“The terrible twos last through age three.” – Jodi Picoult
Just a few quick thoughts for you tonight, minions. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday.
Two For Two
Riddle me this, Batman. Sweet Sixteen. Eight games. No upsets. The better seeded team won all eight. Now here we are, two games into the Elite Eight, and both games were won by the lower seeds. Granted, it’s hard to call a #2 seed an underdog, but it is noteworthy that both #1 seeds lost tonight. So what does that mean for tomorrow? Will the remaining #1s go down? Not likely. Only once in the 64-team era has a Final Four lacked at least one #1 seed. On the other hand, will the law of averages kick in and BOTH top seeds win tomorrow? This seems more likely, but as the cliche goes, that’s why they play the game.
- This Night Was Not For The Birds – Did you notice that both bird Mascots lost tonight? Coincidence? I think not! The Villanova Wildcats are the only remaining animal mascot in the tournament.
- Boomer Sooner – I didn’t watch this game, but I see from the highlights and box score that Oklahoma put the hurt on Oregon. Buddy Hield dropped 37, which was more than half of what the entire Oregon team scored. I’m really looking forward to that national semifinal with Villanova. And speaking of Villanova…
- SuperNova…again – This game I did watch, and what a game it was. Two things stood out to me in this game. One was Kansas’ poor shooting. They were 6-22 from 3-point range (27%), and 7-11 from the free throw line (64%). Villanova wasn’t any better from the field, but they were nearly perfect from the line (18-19, 95%). The other thing I noticed was the Jayhawks’ astonishing inability to make a play or generate any sort of reasonable offensive set in the final minute. It seems that teams, even in the upper echelon, are having trouble executing under pressure in this year’s tournament.
- Could You Repeat That? – Either coaches or going deaf, or the broadcast crews need to rethink their halftime interview strategy. The fans are screaming. The bands are playing. The sideline reporter is asking the usual repertoire of inane questions, and coaches are shouting, “What? Sorry, could you repeat that. I can’t hear you!” I don’t know, maybe they should, like, you know, catch them in tunnel or something.
- Here’s Where Things Get Interesting – The elimination of Kansas takes one of the two most popular championship picks out of the mix, leaving us with an interesting situation. Of the six remaining teams in the tournament, only a North Carolina championship comes WITHOUT a monster Scategories bonus. If North Carolina were to lose tomorrow, you can pretty much throw the current standings out the window.
And now for just a couple of quick awards…
Quick Awards
- The What Does The Fox Say award goes to Deb Fox who snuck into 17th place while no one was looking. On a side note, did you know that “snuck” isn’t actually the past participle of sneak, but rather sneaked is? Nevertheless, snuck sneaked into common usage in American English some 200 years ago and has since become so common as to have pushed sneaked right out of the way. Weirdly, my blogging software’s spell checker doesn’t recognize snuck, but it does recognize sneaked. Very sneaky snuck is…like a fox.
- The You Can Say That Again award goes to Tom “Spike Lee Can’t Sing” Gidley. Neither can Barkley or Sammy L., for that matter.
- The Kindergarten Cops award goes to six-year-old cousins Bryce and Ben Hand who currently occupy 6th and 7th place overall. Of course they do. What could possibly make more sense than two boys who are just learning how to read and write beating the tar out of 810 other geniuses in this contest? Yes I’m bitter.
Check back tomorrow night for the final awards of the week. BIG games await us tomorrow night with BIG bonus points available if underdogs Notre Dame or Syracuse can pull off the upset.
The Wizard of Whiteland