NCAA Tournament: Day One Recap

Even though it was a day that saw the favorites win 14 of the 16 games (13 if you include Arizona as a favorite; which they were, despite their lower seed and darker jerseys), the first day of the 2004 NCAA Tournament was predictably unpredictable.
Sure, conventional wisdom said that Syracuse would beat BYU (which they did, 80-75), but did anybody think it would take a superhuman performance from Gerry McNamara (43 points, nine 3’s) to do it?
On the same side of the bracket, Maryland was expected to cruise against UTEP. But, the Terps found themselves down one late in the game before John Gilchrist, in spite of a tired performance in the game’s first 35 minutes, took over near the end.
Maryland’s ACC foe Wake Forest also had trouble with their supposedly easy 1st round opponent as did everybody’s sleeper Final Four pick, North Carolina. But both heavyweights from the ACC survived.
All in all, it was a day where a lot of underdogs came close, but couldn’t hit the jumper or free throw down the stretch to win.
Conventional wisdom would say that after yesterday’s near-misses, there will be a shocking upset or two today… unfortunately the NCAA Tournament has been known to pay no heed to such rationale.

Midwest Region

#10 Nevada 72 - #7 Michigan State 66
Forget Manhattan, the biggest upset of the day belonged to the Wolf Pack from Nevada. In the school’s first appearance in the Tournament since 1985, Nevada topped a Michigan State program which has the same amount of National Championships as Nevada has tournament appearances. Think about it… a team from the WAC knocks out a team from the mighty Big 10. If this game had taken place a month ago you would have been shocked at the outcome. But because the two seeds of these teams were so close, it’s only seen as a minor upset.
The Pack came all the way back after being down 16 and closed the game with a 16-3 run to send home the underachieving Spartans.

#2 Gonzaga 76 - #15 Valparaiso 49
The only thing surprising about this game was that Homer Drew was still coaching the Crusaders. Turns out he retired, had his son Scott take over the program, then came back when Scott went to try to resuscitate the floundering basketball program at Baylor.

East Region

#1 St. Joseph’s 82 - #16 Liberty 63
Reports out of Philadelphia say that Terrell Owens is now trying to get out of his contract with the Eagles and is demanding a trade to the Hawks.

#8 Texas Tech 76 - #9 Charlotte 73
Unless you live in southern Texas or Charlotte, or have the NCAA Internet package, I doubt you saw much of this game, except for the highlights. And by looking at those, plus the final score, you’d think that this was a hotly contested game that was close until the end. It wasn’t.
This stinker was easily the worst game of the day, won by Texas Tech only because Charlotte couldn’t hit an open shot for the final 15 minutes of the game.
Never before have I seen a team miss so many easy lay-ups and shoot so poorly from the perimeter. (Charlotte shot 6-24 from behind the arc, two of those shots coming in garbage time.)
And it wasn’t just that the 49ers were missing. No, they were missing badly. So anybody that thinks Texas Tech is riding high going into their showdown with St. Joe’s should be wary. If the Red Raiders play like they did yesterday, St. Joe’s will waltz into the Sweet 16.

#12 Manhattan 75 - #5 Florida 60
For Luis Flores’ sake, don’t call it an upset. As Matt Walsh put it before the game, it would have been an upset if Florida had come away with the W.
This game was over before it started. Florida had no desire and seemed resigned to losing this game once they got down early. They only kept it relatively close in the 2nd half because of their superior talent level to the Jaspers. In every other facet of the game, however, Manhattan outclassed the Gators.
Despite not having a player over 6’7, Manhattan out-rebounded Florida 36-26. Late in the game when Manhattan was pulling away, Florida’s Matt Walsh was called for an intentional foul on a Jasper breakaway. The other UF players were standing on the other side of the court, hands on hips, content to watch the action on the other end unfold.
Don’t look now, but Billy Donovan’s club hasn’t seen the second weekend of the tournament since their unlikely run to the Finals in 2000 (a run that only happened because of a Teddy Dupee buzzer-beater in the 1st round against Butler). Looks like Donovan has been taking lessons from the Lute Olsen school of Tournament coaching.

#4 Wake Forest 79 - #13 VCU 78
The Demon Deacons probably should have lost this game. They didn’t play bad, per se, but they didn’t play as good as the Jeff Capel-led Rams either. Three straight three’s late in the 2nd half erased a six-point VCU lead and only some late-game heroics by freshman Chris Paul kept the Deacs ahead. Wake needs to forget about this game and looked ahead to Saturday’s match-up with Manhattan. After all, it doesn’t matter how you advance, as long as you do.

South Region

#1 Duke 96 - #16 Alabama St. 61
In ACC-land, the conference tournament is shown by Raycom and blacked-out on ESPN. But I heard that during the Maryland-Duke final on ESPN, Dick Vitale compared Chris Duhon to Derek Jeter on numerous occasions. And, you know, for once I agree with Dickie V.
Jeter and Duhon are two peas-in-a-pod. They are the captains of their teams, despite being among the least talented members, both are hyped by the media for things they accomplished years ago and each has had to depend on the success of others to have any of their own. Yes, Jeter and Duhon must have been separated at birth.

#8 Seton Hall 80 - #9 Arizona 76
When it comes to picking Lute Olsen teams in the tournament, I’m like a woman that constantly gets cheated on by her boyfriend, yet stays with him and thinks he’ll change. I KNOW Lute Olsen teams never do well in the tournament. Sure, I don’t really love him, but he seems to treat me nice during the year. But every March he’s playing footsy with a floozy in the outposts of America, while losing games to the East Tennessee State’s and Santa Clara’s of the world. Then there was that one magnificent March where he finally changed for a bit (they all do) and won a Championship, but soon after he reverted to his lying, losing ways. Oh Lute, why won’t you love me?

#6 North Carolina 63 - #11 Air Force 52
Midway through the second-half, with UNC down four, Roy Williams had the look of a poker player who pushed all his chips into the center of the table and was waiting for his flush to come up on the river. At that point, the game was out of Roy’s hands. If his Tar Heels were going to avoid a humiliating loss to a team that hadn’t made the tournament in 52 years, they would have to do it by themselves.
Then Raymond Felton hit two three’s to put the Tar Heels ahead, where they stayed. Roy got his card.

#3 Texas 66 - #14 Princeton 49
This is another one of those scores that is deceiving, only this time the game was a lot closer than the score indicates. Like UNC, it took Texas 30 minutes to figure out the Princeton offense, and when they did, they pulled away.

West Region

#1 Stanford 71 - #16 Texas San-Antonio 45
UTSA actually cut the Stanford lead to six in the 2nd half. But after that, they were the Dennis Kucinich to Stanford’s John Kerry.

#8 Alabama 65 - #9 Southern Illinois 64
A friend of mine picked the Saluki’s to make a run to the Elite Eight. Ouch.

#5 Syracuse 80 - #12 BYU 75
The Cougars had an open-look from three to take a lead with under a minute in this game, but they couldn’t convert. Thusly, Syracuse avoided becoming the first defending champion since UCLA in 1996 to go out in the 1st round.

#4 Maryland 86 – #13 UTEP 83
Nik Caner-Medley driving to the hoop is reminiscent of Britney Spears' foray into acting.

#7 DePaul 76 - #10 Dayton 69 (2OT)
In 50 minutes of play, these teams scored a total of 24 points less than Maryland and UTEP did in 40 minutes.
DePaul’s Andre Brown went 0-10 from the free-throw line, yet avoided becoming the goat, because Dayton’s Mark Jones took care of that.
While it won’t show up in the box score, late in the second overtime Jones fouled DePaul’s Drake Deiner (an 87% free-throw shooter on a 69% shooting team) three times, despite the presence of Andre Brown (0-10) and Quemont Greer (5-8) on the floor. There are two things I hate seeing in college basketball games; missed free-throws and stupid fouls. DePaul and Dayton provided both.

#2 Connecticut 70 – #15 Vermont 53
Look out everybody, Okafor’s back didn’t seem to be giving him any trouble.

My picks: 11-5