Lexington, Ky. – Random bits of madness during the march on Atlanta:
* OK, everyone shut up about expansion. The first round is over and the conclusion is in: Expanding the NCAA Tournament makes about as much sense as expanding the NHL. There aren’t enough good teams to fill the 65 slots, let alone 96. Or 128. Or whatever absurd number people think is right.
The lower seeds in the first round went 27-5. Three of the losses came to No. 9 seeds over No. 8, which are tossups anyway. The average margin of victory was 17.8 points. Only six games were decided by single digits. No. 11 seeds Winthrop and Virginia Commonwealth beating No. 6 seeds Notre Dame and Duke, respectively, gave us our only drama.
I got so sick of listening to self- righteous coaches throw bones to their colleagues wallowing around in the NIT. Ohio State coach Thad Matta said Marist deserved an NCAA Tournament bid after it played competitively against Syracuse.
One major columnist, buying the tripe, suggested an expansion of 32 teams and to have 32 play-in games on campuses. Great. That’s just what players want. You fulfill your dream of making the NCAA Tournament and your first game is in Starkville, Miss.
Now that would truly be March madness. And punt the play-in game. Playing in Dayton, Ohio, isn’t much better.
* I can’t point fingers, however. I bought into the hype about the Pacific-10 being the nation’s best conference. Its coaches wondered why its RPI kept slipping. Now we know. The RPI knew something.
Stanford rolled over here like a whipped pup, getting drilled by Louisville 78-58. Then Arizona finished a season in which it practically yawned through half its schedule before losing to Purdue 72-63. Oregon, which whisked through the Pac-10 Tournament as if it was a round robin at the Y, struggled to beat a Miami of Ohio team that may not have made the NIT if it didn’t make a last-second bank shot to win the Mid-American Conference Tournament.
Cap it off with No. 6 seed Vanderbilt’s upset of No. 3 Washington State in Sacramento and you have a conference that’s still looking up to the SEC and ACC.
* Best sign in Lexington: During the Penn-Texas A&M game, a Penn band member waved this sign at the male A&M cheerleaders and their brush cuts: “(Robert) Gates (former Texas A&M president) chose Iraq over A&M.”
* Everyone down here is up in arms about Kentucky coach Tubby Smith’s lack of recent success. Shouldn’t someone start pointing fingers at Arizona coach Lute Olson? This is the third straight year and fourth out of five the Wildcats haven’t got out of the second round.
* Everyone’s lauding the turnaround at Texas A&M under Billy Gillispie. How about Reggie Theus at New Mexico State? If you ever saw the Aggies visit the University of Denver (whichever one of you it is) as former members of the Sun Belt two years ago, you’ll recall they were 6-24, their worst mark in 39 years.
In only two seasons, in his first head coaching job, Theus led New Mexico State to a 25-9 record, the Western Athletic Conference Tournament title and a respectable 79-67 first-round loss to Texas. Think a former NBA all-star with tons of charisma could sell a few tickets in Boulder?
* It would behoove Ralston Valley High graduate Nick Fazekas to have a big game today against Memphis. He not only needs to come up big for Nevada, but he must come up big for the NBA Draft.
One NBA scout told me early in the season that Fazekas made the right decision by returning for his senior year because he had bad games in the 2005 NCAA Tournament, when Nevada stepped up in class against Illinois and Texas. Then he never really took control in Friday’s overtime win over Creighton.
Today he’ll face Memphis front-line players he’ll probably see later in the NBA. The scouts will see this as a major test.
* Should a team like Niagara qualify for even the play-in game if it doesn’t take basketball seriously enough to have a pep band? The school borrowed the University of Dayton’s. Somewhere, Calvin Murphy is hiding his face in shame.
