NCAA tourney second round thread

Yes sir, it is.

 

Obviously it's easier to see in a stop-action photo -- but that's just piss-poor to miss that call.
Hopefully the refs are disciplined; chances are, though, they'll be working the Final Four.

 

If Hibbert were about four inches shorter that assessment would fit him pretty well. He's just not that good and he's going to be a grade A bust in the NBA assuming some team is dumb enough to take him in the lottery.

 

Whether he's a good NBA player or not is a separate argument. The first four fouls against him in the Davidson game were complete bullshit. Being overrated doesn't mean he should be removed from the game. Sorry, but 10 offensive fouls -- eight off the ball -- is utterly ridiculous. It reeks of favoring the weaker team because it is overmatched athletically.

I now return you to your Davidson as Cinderella storyline.

 

Somebody's brackets are screwed up. ^
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Nope, picked Wisconsin to beat G'town. I'm a Big East fan, Nova specifically, so you can claim that bias.

Or you can find me another game where a team shot 28 three-pointers and 30 free throws. Or a game where a team shot 63 percent, including 10 threes and lost. Or a game in which one team had 13 more free throw attempts AND 16 more field-goal attempts.

This can only happen with a ton of turnovers. A ton. G'town had 20. Ten were offensive fouls. That's a screw-job by the refs.

Frankly, the refs were so in the bag for the underdog in most games in this tournament it was an embarrassment. There weren't enough upsets last year, I guess.

 

Words fail me. Not one, but two guys foul him? One of whom has a grip on his wrist?

 

Having seen the games in Raleigh over the weekend, two observations:

Carolina is better than freaking good. They just look like they're on a different level. I realize there are some good teams they'll still have to play, but they didn't show many weaknesses in games 1 and 2. And let's not discount all the Carolina blue they'll see in the stands on this weekend's "neutral" court two hours from campus.

If there's a better pure shooter around than Stephen Curry, then I've missed him. Every time you question his shot selection, getting a pass and immediately turning and shooting, you see the ball swishing through the net a second later. In that game against Gonzaga, the 3 he hit with about 90 seconds to go, just when you thought Gonzaga had the advantage, was like a dagger in the heart. I haven't read the story about how all the major powers missed him, though it's probably been overwritten in the last day or two.

 

Just add that play to Stanford's "foul" that helped UCLA force overtime, then the mugging and illegal shot to beat Cal two days after that. Some teams simply get the luck when it comes to calls.

Georgetown was one until Sunday -- the non-goaltend at West Virginia, the Villanova debacle -- and UCLA's another one.

 

Ridiculous.

 

Don't know if this has been posted yet (and it is a first-round game), but I knew I wasn't seeing things when Greg Paulus made a late-game save against Belmont. I could have sworn he was a yard out of bounds when he saved it.

http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u233/terpbe2/paulusanim.gif

I'm an SEC guy, not a UNC homer, but I'm really glad they're out.

 

That footage definitely runs counter to jagtrader's theory that the refs wanted underdogs to win. It's not like Paulus' foot was on the line -- he was way out of bounds. How did they miss that?