Thoughts on a Long Weekend of Hoops
I watched a lot of basketball this weekend; a lot more than I thought I would. Some thoughts:
- The Cal women’s team fought valiantly Sunday morning, clawing back from a deficit as large as 11 to take a couple of small leads. However, without much of an outside game, they just didn’t have enough to win their first tournament game since 1993.
- Regarding the women’s game, if you’re down by 1 with 7.5 seconds left, you can’t take 7 seconds to foul. You just can’t.
- I don’t watch that much women’s basketball, but it sure seems like there were a lot less fouls called Sunday morning. Lenient refs? Clean, lady-like basketball? Women’s game not as physical? I couldn’t say.
- I’d just like to point out that the coach of Notre Dame’s women’s basketball team is named ‘Muffet McGraw’. Insert your own dirty joke here.
- OK, back to the men’s basketball tourney. Overall, pretty boring, not like the upset-fest that ruined my bracket last year. All the 1-seeds survived, and the highest remaining seed is 7th-seeded UNLV, which took out a Wisconsin team that looked terrible all weekend.
- The Pac-10 gets 3 teams into the Sweet 16, which makes me happy. Only the SEC got as many into the second weekend. Not quite who I thought we’d see, though. Yeah, UCLA and Oregon looked good to get through, but Wazzu fell to a dangerous Vandy in double-overtime. Instead, USC got past Kevin Durant and Texas to their second regional final since 1979.
- In a matchup between Texas and USC, who was a Bear fan supposed to root for? Ugh. Begrudgingly, I went with USC. Here’s why:
* Pac-10 pride
* I don’t hate the ‘SC basketball team as much as the football team (especially now that Henry Bibby is gone)
* Hard to root against a team playing in memory of a fallen teammate (point guard Ryan Francis was shot last year before the season started)
- If you don’t have an HDTV and can possibly afford one, go out and get one before the Final Four. You’ll thank yourself later, and you’ll never want to go back.
