Day Two Recap

There wasn't nearly as much interesting Friday as there was on Thursday (how could there have been?), so I'm not going to go game by game, I don't think.

#12 Cornell 78, #5 Temple 65 (East)

#4 Purdue 72, #13 Siena 64 (South)

Cornell and Siena were probably the two most popular upset picks heading into the tournament. I was on the Siena bandwagon mainly for anti-Purdue reasons, but I went against the crowd taking Cornell. Oh-for-two. Neither of these games were televised in my area, so I only caught bits and pieces when the TV coverage switched and on MMOD. From what I could tell, Cornell just shot the lights out, and given how their second-round opponent, Wisconsin, struggled today against Wofford, a trip to the Sweet 16 seems very possible, if not quite likely.

As for Siena, they held a three-point halftime lead before giving up a big run to start the second. They trailed by quite a bit, then made a late push, and actually would've had the ball with a chance to tie the game if not for a lucky bounce on a Boiler free throw (the ball hit the precise spot where the rim meets the backboard, died, and dropped through). As far as I could tell, the tide turned when the game got physical and the officials, to Purdue's distinct advantage, let the kids play. That's not to say that the Boilermakers got the better of the calls; just that they are far more suited to playing that style.

#10 Missouri 86, #7 Clemson 78 (East)

Missouri's transition from defense to offense needs to be seen to be believed. On multiple occasions against Clemson, Missouri players were running up court before I even noticed their team had the ball. That's not all that remarkable when the change in possession comes from a missed shot; a lot of teams have someone leak out when a shot goes up. But this happened on steals. I've never seen a team more conscious of their transition offense. I'm really looking forward to their matchup against West Virginia (comfortable victors over Morgan State on Friday) in the second round.

At what point does the selection committee stop inviting Oliver Purnell-coached teams to the tournament? He's now 0-6 in tournament games with Old Dominion, Dayton, and Clemson, despite the fact that he's had the higher-ranked squad on four of those occasions, including each of the last three years. I have no reason to doubt those who say that Purnell is a good coach and a good guy, but these results speak for themselves.

#10 Georgia Tech 64, #7 Oklahoma State 59

I don't feel too bad having picked the Cowboys to win this one, considering the margin of victory and the fact that the Jackets made 24 of 25 free throws and didn't make a field goal for the final eight minutes. GT made fewer than two-thirds of their free throws on the year (307th out of 347 Division I teams), so the season-extending near-perfect day at the stripe certainly came as a surprise. (As an aside, Wofford was kind of the anti-Georgia Tech on Friday, missing six of seven second-half free throws in what ended up being a four-point loss to Wisconsin. This performance was more in line with what they did in the regular season, however, where they shot just better than 67 percent from the line).

I do have one issue with Oklahoma State coach Travis Ford, however, who left the Bradley Center in Milwaukee with a timeout in his pocket. I thought he should have called it when the Cowboys got the ball back down three with 43 seconds left, because you can't really trust players to know to go for a quick two and then foul in that spot. He didn't, James Anderson turned the ball over, and then, after another two Tech free throws put the Jackets up five, Ford again didn't call timeout, even as his charges struggled to find an open look (Anderson ended up taking an impossible jumper). The season's on the line, coach. Do your job.

Also, does Keiton Page look like Ollie from Hoosiers or what?

#5 Michigan State 70, #12 New Mexico State 67 (Midwest)

The Aggies found themselves on the wrong end of two questionable decisions by the referees in the final seconds, leading SI's Luke Winn to tweet immediately following the game that they had been given a rawer deal than Robert Morris against Villanova on Thursday.

The first was a lane violation on a Raymar Morgan free throw with 19 seconds left. Troy Gillenwater was ruled to have stepped in the lane early on Morgan's miss, giving Morgan a reprieve, of which he quickly took advantage. Video replay after the game showed the call to be technically correct, but I still have problems with the call. For one, you see lane violations far more often than you see lane violations called, and this particular situation seems like an odd place to start being a stickler for the rules.

The second problem I have with the call goes to the heart of why stepping into the lane early is illegal, for which I can think of two justifications: To prevent distracting the shooter, and to prevent one player from gaining an unfair advantage on the rebound. Neither was a concern in this instance. Gillenwater's violation could hardly be discerned (I certainly didn't notice it while watching live); it wasn't a demonstrative hop-in, hop-out. I doubt Morgan noticed it at all. To the other point, Gillenwater had to re-establish himself outside the lane, and thus did not gain any advantage. If anything, he probably was into the lane for the rebound a fraction of a second later than he would have otherwise.

Speaking of fractions of a second, the second late call that went against NMSU came after they missed a shot on the ensuing possession, with the rebound going out of bounds off the Spartans. The clock showed just three-tenths of a second remaining, and NMSU appealed for the referees to check the tape to make sure they the clock was right. The refs declined to do so, even though it seemed clear to me watching live that the clock had briefly continued to run after the ball had touched out of bounds. (Indeed, video replay confirmed after the game that there should have been an additional three-tenths, for six-tenths total.)

It seems silly to quibble over three-tenths of a second, and most of the time, it is. The one exception, however, is when the added time would take the game clock from three-tenths of a second or less to more than three-tenths. Why? Because the powers that be in basketball have scientifically, though not altogether convincingly, decided that you cannot catch and shoot a basketball in less than four-tenths of a second. So going from .3 to .6 would have given the Aggies more of a chance to score on that final possession.

What's particularly obnoxious about this is that the officials often go to the tape in this situations, and they didn't this time. I'd like to see a more uniform system, even if it's something small like "automatically check the tape when the clock has three-tenths or less." NMSU coach Marvin Menzies was frantically appealing for the officials to review the tape. The problem with allowing a coach to ask for such a review is that the ensuing delay effectively serves as a timeout, something Menzies didn't have at his disposal. That would then be an incentive to automatically ask for a review even when one clearly wasn't warranted.

Anyway, I thought this was plainly a bad job by the officials. I also felt that the Spartans got the benefit of a few tough calls down the stretch even before the final 20 seconds.

Tar Heels Win It All

You didn't really think Michigan State could do it, did you?

Somewhere along the way this season, we forgot how good North Carolina was. It wasn't one single thing, it was more likely a cumulation of factors. It started back in January, when Carolina lost Marcus Ginyard, the best defender on a team whose defense was its main weakness. Then came the back-to-back losses to start the ACC season, to Boston College and Wake Forest. Then a loss to Maryland. Then Ty Lawson's toe injury, which seemed like it might keep him from playing at full strength in the postseason. Then the early exit from the ACC tournament at the hands of Florida State, without Lawson. The Heels looked mortal.

And the Spartans did their part to keep the doubts alive, getting better with each game in the tournament. After shaky victories against Southern California and Kansas, Michigan State fairly dominated its next two opponents, teams they weren't expected to beat; Louisville, the tournament's top overall seed, and Connecticut, the one team that seemed to have the firepower to take out North Carolina.

Monday's championship game was played at Ford Field in Detroit, and it was easy to get caught up in the possibility that home-state advantage would carry Michigan State. The scenario had seemingly endless feel-good storylines: the thirtieth anniversary of Bird v. Magic; the national championship won by the home team in a state whose professional football team set a record for futility this year and whose economy has been hit the hardest of any.

Given all of this, it was easy to forget about December 3, 2008, when Carolina, after winning the Maui Invitational in impressive fashion, truly flexed its muscle. The Heels positively throttled the Spartans that night, winning 98-65 in Michigan, on the same court on which the championship game would be played four months later. That night, it sure didn't look like anyone could beat North Carolina, and if anyone could, it certainly wasn't going to be Michigan State.

All of those doubts went away in about four-and-a-half minutes on Monday night, during which the Heels scored 17 points and took a double-digit lead they never gave up. Accepting the championship trophy on the podium, UNC coach Roy Williams noted that "everyone had anointed" his team all year long. And it's true. We all just temporarily forgot.

***

On to more serious matters. After tonight's telecast, I learned -- along with millions of other CBS viewers -- that the man behind the network's trademark "One Shining Moment" video montage, played at the close of every NCAA Tournament, was named Doug Towey, and that he had passed away earlier this year.

The significance of this video is not lost on any college basketball fan, and certainly not lost on any kid who grew up with dreams of playing college basketball. My high school teammates and I were known to sing it on occasion, and although we never got to sing it to cap a championship season, I'm quite sure that many of us played that moment out in our heads. I know I did. I also know that I still do sing it in my head, when I reflect privately on the great memories I have from playing basketball in high school. Those years provided me with some of the most memorable moments of my life, and Doug Towey provided the soundtrack.

That's the great thing about "One Shining Moment." The final few seconds celebrate the year's champion, but the rest of the montage honors those who came up short in their ultimage goal, and that's what the NCAA Tournament is all about: hundreds of kids on 65 teams, all playing for what they've dreamt about their whole lives. And those kids represent the thousands of Division I college basketball players who don't get a chance to play in the Big Dance, who in turn represent the millions of young men who don't have the opportunity to play college basketball.

Your author at 19'9" was one of those young men, and "One Shining Moment" is his favorite three minutes or so of the college basketball season. A belated "thank you" is in order.

So thanks, Mr. Towey, for again -- like you do every year -- giving me chills for three minutes at the close of my favorite sports season. I'm sorry I never got a chance to tell you in person what "One Shining Moment" meant to me. I hope someone, somewhere, did.

Michigan State Advances to Final

I actually don't want to talk much about the game - I may post a bit about it in some sort of a championship preview between now and Monday night - but I do want to briefly talk about what I thought was a coaching error on the part of Connecticut's Jim Calhoun down the stretch in Saturday's first national semifinal.

Trailing by 11 points with less than 1:54 to go, the Huskies put on a furious full-court press. Several Spartan mistakes and 46 seconds later, Connecticut small forward Stanley Robinson found himself hanging from the rim, his thunderous jam following an A.J. Price miss having brought his team to within 74-71.

The momentum of the game had certainly shifted. More importantly, the circumstances of the game had shifted. Down just a possession, Connecticut no longer needed a steal or a quick foul. They needed a stop. And that need would best be filled not by the scrambling, high-risk, full-court pressure that had brought them back in the game, but by a solid possession of half-court defense.

But college kids are college kids, and this is the game's biggest stage, and after all, just seconds ago, it appeared that their national championship dreams were over. They can be forgiven for getting caught up in the moment and not recognizing this right away.

It's harder to excuse Calhoun. Perhaps he expected his counterpart at Michigan State, Tom Izzo, to call one, and didn't want to burn his final timeout unnecessarily. Perhaps he thought the Spartans were sufficiently rattled and didn't want to give them a chance to calm down. Or perhaps he, too, got caught up in the moment.

Whatever the reason, Calhoun didn't call timeout, and neither did Izzo, and the results were disastrous for Connecticut. MSU's Durrell Summers broke free from the frantic Connecticut press, and freshman Kemba Walker, desperate to stop an easy layup, got to Summers a moment too late. Summers got the basket and the foul, made the free throw, and it was pretty much over at that point.

Calhoun may have been nervous about entering the final 60 seconds of a one-possession game without a timeout, but it's hard to see what he was saving his final stoppage for; by the time he called it, Michigan State led 80-73 and there were 30 seconds left. That one possession was the most important of the game and required a substantial strategy shift, and Calhoun needed to call his final timeout there, whatever the consequences.

Sweet 16 Breakdown: Midwest and South

Pitt and Xavier played more defense than I thought, and Missouri outgunned Memphis, but I was right on elsewhere: Duke lost to Villanova in large part because Gerald Henderson and Jon Scheyer combined to go 4-for-32 from the field, and Connecticut was too strong for Purdue. Let's look at tonight's games:

MIDWEST
#1 Louisville vs. #12 Arizona. As a commenter to yesterday's post mentioned, I'm something of a sucker for Arizona when it comes to the tournament. Given that I'm not all that high on Louisville -- I watch them and I just can't figure out how they are good as they are -- the temptation is there to pull the trigger on a Wildcat upset.

I don't think it's going to happen, though. The 'ville is a bad matchup for the 'cats. As well as Nic Wise has played this year -- I distinctly remember asking aloud at some point this year, "When did Nic Wise get good at basketball?" -- he's still prone to getting a little out of control, deadly against a team that uses full-court pressure the way the Cardinals do. Arizona doesn't have another really solid ballhandler in the backcourt, and they might do well to have Chase Budinger help bring it up.

While it's not all that rare that you see players on opposing teams who will end up in the NBA, it is a little more rare when those players go head to head. Watching Budinger go against Terrence Williams should be a lot of fun, and Williams will want to avoid getting into a scoring contest with Budinger, which given his unselfish nature, shouldn't be hard to do. Potential lottery picks Jordan Hill and Earl Clark will battle it out down low, too. Give the advantage on the inside to Louisville -- Hill also has to deal with Samardo Samuels.

It could happen, but it would take a near-perfect game from the Wildcats.

#2 Michigan State vs. #3 Kansas. A couple of big-name programs who quietly had very strong years, and yet neither of these teams really strikes you as a scary one. (I'm pretty unimpressed with the whole South region.) The point guard matchup should be a good one, with Big Ten Player of the Year Kalin Lucas going up against Sherron Collins. Lucas is a blaze with the ball, while Collins, though plenty quick, is a bit more powerful.

I honestly don't have much to say here -- let's just pick the Spartans and move on.

SOUTH
#1 North Carolina v. #4 Gonzaga. The Tar Heels are beatable, but I think it's going to take a team that is a little bit better defensive than the Bulldogs to do it. Carolina's point guard, Ty Lawson, is going to play despite a toe injury, and though he was hampered somewhat in the first two games, he's still plenty quick enough with the ball to wreak all kinds of havoc on the opposition.

Inside, I think Tyler Hansbrough is probably too tough and physical for Josh Heytvelt, who seems less and less interested in mixing it up underneath as his career goes on. Similarly, as much as I like Austin Daye, I'm not sure he's big and strong enough to be effective for a full game against Carolina's depth.

#2 Oklahoma vs. #3 Syracuse. The game of the night, if you ask me, and it's actually the early game in this region. Syracuse was one of the hottest teams coming into this tournament, and Oklahoma one of the coldest.

The Orange seem to be a popular pick, and I can see why. The two teams have such contrasting strengths that it's as easy to envision Jonny Flynn sojourning into the lane time and again, zipping passes to Eric Devendorf and Andy Rautins for open threes as it is to picture Blake Griffin finding holes in the Syracuse 2-3 zone and going for one of the 20-point, 20-rebound games that seem to be his signature.

I think Syracuse can win this one, but Oklahoma is the favorite. The Orange defense has not been as good this season as we've come to expect from them, and it's not because they don't get out on three-point shooters. There are too many holes in the middle of that zone, and you can't give Blake Griffin the ball there. He's got the combination of size, strength, and ballhandling ability that he can do a ton of damage from the high post. Griffin does like to spin dribble a little too much, a move that can be dangerous in traffic, and so Syracuse forwards Rick Jackson, Paul Harris, and Kristof Ongenaet should be prepared to step in and take the charge. Getting Griffin in foul trouble would be huge.

Earlier in the season, I might have said that Arinze Onuaku was a decent matchup for Griffin, but knee injuries have really slowed him late in the season. He's just not the same player, and I don't think he can effectively play Griffin on either end. His reduced mobility, too, will be a problem on the glass. Rebounding out of the 2-3 is always tough, and that's exacerbated when you're up against an athletic, mobile guy like Blake Griffin. And Blake's older brother, Taylor, is no slouch either.

I'd like the 'cuse a bit more if Paul Harris were playing better, but he hasn't been himself for several games, dating back to the Big East tournament. Flynn is every bit the point guard that Lawson and Lucas are, and Rautins and Devendorf are marksmen. I'm just not sure Syracuse has enough to overcome the Sooners' obvious interior advantage.