haven’t advanced to a single Final Four and only made it out of the 2nd round once. If he were at any other school he would be drawing criticism about choking in March at the very least. And if he were at North Carolina or Kentucky everybody would be calling for his head.
But since Montgomery is at Stanford, he is seen as a coach who does a lot with a little in the regular season and plays with house money in March since his team shouldn’t be all that good anyway. I think that’s nonsense.
I don’t want to bash Montgomery. When he arrived at Stanford in 1986 the Cardinal hadn’t been to an NCAA Tournament in over 40 years. By 1992 Montgomery had turned Palo Alto into a basketball town and his teams have made the NCAA Tournament for ten straight years, including a Final Four trip in 1998. Clearly he has been a savior to the program, much as Gary Williams was to Maryland. But even after Gary brought Maryland back to national prominence, he was still getting criticism for his lack of success in the NCAA Tournament. Of course, that stopped when the Terps made the Final Four in 2001 and followed with a National Championship in 2002.
Mike Montgomery is a great basketball coach and has turned a school from a basketball after-thought into one of the top programs in the country. But if he doesn’t start winning in the NCAA Tournament, he'll be known for never winning the big one instead of turning a floundering program into one of the Nation’s best.

- Nothing is certain in the NCAA Tournament. Well, nothing except for this: Bob Huggins’ teams never make the 2nd weekend.

- After a weekend of interesting match-ups and fantastic games, the slate for the Sweet 16 games is less than inspiring. Nevada-Georgia Tech? UAB-Kansas? Alabama-Syracuse? I haven’t seen a lineup this bad since the UPN lineup that included Shasta McNasty and that show with the slave playing Abraham Lincoln’s advisor. Remember that? What the hell were they thinking when they put that on the air. I just googled it to see what the name of the show was and laughed out loud. It was called The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer and about a black guy from England that was kidnapped and forced to be Abraham Lincoln’s butler. Of course, the geniuses behind this show decided that this lighthearted affair would be a comedy. Not surprisingly, it was cancelled after two episodes. But I digress.
The only marquee games on the lineup are Wake Forest-St. Joe’s, Pitt-OSU and Texas-Xavier. Of course, Stanford-Alabama wasn’t the best game on paper, but turned into one of the best for the tournament. I think the UAB-Kansas game could be one of those types of games.

- I don’t think we’ll be reading any stories next season about how Gonzaga doesn’t get any respect. Every time they have an opportunity to earn some, they blow it.

- 48 games down, 15 to go. I’m still sticking with my pick of Oklahoma State as National Champion, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see any of the remaining teams (except maybe for Vanderbilt and Nevada) cut down the nets on April 5.
My amended Final Four picks are Kansas, Oklahoma State, Texas and Connecticut, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Duke and Alabama there either.