Monday, April 2, 2012

NCAA Tournament and Championship Game Thoughts

In the interest of not flooding this blog with NCAA Tournament posts over the last month I decided to hold back until the Championship Game.

I follow a lot of college basketball guys on Twitter and they are making me feel like not going to this Final Four is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. I love college basketball and I love New Orleans. I get a pit in my stomach every time I read a NOLA-centric tweet by those guys.

As a whole this tournament hasn't been that exciting. It's been a good watch with the two 2-15 upsets and everything but to go through a whole tournament without a buzzer beater is disappointing. There were a few moments that you wish happened: the ref making the right call and giving UNC-Asheville a chance to make history against Cuse, Rob Brandenberg's three pointer to fall for VCU against Indiana, . If they give the ball to Asheville like they should have they have a chance to tie it up and the one that would have been the feel good story of the tournament with Robbie Hummel hitting that game tying three pointer against Kansas. This tournament could have used that one. I'm not even counting Wisconsin's last shot against Syracuse. That one just rubbed me the wrong way. Jordan Taylor had 15 seconds to make a pass or two to set up a better shot. Instead he had a hero complex and just dribbled himself in to a bad shot attempt. Although if Josh Gasser was able to throw in that offensive rebound attempt, Taylor's shot would have been wiped from my memory.

On to the Championship Game tonight. I cannot be more impressed with what Kansas has done this year. This was the year they were going to have to rebuild. They weren't even picked to win the Big 12 (preseason 3rd behind Baylor and Missouri). I know Bill Self has a national title under his belt but even if they lost to Ohio State on Saturday, it's by far the best coaching job of his career. All that being said, I look across at Kentucky and can easily see them running away with the game tonight. Kentucky having an eraser around the basketball does not play in to Thomas Robinson's strengths. He likes to bully his to the rim for baskets. And with Anthony Davis around waiting to help it looks like a 4-15 type of game for Robinson. For Kansas to have any shot at winning tonight Tyshawn Taylor needs to hit some shots from outside. He's 0-20 from three in the tournament. Actually, as a whole, Kansas is going to need to live on the outside.

The line is Kentucky -6.5. I haven't decided how I'm going to bet it yet. My head is telling me Kentucky but I really want to root for Kansas. It may be a prop Championship Game. We'll be live blogging it here so I'll make my picks during that.

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