Archive for March, 2008

Well, I’ve really been sucking the past few days in getting things posted in a timely fashion about the NCAA Tournament. I was planning an article on the Tennessee vs. Butler matchup, but the game begins in around 10 minutes, so that hardly seems worth the trouble at this point.

Nonetheless, in the interest of feeding my compulsion to post something, I’ll just leech off of the success of others. Check out these posts for a breakdown of the game, and thoughts on J.P. Prince taking over at point guard:

• A New Point Guard for Tennessee & Breaking Down Butler – Rocky Top Talk

• Bruce Ball vs. Butler Preview – The Bruce Ball Blog

• GoVolsXtra“>Pearl in Running for Naismith Award – GoVolsXtra

To further degrade the quality of the updates around this shabby joint, I’m also going to re-run my motivational image for the Butler Game..

See, I can be just as unreliable as the Kentucky Wildcats too…

– Go Figure …

Well, as expected, there have been a few surprises in the Tournament so far. I being busy re-modeling my garage have been a bit slow to comment on these (as if anyone cared…). Be that as it may, here are my observations…

• Kentucky Consistency: Despite managing to make something out of nothing, Billy Clyde and the boys in blue have proven in the NCAA Tournament that they still possess the ability down the stretch to demonstrate the quality which helped pave their way to an 11 seed in the NCAA Tournament: the ability to suck the tubes hard when they really have to.

In fairness, however, the Vanderbilt Commodores also proved that — when forced to play on a normally configured basketball floor — they blow.

That’s the last time I take either of them as a longshot in my bracket…

• Pac-10 Power: I don’t claim to keep up with the Pac-10 in anything, but I was under the impression that UCLA, Stanford, and USC were supposed to be simply amazing teams which made their opponents quiver in fear, little children run for their mother, and grown men crap their pants. Apparently, Kansas State didn’t get the memo, and Marquette and Texas A&M all but disregarded it.

News Flash, UCLA is beatable…

• Bulldog Blowout: Despite veritable orgy of wins over the last week leading up to the NCAA Tournament, the Georgia Bulldogs did not achieve the ridiculous and manage to amass more wins in the post-season than they did during the SEC regular season. Nice run, however for the Dawgs, but now the party is over..

So could someone please tell Dennis Felton that Wade Houston called and wants his moustache back?

• The Kevin O’Neill Chronicles: After coaching the Arizona Wildcats all season while Lute Olsen “found” himself (despite the fact that Olsen has to be approaching 70 — or at least looks like it) Kevin O’Neill again gets the shaft as Olsen made it clear that he will now resume his role as head coach. I guess Olsen is done chasing skirt, and can get back to doing his job. I don’t get why Olsen needed a whole season off because of a divorce — Bruce Pearl has actually improved his record during his divorce, and Pat Summitt hasn’t been too shabby during hers either.

Given Tennessee’s experience with O’Neill and his refusal to put up with the Big Dickey’s bullshit (did I say “bullshit?” I meant “bullshit.”), I’d say it’s a safe bet that O’Neill is gonzo, and that right soon. As the only Pre-Pearl / Post-DeVoe coach the BasketVols ever had that was worth a damn, I wish him well. Speaking of which, the SEC schools that are thinking of trading up on their coach could do a lot worse than giving the old “Revco Kicker” a look.

I guess Lute Olsen and the Big Dickey have one thing in common … now O’Neill thinks they are both two-faced jackasses…

• Dookus Go Homeus: Dook took it in the teeth, exactly as I didn’t predict. Oh well, Kentucky, Vanderbilt, and UConn already screwed my bracket enough to make Dook’s loss to the West Virginia Mountaineers a game of little consequence. I just hate it that the Belmont Bruins couldn’t pull it out the night before — I was so hoping that the Bruins would give it to Coach Kryezq?r²gxmzrfeykzwGkeeei the hard way, and lay it on the “regal” ACC. Hats off to West Virginia for finishing the job.

As for the boys of Belmont, I know moral victories are like french-kissing your sister (fun at first, but then just damn nasty) but Belmont obviously has a really hot sister. No shame in taking Dook down to the wire, even if you came up one point short. Thankfully, Joel over at Rocky Top Talk didn’t have a coronary or toss his cookies on his keyboard during the 70-71 loss by Belmont…

… if Joel had quit posting due to death or a broken computer I’d have had one less great resource to plagiarize.

• UConn Sucks: But of course I think everyone already knew that…

• In Case You’re Keeping Score: Finally, just to show — like Eliot Spitzer — I am accountable to the people, my bracket is completely shot to hell.

More to come, on the BasketVols, and on everyone else once the rest of the Sweet 16 are confirmed…

– Go Figure …

Images Courtesy of: Loser With Socks, SportsCrack, Georgia Sports Blog, and WildcatsMania

Only have a second, but in case you hadn’t noticed, Bruce and the Barbarians just hit win number 30!

More later…

– Go Figure …

Okay, I admit it — this is a completely irrational rant, but I can’t help it. If any of you SEC fans out there happen to live in the heart of another conference’s “territory” then you may understand. Either way, I am unapologetic about this little rant…

I live in Raleigh, North Carolina, which is generally a really great place to live — except when it comes to college sports. My house and office are about 5 miles from NC State University. Considering how shitty the Wolfpack generally is in pretty much every sport other than Tiddly-Winks, that isn’t so bad. Widen the arc just a bit more, however, and things get decidedly more annoying. Dook (a/k/a Duke) is about 15 miles up the road, and Tarhead State (a/k/a UNC) is about 9 miles beyond that.

I live in the bowels of ACC Country…

Now, during football season, things aren’t all that bad — basketball season (especially the month of March), however, is a different matter.

There are few things that I dislike more than Tarhead fans. The self-righteous “Whine & Cheese” Smurfs of Chapel Hill have to be some of the most annoying fans in the sports world. Of course, the UNC crowd would claim this is unfair — they would argue that the Dookies are worse. In some ways they might be right — the Dookies are terribly obnoxious, arrogant, elitist, and (on the whole) annoying fans — the key point, however, is that the Dook fans acknowledge that they are this way and, in fact often wear that fact as a badge of honor. UNC fans, on the other hand are generally so elitist that they refuse to acknowledge their elitism.

Duke may be the “University of New Jersey at Durham,” their fans annoying as hell, and a former employer of Steve Spurrier, but I’d still take them over the Tarheads any day — after all, they hired David Cutcliffe…

Oh yeah, did I mention that I am an alum of both the University of Tennessee and the University of North Carolina — UNC School of Law, Class of 2001…

This is not to tout my resume (like anyone would care…), but rather to point out that I have earned my bitching license. UNC is a great school, and I got a fine education there, but I hate the Tarhead fans. I am just so tired of hearing all the Tarhead talk and all the “ACC is the King” crap that I am about to puke…

Read the rest of this entry »

Ahh, the Joys of the NCAA Tournament Selection Process…

A few links worth looking at from across the blogosphere…

• A great discussion on the competition ala Print Media vs. Bloggers – World According to MoonDog
• An open letter to Ashley Alexandra “Kristen” Dupre and a Little Celebration at the Dawgs winning the SEC Tournament – Hey Jenny Slater
• Pat Summitt loves putting the screws to Geno Auriema for using ESPN’s front-office as a recruiting tool – ESPN (HT to Loser With Socks)
• A bevy of thoughts from the monkey house on the NCAA Bracket and Tennessee’s fortunes: The Bruce Ball Blog Part 1 & Part Deux, Spirit of the Hill, Rocky Top Talk, Fulmer’s Belly, Third Saturday in Blogtober, The Power T, The Tennessean, and GoVolsXtra” target=”_blank”>everyone GoVolsXtra could find

In the unlikely event that anyone cares, here’s my bracket (at least the one I’m claiming publicly, that is):

Yeah, yeah, go ahead and laugh it up…

• A podcast on getting to know the American University Eagles – Rocky Top Talk
• An addictive time waster on learning how not to fly a helicopter – Fulmer’s Belly
• Awww, Florida has to go to the NIT – Orange and Blue Hue
• WVU’s Noel Devine claims that his misdemeanor battery is a mistake (it wasn’t him, it was the one-armed man) — Wizard of Odds
• Something Reeks in Ann Arbor – Get the Picture
• A Little Saint Patrick’s Day Wish for You All – Kissing Suzy Kolber
• Why some people think that Bob Costas is a Douchebag – Epic Carnival
• Ahh yes, the joys of Rivalry, Buckeyes Rejoice at the Emasculation of Mee-shee-gun – Eleven Warriors
• Another Reason to Love CraigsList: “To the Guy Doing My Wife…” – CraigsList (HT Deuce of Davenport)
• A real find … The Application for Admission to Duke’s Flopping Camp – Brahsome

• And finally, A few ESPN highlights of everyone’s favorite grandpa, Bobby Knight – Awful Announcing

For more Bobby Knight clips, check out Gate 21’s videos over on the right sidebar… (yeah, that’s right, over there >>>>)

– Go Figure …

Image Courtesy of: LOL Jocks

Well, the final brackets are out…

Despite having the No. 1 RPI and Strength of Schedule Rating, the BasketVols were not awarded a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament. As Fulmer’s Belly, the Bruce Ball Blog, and 3rd Saturday in Blogtober all pointed out, that sucks. There really isn’t much more to be said about it, and at this point complaining further is — essentially — pointless. It ticks me off, but there’s nothing to be done about it now. I suppose we got one-upped by the “regal” basketball schools. Still as the blogs above point out, along with my man Basilio, any other school with Tennessee’s resume this season would have been a lock. There’s only one thing to do now…

…make them all regret passing us over.

Anyway, you can get a look at the full bracket here, and feel free to print it out to use for your office pool, for writing your grocery list, or for papering a bird cage…

2008 NCAA Tournament Bracket

For those of you out there who have nothing better to do, feel free to join in Rocky Top Talk’s ESPN Tournament Bracket Challenge along with a whole bunch of Tennessee bloggers and other members of the nuthouse. You can learn how by sliding over to RTT and reading Joel’s remarkably well-written instructions on joining in the fun.

Once I’ve had a chance to digest the whole thing, I’ll be posting my bracket so everyone in the blogsphere will be able to make fun of how bad I am at picking winners…

On a completely different note, I’d like to congratulate the Georgia Bulldogs and head coach Dennis Felton on winning the SEC Tournament. The Bulldogs showed a lot of heart in managing to bring home the Tournament crown. Best wishes to the Dawgs in the NCAA Tournament.

– Go Figure …

Well, despite playing well down the stretch, the BasketVols fell to the Arkansas Razorbacks in a 92-91 contest before a crowd of only a couple hundred people at Alexander Memorial Coliseum in SEC Tournament play on Saturday. While this is hardly the end of the season for the Vols, this one stings a bit more than most.

There is no question that all of the upheaval which occurred as a result of a tornado hitting the Georgia Dome on Friday night — forcing the remainder of the Tournament to be played on the Georgia Tech campus — had an impact on the Vols, but it had an equal impact on the Razorbacks. The only team which seemed to be immune to the confusion was the scrappy and focused Georgia Bulldogs squad which managed to beat both the Kentucky Wildcats and the Mississippi State Bulldogs on the same day to advance to the Tournament finals.

Everything about this tournament has been unorthodox. Throughout the tournament higher seeded teams have been falling like flies to under-manned and, apparently, under-rated teams. I would venture a guess that almost no one imagined a Tournament Championship match-up between the 22-10 Razorbacks and 16-18 Bulldogs, especially one at Alexander Memorial in front of fewer fans than most big high school games.

The fact that the top seeded teams have faired so poorly in the tournament shows two things quite clearly: The SEC is not as “down” as all the talking heads have said throughout the season, and (as I said after Tennessee fell to Kentucky at Rupp Arena earlier this season) when one team wants to win, and other team has to win, always bet on the latter.

Despite being hugely disappointed at the BasketVols loss to the Razorbacks, the game was actually very exciting, and I have to give Arkansas credit for playing with great tenacity and intensity. Chris Lofton and Tyler Smith led the Vols in scoring with 25 and 24 points respectively. Tennessee’s point-guard play, however, was not what it could have been , and the inability of the Vols to show a killer instinct on defense really hurt them down the stretch.

I think the guys over at 3rd Saturday in Blogtober pretty much sum up my feelings on the loss. Be that as it may, tonight we will know where the BasketVols end up in the NCAA field — while a number 1 seed is not out of the question, Saturday’s loss makes it a tougher sell. Either way, I know that Bruce and the Barbarians will be ready to go when it is time to play in the Big Dance. In the end, I’d rather lose in the SEC Tournament, than in the NCAA Tournament. The Vols seemed a little out of sync since the start of the SEC Tournament, and maybe this loss will help them find that focus once again.

I firmly believe that, with Bruce Pearl at the helm, anything is possible for this team. the only question now is where will the next step take them? Fortunately, we find that out tonight…

– Go Figure …