At 03:36 PM 3/18/2004 -0500 Tom Beck wrote:
>For sports fans, this is one of the best times of the year.
I am happy to fully agree with Tom here. While I am a big time NFL fan,
for me the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournment is the premier sporting
event of the world.
The beauty of college basketball is that with only five players on the
floor a school of almost any size can put together a group of 5 or 6 very
special guys and play with the best.
>Anyway, I'll deal with baseball in a week or two. With regard to
>college basketball: I went to a Division 3 school (tiny Hamilton
>College, in upstate New York), so I have no alma mater to cheer for
>in the so-called Big Dance.
I went to D-III CWRU, where our Men's Basketball Coach was once named NCAC
"Coach of the Year" after pulling a .500 season.
As a side note, however, my uncle, Brian Giorgis, is one of the
most-decorated high school women's basketball coaches in New York State
history, and in his second year at Marist University has led the Red Foxes
to their first NCAA Women's Tournament Birth *ever*, after upsetting Siena
in the MAAC Championship game. They surprisingly pulled a 14 seed, and
will play Oklahoma on Saturday. Its been a big surprise for our family
because Brian told us that he figured it would take a couple of years to
turn the Marist program around - until he managed to recruit his own class
of players. We'll see if he can't pull another small miracle on
Saturday....
> For various reasons I root for mighty
>Duke University, and also for not-quite-so-mighty Princeton (where I
>went to grad school).
Unlike most college basketball fans who aren't Duke fans (and who tend to
revile Duke, in large part because of their incredible success, as well as
their arrogance), I have a soft spot in my heart for the Dukies since
Christian Laettner's mom was my third-grade teacher, and Christian
Laettner's brother (who is also quite tall BTW), was a substitute teacher
in my Middle School.
Like most Upstate New Yorker's, however, my fan allegiance lies with
Syracuse.... I still can't believe that we actually won last year... its
like a deam.
>East Rutherford: Oklahoma State (could also be Pittsburgh or
>Wisconsin; don't give St. Joseph's too much of a shot here, as they
>just aren't physical enough to hang with the tough guys).
Sorry, but I hate the discounting of St. Joseph's. An undefeated season
is pretty incredible no matter *what* League you play in.... and the
Atlantic-10 produced *four* tournament teams this year. St. Joseph's is
definitey at least as good as Marquette, who made the Final Four last year.
Wisconsin is dangerous, having its first two games in Milwaukee, but
ultimately I think that Pittsburgh's defense will prevail.
>St. Louis: Kentucky. This is by far the easiest region.
Hold on just a second here.... Washington is the hottest team in the
country, and they have already shown that they can hang with anybody,
having handed Stanford their only loss this year. A lot of people I
really respect as basketball analysts, including Jim Boeheim, say that GA
Tech has real potential to get hot and make a run. I think that Michigan
State, who suffered psychologically early on from their burtal schedule,
and Providence - who plays that bracket-busting zone defense and have a
great player in Ryan Gomes - have the potential to be dark horses. And
Gonzaga, whose only losses were to undefeated St. Joseph's and once-beated
Stanford is a strong team as well.
I am going to boldly pick that Kentucky will be the first #1 seed to lose a
game.... and narrowly like GA Tech over Gonzaga.
>Atlanta: Duke. I always pick Duke, both because they usually have at
>least a good shot, and also because if I picked against them, I would
>feel I had to root against them and I never do that. This is by far
>the toughest region, and the Blue Devils have not played well the
>last 3 weeks. But the tournament is always undiscovered country, and
>no coach in the world is better than Coach K at getting a team to
>forget the immediate past and play as if there were no yesterday and
>no tomorrow. Everyone's 0-0 today.
I don't see how Atlanta became the consensus "toughest" region - even
though such talk is purely academic since each bracket has 16 seeds.
O.k., I like Duke and MS St. a lot, but Texas? They've lost a lot of
players since their Final Four run last year. Sure Arizona has a lot of
experience, but they struggled in a very weak Pac-10 this year. A lot of
people think that Cincinnati is the weakest of the five CUSA co-champions,
and Illinois was thoroughly exposed by Wisconsin in a very, very, weak Big
10 Conference. I would rate Seton Hall is the weakest of the Big East
teams as well... and the Big East's very high level of defense can pose a
lot of problems for teams from other conferences. To the extent that one
bracket can be stronger than the others, I just don't see it in Atlanta.
My pick is MS St., which despite having a very strong season in one of the
nation's toughest Conferences, has somehow flown completely under the
radar. Among college basketball experts, I have seen KY, Duke, Stanford,
Gonzaga, UConn, Pitt, and GA Tech repeatedly picked to win it all.... yet
no MS St. It makes no sense to me.... so I'm taking them to win at all.
>Phoenix: UConn. If Emeka Okafor is healthy and can keep playing, I
>think UConn will win the whole thing. Stanford is the #1 seed here,
>but Okafor is by far the best player in the country (with all due
>respect to St. Joe's Jameer Nelson). He can carry the Huskies to the
>title.
>
>How does picking UConn to win the championship square with my
>previous statement about always picking Duke? Hey, you gotta be
>realistic. I won't be rooting for UConn, but I think (alas) they're
>going to do it. If Okafor's back spasms don't keep him from playing,
>or playing his best.
>
>Anyway, that's why they play the games. :::sings::: The ball is up...
Phoenix strikes me as the toughest bracket. A lot of basketball
observers, and both polls have Stanford, not KY, as the best team in the
country. A lot of people have UConn, the 2-seed winning at all. A lot
of people are down on NC St., but they are coming out of the toughest
Conference in the country, and have some really talented players.
Moreover, based on the early results today, we already know that the last
two national champions will be meeting in a second-round show-down.
Lastly, W. MI is this year's lone representative from the MAC Conference,
which seems to produce a double-digit "Cinderella" bracket-buster every
year. Of the three games we've seen today from this region, all of them
went down to the wire.
Ultimately, I like Stanford to upend UConn. While UConn is without
question the most talented team in the country in my mind, particularly
behind Emeka Okafor - they just have lost too many games this season.
Somehow, this team just doesn't have it all put together and doesn't seem
to show that "toughness" needed to come out on top of the close games that
invariably occur in the Tournament. Plus, with Okafor playing hurt, I
just see them losing somehow, someway, in the middle of the Tourney.
But other than that, it is definitely not a bad pick...
JDG
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John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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