“I only feel this way when Purdue plays. I don’t know how people watch sports all the time. It’s so stressful.”

Sara Marshall, Sister-In-Law to the Wizard

I have a lot to say tonight, which stands to reason seeing that we had an overtime game which pushed the final game’s conclusion past 12:30 PM EDT. Nevertheless, the commentary must be written or the barbarian minion hordes will be at the gate! Excuse me, then, while I fire up the Keurig for one more cup of coffee before I dive in.

Cue 80s Muzak…”We built this city on rooockkk…”

Destiny, Defense, and Dumb Decisions

• It was deja vu all over again. For the first time in nearly two decades, the Sweet 16 featured a rematch of two teams that played each other in the Sweet 16 the previous year, Gonzaga vs Florida State. A considerable number of contestants had the Seminoles winning this game, assuming their size would give the Zags the same trouble it did last year. To an extent that was the case, but the outcome was different this time around.
• Plenty of Forrest, but not enough trees. FSU’s Trent Forrest had a stellar performance with 20 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals, 1 block, and a partridge in a pear tree. Conversely, big men Koumadje and Kabengele combined for just 16 points and 8 personal fouls between them. Foul trouble plagued the 7’3″ Koumadje, limiting him to just 11 minutes of court time. Meanwhile, four of the five Gonzaga starters scored in double figures.
• The word you are looking for is “tertiary”. I live in Indiana. Have my entire life. That means I’m a Pacers fan, and by extension, I love Uncle Reggie. The poor guy had a little difficulty tonight, though, when trying to explain why Florida State just didn’t have enough fire power to overcome Gonzaga. They were missing some key bench players due to injury and a death in the family, and their big men were saddled with fouls. Reggie wanted to point out that after Forrest, they really had no other scoring options. This was when he said, “They have no secondary or third-ee…uhm…third options.” He almost said thirdiary, I promise. You would think a guy who made his living with threes would know the related terms, but apparently not. Speaking of Reggie Miller…
• Kevin Harlan is great. Reggie Miller is tolerable. Dan Bonner is an insufferable Zags-hating, FSU homer! OK, I’m a little biased. OK, I’m a LOT biased, but it sure seemed like he really wanted the Seminoles to win. Speaking of homers…
• Boiler Up! A whopping 225 contestants picked Purdue to advance to the Elite Eight. Sadly, I was not among them. Even more sadly, I had Tennessee in the Final Four. If you didn’t see any of this game, Purdue was up big, only to see the Volunteers come all the way back and even lead the game with mere seconds left to play. But alas, they could not come away with a victory in large part because of…
• The boneheaded play of the day goes to Tennessee’s Lamonte Turner who fouled Purdue’s Carson Edwards on a three point shot attempt that missed with less than two seconds on the game clock. The Vols were up two at the time, and victory was almost assured until the whistle blew. Edwards incredibly missed the first of three free throws. Two makes and one overtime period later, and the Boilermakers were headed to the Elite Eight for the first time in 19 years. Never foul the jump shooter. Ever. It’s a cardinal rule of basketball.
• I must break you! I know I Tweeted this out earlier, but does anyone besides me think that Purdue’s Matt Haarms looks like Ivan Drago? Alert minion Jason Cooper posted a picture on the Facebook page. You be the judge.
• More 18 inches of nope. Aside from the Purdue-Tennessee 99-94 overtime score-fest, and Gonzaga’s respectable 72-point total, scoring was scarce. The final two games of the night were defensive battles, and that’s being kind. The four teams playing in the second games at both sites were a combined 37.5% from the field. Virginia hoisted up an incredible 33 three-point shots and made just nine. Not to be outdone, Michigan shot 19 threes and made one. I know it’s cliche, but the Wolverines have lived by the three often this season, and tonight, they died by it.
• First team to 30 wins. The game between Texas Tech and Michigan was like a pick-up game at the playground or the local YMCA. The halftime score was 24-16. That’s the fewest points the Wolverines have scored in a tournament game since 1948. I can appreciate good defense as much as the next guy, but this game was excruciating.
• The glass slipper has been shattered, with the only legitimate Cinderella left in the tournament, 12 seed Oregon, falling to top seed Virginia. The Wahoos are on a mission this year to erase the memory of their historic debacle last year when they became the first 1 seed ever to lose to a 16. Oregon had not lost since late February, and even led this game late in the second half. It was not to be, however, and the hopes of 26 minions salivating over a 23 bonus point bonanza went down with the Ducks.
• Did that bear just poo in our tent? By now you’ve seen the Buick commercial where the kid with a million questions wears his dad out on the family road trip. I have a few questions of my own, such as, why were the first few minutes of the Michigan-Texas Tech game called remotely by the crew in the studio instead of the court-side crew at the game? It turns out it was because they lost power to the TV truck, probably because the bear tripped over the extension cord. Thus we were treated to several minutes of the color commentary genius of one Charles Barkley. Gotta love that guy. Why are video reviews of out of bounds/possession calls only allowed in the last two minutes of the game? They can and do review the clock and “was that a flagrant foul” throughout the game, but for some reason we are to believe that a missed possession call in the first half isn’t as consequential as one in the last two minutes? I understand not wanting to continually interrupt game flow, but, well, they are already continually interrupting game flow. Why not have a “video official” ala the NBA and NFL who can buzz the refs and stop play in the event that video shows a CLEAR missed call? Every play should be reviewable or none of them should be. That’s my take.
• Ban the bail-out foul call. This happens in the NBA a lot. Player takes shot. Ref waits to see if player makes shot. Made shot, no whistle. Missed shot, late whistle and a foul. Now, in the NBA, officials are actually on record justifying this practice as a way of protecting players from fouling out. I am not sure if that’s the same rationale in the NCAA, but it seems to be happening with increasing frequency, and I am not a fan.

A Few Awards

Time to bring this rant in for a landing with a few awards.

• The Spiritual Warfare award goes to Joel “repicks are for wimps (or Tacko fans)” McDaniel, who messaged me on Instagram with this gem: “I’m facing major spiritual battles dude…I have Purdue winning but my family has Tennessee winning.”
• The That’s It, I’m Blocking Your Numbers award goes to my relatives Josh Marshall, Sara Marshall, and Jeffery Cardwell, who were blowing up my phone with non-stop snarkyness as Purdue closed in on their victory.
• The Top 10 award, sponsored by David Letterman, goes to Kristin Detamore, who has climbed from 342nd all the way to 10th and has picked all four games correctly this evening with original picks.
• The Look Out Below award goes to Jeff Davis who, once as high as 4th, has dropped to 567th.
• The Who Do You Think You’re Fooling? I Know You Were Watching Baseball All Night award goes to Dylan “First time i haven’t used repicks” Scheumann. I know that Dylan is a big baseball fan, and I know today was opening day. Dylan is actually doing quite well in the contest, currently in 61st and yet to lose a game in round 3. Personally, I’d rather watch that Michigan-Texas Tech game repeatedly all weekend than watch a single baseball game.

Yes, I am still leading the contest, but my chances of staying in that position dropped dramatically tonight thanks to Purdue…or Tennessee, depending on how you look at it. There have basically been about ten of us trading places in the top five with each passing game. It will be interesting to see who ends up in the lead after the weekend.

That’s all I have for tonight. The next thrilling edition of the contest commentary will be coming your way after tomorrow night’s session, hopefully a bit earlier than tonight.

The Wizard of Whiteland

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