NCAA tournament 2011 — running thread

In that case, Texas really got fucked.

 

You strike me as the kind of guy who would enjoy an AAU tournament over a good quality basketball game.

I get frustrated watching that AAU shit because they aren't playing basketball and they create bad habits in players that, to me, too many coaches acquiesce to out of fear of "losing" the player.

To me, basketball is passing to the open man, making the extra pass, setting solid screens, making meaningful cuts, using your body to establish position, keeping your man in front of you on defense, rotating correctly both on help side defense an to establish floor balance on offense, etc., etc. Butler excels at all those things.

And, as a result, they defend well and, yes, they score more than most teams. They average 72.4 points per game, which is 73rd out of 335 Division I teams, hardly "slow-down" numbers.

I, for one, LOVE watching Butler. They play the game right and win.

 

Flip it over to tru. Marquette-Syracuse separated by a point with three minutes left. Gus is starting to feel it.

 

Odd little factual tidbit: there have been zero teams from Richmond, Virginia reaching the sweet 16 for 23 years. Until this year when TWO teams from Richmond reach it in the same year. What are the odds of that?

And I can't help but wonder if VCU would be making this run if Jay Bilas and the ESPN crew hadn't spent half their Selection Sunday show ridiculing their inclusion. Those insults seem to have supercharged their asses.

 

Fans of every other school in the Big 12 don't see a problem with this.

 

Can't wait for ESPN's mea culpa on that one.

 

Gus Johnson calling a nail-biter. Fantastic.
'Cuse losing busts my bracket all to hell, but I don't care.

 

I've seen better fundamentals at a seventh-grade CYO game than what Syracuse has shown. Pathetic.

 

Traditional bed-shitters doing a lot of bed-shitting in this tournament. I'd worry if I were a Kansas fan.

 

You could be waiting for a loooong time on that one.

 

Ha, i pulled out the stopwatch on my phone, and rewound the dvr. I'm no ref, but I got 4.4 twice.