March Through Madness: An NCAA Tourney Blog : Sweet 16

In the Matter of Davidson v. Goliath

Mark Coatney — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:25:34 GMT

Besides being our day of rest, Sunday is the day of my longstanding pickup basketball game. Which begins at 5 p.m. sharp, which means that I didn't watch the Kansas-Davidson game. Mostly. At least in real time. I saw the last couple of minutes in a bar in around the corner after my game ended, and while I would later watch the whole thing, really, I saw the whole contest right there--the Kansas guards playing tight, Davidson making some plays but going through some offensive dry spells, Stephen Curry hitting some clutch shots but missing more through sheer exhaustion.

Later, after reviewing the tape, my thoughts were pretty much the same: That's a good Davidson team, and very well coached. They successfully doubled the Kansas big guys, and it was a really smart strategy, because what they realized is that while the Kansas bigs are tall, great scorers, strong and hit the boards well, they're not very good passers. Still, I think Davidson would be playing next weekend if they didn't have their own Belmont moment late in the game--they only scored, what, 5 points over the last 7 minutes, because they started to get a little tentative. When they were up 4 midway through the second half, I think they did a little bit of that "Holy crap, we're going to the Final Four" thing, and it cost them. Still, it was a great game, best of this weekend, I'd say, in terms of sheer hustle and desire.

That's because the others were such blowouts. Unlike last year, when Florida was the clear leader, in this year's tournament there were four favorites, at once roughly equal to each other and better than the other teams in the draw. Now they're all in the Final Four, which if nothing else should give us three great games next weekend. I'm already sad that the tournament doesn't include a consolation game anymore. Especially since North Carolina-Memphis would be such a great matchup.

Still, looking ahead, what do you guys think? I'm still not a believer in Memphis; they're talented, and well-coached, but UCLA is better, so I have the Bruins moving on, 68-62 over the Tigers. In the other game...hmm. Everyone says that Carolina's defense is the Achilles Tar Heel, but I'm not so sure. Carolina gives up a lot of points because they play at a fast pace that allows the other team more opportunities to score, sure, but a better metric of a defense is the percentage of opposing possessions that result in scores, and Carolina does better there. And we've all seen throughout this tournament how gifted they are offensively.

Kansas can win, though, by keeping up a constant pressure on the Carolina guards; I think they will wilt by the second half, and the pressure should help keep the ball out of Hansbrough's hands. The Jayhawks have four superior defenders who can guard anybody in the Carolina backcourt, and that should be the difference, with Kansas winning 83-80. I'll wait to talk about the championship game until this weekend, but for now, how do you guys see this playing out?

In Which We Bow Before the Wisdom of Kenpom

Mark Coatney — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:50:02 GMT

Just a quick note on last night's games: According to Ken Pomeroy's numbers, Louisville over Tennessee was no upset, and last night's games played out according to form. More supporting evidence for the case for Kansas...

In Which Another Editor Ensures His Team Will Lose

Mark Coatney — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:52:42 GMT

Devin, one immediate thought is, and I'm probably going to regret this, but--bring on Davidson. Kansas has lots of experience handling phenomenonally talented scorers (See: Durant, Kevin, who put up 37 in his last game against Kansas, an 88-84 loss); they'll let Curry get his 40, get out and run and win 90-80.

And now I've officially bumped my team out of the tournament.

But to me Wisconsin poses more of a challenge, because they're kind of the Hillary Clinton of the tournament: They don't give up, and they'll do whatever it takes to win. Teams like that bother Kansas, because, while the Hawks are very good, they don't impose their style of play on others--instead, they take whatever style of play is being dictated by the other team and then win playing that game. This usually works, but Wisconsin defends like nobody else in this tournament except, maybe, UCLA, and the team seems particularly good at making the contest into an ugly, close game--and that's exactly the kind of game Kansas could lose.

Also, Starr, though I loved your story about your friend and the bottle of wine (and I'm going to use that same line the next time I'm in a similar situation), everybody knows that the proper response to the men from Madison is "Badgers? We don't need no stinkin' Badgers."

That gag's been cracking me up since 6th grade.

But enough of this wishy-washy analysis based upon nothing but emotion, friendship, and, in my case, too much late night ESPN. Let's look at some cold hard statistical numbers-crunching, especially because they crunch so deliciously for KU. Ken Pomeroy breaks down the Sweet 16 on Basketball Prospectus and finds that that team with the best chance to win it all now is....your Kansas Jayhawks. His take, based on his formula to determine how well each team is playing at the moment, as expressed as each team's percentage chance to move on to the next round:

                     Elite8 Final4 Final  Champ
 1MW Kansas          93.2   64.5   48.5  33.8
 1W  UCLA            92.1   71.3   46.2  22.9
 3MW Wisconsin       82.7   32.0   19.9  11.1
 1S  Memphis         69.2   44.2   22.9   9.8
 1E  North Carolina  56.5   34.3   12.2   6.0
 3E  Louisville      60.5   27.9    8.3   3.6
 4E  Washington St.  43.5   23.7    7.1   3.1
 2S  Texas           50.7   21.6    8.4   2.6
 3S  Stanford        49.3   20.6    7.9   2.4
 3W  Xavier          51.7   14.2    5.2   1.3
 5S  Michigan St.    30.8   13.6    4.6   1.2
 2E  Tennessee       39.5   14.2    3.1   1.0
 7W  West Virginia   48.3   12.7    4.5   1.0
10MW Davidson        17.3    2.3    0.6   0.1
12MW Villanova        6.8    1.1    0.2   0.03
12W  W. Kentucky      7.9    1.8    0.3   0.02

See? The smart money says Kansas, and that's good enough for me. In fact, why don't we just bow to statistical inevitability now, and save us all the trouble...

Teams to Root for--and Against

Mark Starr — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:11:42 GMT

I figure that by now I am pretty typical of most tournament fans. I never really believed I was going to win the pool, so my rooting interest becomes idiosyncratically personal--either for or against a team, coach, player, state, guy I once knew, girl who dumped me. In other words, I go very scientific. And if I lack any good reason to root for or against, I tend to go with the underdog.

Here are teams I'm for:

Stanford: I went to grad school there and, while I never went to a single basketball game, Stanford gave me my first taste of big-time college sports, namely football. The young among you are probably laughing, but once upon a time that was not an absurd statement. My stint coincided with the Jim Plunkett era (Plunkett would go to the Patriots as the #1 pick in the 1970 draft and later win a Super Bowl with the Raiders). Stanford won back-to-back Rose Bowls, one with Plunkett and another with Don Bunce at quarterback, over #1-ranked, undefeated and, as usual, overrated Big Ten teams, Ohio State and Michigan respectively.
Michigan State: They were my Final Four sleeper and, if you can't win your pool, nothing impresses like picking the outsider in the Final Four.
Villanova: More than 20 years later, my hat is still off to Villanova for the great upset over Patrick Ewing and Georgetown for the 1985 basketball championship. My favorite player on that team was Ed Pinckney, a great college player and a serviceable pro who lasted a dozen seasons in the NBA and averaged more than 12 points a game for his career. His sister, Cheryl, used to work in the photography department at Newsweek and was a lovely lady.
Davidson: It isn't just that I am charmed by Stephen Curry, though you got to love a guy who can drill it from downtown and still stops to kiss his mom on his way onto the court after halftime. But I actually remember the great Lefty Driesell teams of the '60s there and, for reasons that I can't remotely recall, became a big fan of the school's biggest star, Fred Hetzel. That won't trigger a lot of memories, but he was a two-time All-American and the first pick overall in the '65 NBA draft. He only lasted seven seasons in the NBA, but he averaged 18.9 points and 9.9 rebounds a game with the pros, numbers that would earn him an eight-figure salary today.
Wisconsin: So many of my friends went to Wisconsin in the '60s (and my brother-in-law went there later) that I have always had great affection for Madison and the Badgers. Besides, almost 30 years ago I had a memorable dinner at a restaurant called Ovens of Brittany. My dining companion ordered a German white that he didn't really like. I asked him if he wanted to send it back. He said, 'No, let's just drink it fast and try a different one." RIP Sean Toolan, killed covering Beirut in 1981.
Memphis: I know John Calipari is a little too slick (OK, a lot too slick), but his UMass teams were some of my favorites ever. I owe him something for the great entertainment.
Washington State: I was doing a story on decathlete Dan O'Brien who lived in Moscow, Idaho, but did his training for field events across the border on the Cougars campus. On a dank, drizzly, chilled afternoon, O'Brien tossed discuses while I gathered them and skittered them back (throwing them more than 20 feet was beyond my capability). Had I not been there, O'Brien, later an Olympic gold medallist, would have been fetching his own. I learned a lot that afternoon about just what it takes to attain greatness.
Louisville: Two of my favorite all-time players--Darrell Griffith and Wes Unseld. And I've got a soft spot for the Big East.
Tennessee: Once there were immortals like Red Auerbach and Red Holtzman, but the Jewish basketball coach is now a dying breed. I give you Bruce Pearl.

You will note that some of these "fors" are in direct conflict. And sometimes I don't know which team I'm rooting for until the game begins and my gut tells me. But here are teams I'm against:

UCLA: They made my college years boring by winnning every single time. No wonder I didn't go to a basketball game at Stanford. The Bruins have enough hardware to last until the next millennium.
Kansas: Our buddy Coatney just wants this one too bad. Lacking a passion for a team, nothing can get the juices flowing like the misery of a friend. Kansas is my schadenfreude special.
West Virginia: I actually like this team, but the whole state acted appallingly when football coach Rich Rodriguez left for Michigan. (They weren't all that upset when Bob Huggins skipped out on Kansas State after just one season to coach basketball at his alma mater, West Virginia.) There has to be some punishment meted out for fans' bad behavior so I'm rooting for the Mountaineers to provide some mild disappointment.
North Carolina: In truth, I have nothing against Dean Smith, Michael Jordan, Tyler Hansbrough or Carolina blue. But they are royalty and I am strictly a proletarian. Now that Devin is miserable about Duke, I can join him in hoping that nobody at Carolina gets to be happy either.

Wounded, But Wiser, Our Expert from Duke Revises His Picks

Devin Gordon — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:28:40 GMT

So in my first post for this NCAA tournament blog, I confessed to being a bracketology bonehead--no matter how closely I follow college hoops, I never win bracket pools, never even come close--and in case you thought I was being falsely modest, I am proud to report that I am currently in last place in Newsweek's 15-person pool. Actually, let me be more specific: I'm in distant last place. There's almost as much daylight between me and 14th place as there is between 14th and 1st. Oy. I've already lost my national title pick (thanks, Georgetown) and another Final Four pick (thanks, Pittsburgh... actually, thanks to the entire Big East for your support). At this point, my prediction that I'll nail 1.6 of the Final Four teams is looking spot-on, assuming one of my safe, remaining choices (top seeds North Carolina and UCLA) survives the second weekend. Give me some credit: yes, I'm always wrong with my tourney picks--but at least I was right about how wrong I'd be.

With that in mind, shall we turn to the Sweet 16? It could just be the wounds I'm nursing from Duke's early exit, but the two games in the West region are the only ones that don't really get my motor going. I think UCLA--given time to rest some nagging injuries--will put its sluggish tourney start in the rearview mirror and roll past a Western Kentucky team that probably should've lost in the first round to Drake. I'm similarly uninspired by Xavier-West Virginia, which should be a nice contest between two solid, well-coached teams, but if I had to bet my house on which Sweet 16 match-up is the least likely to feature the future national champion, this is the one I'd pick.

I doubt that Wisconsin-Davidson will wind up producing the champ, either, but every game featuring The Stephen Curry Scoring Machine is officially a must-see event. I've caught both of these teams up close: once upon a time, in late 2007, when Duke was good, we blew Wisconsin off the floor and scraped past Davidson, holding Curry to 20 points and harassing him into eight turnovers. Davidson was the more impressive team then, and I hope I'm not jinxing its chances by saying it is more impressive now. Coatney, assuming your Jayhawks can survive Villanova, I assume you're pulling hard for Wisconsin? Otherwise, Kansas will find out what it's like to be Duke: the team that everyone in the country desperately wants to lose.

The remaining four games--Carolina/Washington State, Louisville/Tennessee, Memphis/Michigan State and Stanford/Texas--all look positively delicious to me. Super match-ups all around. I'm sure Washington State looks like a cake walk for Carolina, but in fact, this is exactly the kind of team that the Tar Heels should worry about. The Cougars have held their two opponents to a combined 81 points so far, and have rolled in both games with nearly as much ease as Carolina. If Wazzu can control the tempo against Carolina's speed demons, they could make a game out of this. This is the kind of plodding, scratching, frustrating contests that has "top-seed upset" written all over it. But... can Wazzu score enough to actually win? I doubt it. Wazzu played conference foes UCLA and Stanford tight in all four face-offs this season against the PAC-10's pillars of strength, but they ended up losing all four. As a Duke fan, I'm desperate for someone to knock off the Heels, and I do think we'll finally see them sweat. But I don't think their tournament ends here, especially not in what amounts to a home game in Charlotte.

At this point, I'm sure so many people have lost faith in Memphis--especially from the free-throw line, where the Tigers look like frightened kittens--that Tom Izzo's Spartans are probably the favorite. But I think teams like Memphis, ones with NBA talent striding off the bench, tend to slip into cruise control against schools they know they should beat. And they save their best for when they know everyone's watching. Everyone will be watching on Friday night--this is the late game, with a scheduled start 15 minutes after Kansas / Villanova--and I think all those studs are gonna rise to the occasion and overwhelm a solid but unspectacular Spartans team.

As for Louisville-Tennessee and Stanford-Texas, honestly, ya got me. I have no idea which way they'll go. In my bracket, I picked Tennessee and Stanford to be gone by now, and given the way they struggled past lower seeds, the prevailing wisdom seems to be that they're not long for this tournament. But Texas hardly impressed against a singularly unimpressive Miami squad, and as Coatney, our resident Big 12 expert, can attest, Coach Rick Barnes has a knack for assembling the best talent in the land and coaching it into the ground. I'm going with Stanford to pull off the upset. As for Tennessee, this is a team I've never particularly believed in, and the fact that their best player, James Lofton, had leg surgery yesterday isn't a good sign, even if he is expected to suit up tomorrow night. These are two teams that play at a furious pace, with tons of pressure, and I think Louisville will hold up better, if only because none of /their/ players had leg surgery yesterday. But there I go, putting my chips on the Big East again. Have I learned nothing?

OK, gents, over to you. Where will your attention be fixed tomorrow night and Friday?