I had to work Bill Raftery in here somehow.
Today’s the day.
Raft is college basketball.
I simply don’t understand how people don’t like him.
The man likes to have a couple drinks at night.
He’s one of the most prepared guys in the game.
He knows what’s going on and he’s entertaining as hell.
It also just makes me upset to listen to NCAA Tournament games without him now.
I just want Raft on every call, not too much to ask for.
What a great line.
It threw me off yesterday when he said ‘dagger’ after a Houston three.
It’s not right.
Bracket
I low key start getting a little sad when I see how many games are left.
I miss the all day action.
I miss the hope.
Still looks weird as shit seeing Princeton in the Sweet 16.
Schedule
Those old school logos are so damn good looking.
3 Best Games Today
Baylor/Creighton, Kentucky/Kansas State, Gonzaga/TCU
5 Storylines/Game Previews
1.
Trying to make history #BracketBuskers
It’s not really a secret the biggest story right now is FDU.
They shouldn’t be in the Tournament.
I’m not even being sarcastic when I say that.
They lost to Merrimack.
If it wasn’t for a dumbass NCAA rule they wouldn’t be here.
But they won a First Four game then beat Purdue, so who gives a shit.
Tobin Anderson has his guys flying around, they run that press and speed you up.
Purdue struggled with it because they desperately needed Edey to bail them out.
Now, today, we have FAU coming in.
Let me plug this real quick so I do my part.
I hope FAU beats the everliving shit out of them.
It’s a #BracketBuskers thing.
I’d like a trip to Ireland as someone who picked FAU in the event.
FAU shouldn’t have been a 9-seed.
Now here’s the thing.
FAU runs the 4-out, 1-in offense but they aren’t' as reliant on it as Purdue.
They have more consistent guard play and they’ve seen pressure similar to what FDU runs in conference play.
I bring this up because Marquette is trying to make history.
Marquette has a chance now.
The bracket is open in the East.
Kolek is the Big East Player of the Year.
He’s arguably the best point guard in the country.
He needs to be 100% to do what Marquette wants to against better teams.
Yes, Kam Jones is awesome.
But Kolek is the guy they give the ball to and execute the offense late.
He can ice it himself or be a playmaker.
The other key here is the path for Marquette.
You have guards - Hoggard/Walker, Wallace/Reeves, Nowell/Johnson that are awesome to get to the Elite Eight.
That’s what TCU and Gonzaga want to do and are going to do.
That’s the most entertaining game of the day for me because I love this TCU team.
They have Mike Miles and Damion Baugh and everyone else.
Same goes for Gonzaga.
Then you look at Creighton/Baylor.
Elite guards all over the place and a real clear path to the Elite Eight - winner gets Princeton.
I’ve talked myself into Baylor, off of Baylor and back in all over the place.
That said, Baylor struggles BAD defensively.
On the other side, I’m curious how Kalkbrenner plays this game.
JTT can step out and shoot.
You have elite shooting from Baylor’s guards.
The Oscar dilemma
Speaking of game plans, I gotta talk about my guys.
My blog, Sweet 16 on the line, deal with it.
Providence didn’t really attack Kentucky the way we’ve seen teams do it.
On the flip side, Kentucky did the right thing against Providence.
You don’t trigger the offense through Oscar.
He needs to be the 4th option because you don’t win that way.
What Kentucky did was let Oscar operate in the post and crash the glass.
He killed Providence on the offensive glass and Kansas State is a bad defensive rebounding team.
Let the guards attack.
Let Toppin do his 1-2 dribbles and get to the rim or in rhythm 3.
But Livingston, Oscar and Toppin should all attack the glass similar to Providence.
Familiar rematches
I love when we get stuff like this with the NCAA Tournament conspiracy theory.
Joey Hauser vs his former team Marquette.
Sean Miller vs the school he played for in Pitt.
I want to see how Xavier comes out here.
They came out strong against KSU but then never stepped on their throats and legit survived and advanced.
Now they draw an 11 seed Pitt team who has looked fine in its first two games.
But we also saw Pitt just straight up not score against Iowa State.
