2nd Round - Still Mad

Well - the second round did not disappoint. Pardon the hyperbole, but I really think that was the best first weekend of the tourney I've every seen. Friday had some down time, but some good ones sprinkled in as well (Wisco/Wofford, NM St/Mich St., among others). But then the 2nd round started up on Saturday with some serious expectations to live up to after the previous two days.

The second round slate kicked off with tenth seeded, unknown St. Mary's from way out west upsetting the mighty #2 seeded Villanova Wildcats. St. Mary's played a great game start to finish. 'Nova was able to make a little run and keep it kinda close based off of the talent gap between the two teams, but something was just not right down the stretch and St. Mary's was the better team at the end of the day. St. Mary's will take on Baylor in the second round - that doesn't scream "must-see", but it is about as intriguing a matchup we have in the Sweet 16.

Next up was Butler and Murray State playing in a 5/13 seeded matchup. Butler squeezed it out by two points. Great game all around, this is why I love college hoops. No future NBA players played in this game, it was just twenty college kids fighting like winning was the only thing in the world that mattered. While Butler was able to hold on, Murray State has to be happy with their performance in the tournament.

At the same time that the above game was being played, Ohio U. was trying to follow up their insane upset over G-town with another upset over Tennessee. Saturday was not their day. Ohio looked like the small, undersized, under-talented team that they are and Tennessee exposed them. The game was never close as Tennessee won in a double digit rout.

Next up: game of the weekend. The mighty, overall #1 seeded Kansas Jayhawks got upset in crazy fashion as ninth seeded Northern Iowa (YES, Northern Freaking Iowa) won by two points. NIU actually led pretty much from start to finish and controlled the tempo of the game. NIU was bombing threes and playing good defense and pushing the tempo the entire game. It's so weird, yes, he has a national title under his belt, but it has to be asked: is Bill Self a bad tournament coach? It seems like these things happen more often than Final Four runs. Too bad. On the other hand, NIU-Mich State (sans Kaylin Lucas) in the Sweet 16 is gonna be gooooood stuff.

The rest of the night was kind of a bore with no close games. However, that doesn't mean there weren't any upsets:

Old Dominion followed up their upset of Notre Dame with a quality showing vs Baylor, but in the end Baylor showed they were #3 seed-worthy, winning by eight points, but it was not as close as the score indicated. Baylor's pretty impressive. I think if I saw them play during the year I would've planned big things for them in my bracket pools (I love hindsight!).

The #3/#11 New Mexico/Washington was a blowout in every sense of the word. But it was the eleventh seeded Huskies doing the blowing out. In what was supposed to be a down year for the Pac-10, Lorenzo Romar has his boys playing really well when it matters most (cliche alert). Quincy Pondexter is no joke, reminds me of former Huskie and current Blazer Brandon Roy. He can do it all and loves taking the big shot. Dangerous team.

Kansas State showed again that they came to play some basketball. They haven't seen one threat in the first two rounds as Frank Martin has his boys playing with purpose. It's hard to believe this team lost three times to Kansas during the season, and looked completely overmatched in 2 of those 3 outings. Now, they're still dancing while the Jayhawks are back in History classes. This game is funny. Anyway - KSU beat BYU by 12. Nothing memorable happened. Consider yourself informed.

The final game on Saturday featured John Calipari's Wildcats of Kentucky continuing to look hungry and blowing Wake Forest out of the water. This game was never close. Kentucky is ballin', watch out everyone else.

So that was it for Saturday. Sunday was pretty boring (ummmm, not really). Read the next post for the Sunday wrap-up.


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