1000 Words of Adversity: BC’s Chances in the Sweet 16 and More Tournament Ramblings…
The low seed…. The early start time… The 12 hour flight from Boston to Salt Lake, apparently piloted by Ted Stryker. As the great Ted Sarandis said last week, Boston College had to overcome “1000 pounds of adversity” in their two victories last week in the NCAA tournament. But is the Sweet 16 the end of the line?
Let’s start with the bad news for the Eagles: unfortunately for BC, we see how the pairings DO matter in the NCAA tournament. Instead of being a 3 seed (which they probably should have been) and playing Georgetown; as a 4, the adversity scale reads a full TON when the Eagles have to take on the 1 seed, Villanova, on Friday night.
More bad news for the Eagles: I have them going to the Final Four in both my brackets.
The good news: BC presents match-up problems for Villanova up and down the lineup. How is Nova going to consistently defend against BC? I don’t know…I’m not the coach. But I do know A., the way BC has been executing on offense the last few weeks, they’re going to be tough to defend for any team, let alone one as undersized as the Wildcats, and B., very rarely do teams that rely so heavily on perimeter shooting like Villanova go onto win National Championships. True - Ray and Foye are freakin’ nasty, but all it takes is one off-night from behind the arc and Nova is done because of the lack of inside game to fall back on. And if that’s the case on Friday, BC should roll.
More good news: As our resident ACC hoops’ expert Jamie Chisholm pointed out last week, BC has played to their competition all year. Either up or down. And from here on out, there’s no one left to “play down” too. First it’s Nova on Friday, then the winner of the Florida-Georgetown, and then most likely Connecticut in the Final 4.
I obviously like the Eagles’ chances. I think they will win on Friday. I will be betting on them. And yes, I am fully prepared for the hate mail on the off chance I may have just mushed them…
……..Well whatta you know, Gus Johnson strikes again.
We’ve been preaching to readers about Gus’ uncanny powers in the NCAA tournament for over a year now, so there’s no excuse for you NOT to have cleaned up last weekend betting against the higher seeded teams in his region. Per usual, the lower seeded teams went 5-1 vs. the spread in the 6 games Gus announced in Dayton, and 4 of them won outright.
I love how he doesn’t even bother with an upset in the 7-10 game. Please. He’s got bigger things to worry about. The man not only propelled 11 seed George Mason to “shockers” over Michigan State and North Carolina, but he nearly single-handedly pulled off two miracles with Murray State and Davidson on Friday.
And the Georgetown win over Ohio State on Sunday – IN OHIO no less?! “HO!” as Gus would say after a tomahawk slam. It’s just too easy. The man is truly unstoppable…
…..…After gaining respect for Jim Nantz LAST Sunday when he uncharacteristically peppered the Selection Committee about the Missouri Valley Conference getting 4 teams in the field, I lost most of it back THIS Sunday when he all but retracted his comments from a week ago and started re-sucking up.
Listen, just because Bradley won their first two games doesn’t mean they were any more or less deserving of a bid. I’m pretty sure that’s called “20-20 hindsight”. Nantz was right a week ago when he questioned Bradley getting in, and he’s still right today. You can’t judge the decision 7 days after the fact. Cincinnati, who was left out, could very well have beaten Kansas and Pitt too. We don’t know.
And speaking of Jim Nantz, what is his obsession with telling everyone where he is all the time? WE KNOW YOU’RE IN PHILADELPHIA. I swear he must have said it 100 times this weekend. Plus, the game is inside! Who cares??
Then he played his nauseating “symmetry card” on Sunday with Kentucky and Philadelphia as he talked about the Cats trying to “exorcise the ghosts from 1992”. This drove me nuts, especially because I knew he was going to do it. Jim, that game was 14 years ago. Randolph Morris and Rajon Rondo were 6 years old. You think they’re up all night thinking about Grant Hill to Laettner? Plus, haven’t the “ghosts” been exorcised? Kentucky’s won 2 National Championships since that game. Ugh…. The Masters…. coming in 2 weeks….
…….. I had to do a triple take when I heard the immortal Larry Krystkowiak was the coach of Montana. The reason being – not only haven’t I heard the name in 10 years, but Krystkowiak was an outstanding Sega athlete. In the original Lakers/Celtics for Genesis, Krystkowiak, on the Bucks, had all 0’s for stats because he was injured the prior year. But yet somehow he was “good” in the game. (Does anyone remember this?) So sure enough, after you hit five 3-pointers in a row with him the game would confuse itself, and just freeze. And eventually we had to stop playing because my buddy would ONLY play with the Bucks.
To quote an old friend, “Krystkowiak broke the game”. It was unprecedented. Good to see he wound up coaching in Montana...
……..If you have Texas going to the Final 4, congratulations - you’re going to lose. The Longhorns will prove once again they are a fraud team. All talent. No heart. If the first two games weren’t in their own backyard, they wouldn’t even be playing this weekend. What is this, the Women’s Big East Tournament? Why are so many teams playing at home? I’d be steamed if I were N.C. State playing Texas in Dallas, or Arizona having to play Nova in Philly. These are road games in what’s supposed to be a neutral tournament, and I think some of the integrity is lost. The only exception, of course, was Georgetown playing Ohio State in Dayton, because as we know, The Gus Johnson Factor supersedes any home court advantage…
....... Finally, the greatest gambling game of the weekend had to be the George Washington -2.5 UNC-Wilmington game on Thursday. First of all, I’d write about this regardless of what side of the game I was on. Okay maybe not. But nonetheless, it was ridiculous. GW was down 18 points, 64-46 with 11 minutes left. With the spread, that’s -21.5. They go on a 19-0 run, and then with 25 seconds left and down 2, GW was fouled taking a 3. If the guy makes 1 out of 3 or 3 out of 3 you’re in trouble (if you have GW). You need him to make 2 to force the OT, where you can cover, in theory. Sure enough, he makes 2 out of 3 and we go to OT. Then in the extra session GW is down 85-81 with 2 minutes left – they rally again, and with a few seconds left up a deuce, GW made 1 out of 2 free throws to take a 3 point lead – Wilmington missed a 3 at the buzzer and GW covered by a half. You needed like 26 different things to happen if you had GW and they all did. It was as an emotionally draining game you’ll ever see, especially after 9 straight hours of drinking at The Place.
That is all for this year. Good luck the rest of way.