Saturday, March 26, 2011

NCAA Basketball Update

My bracket's busted, and I suspect those who seem to be winning right now must have cheated. Who except Kentucky fans had them beating Ohio State? That was a surprise to me.
Who figured Duke would get shot down so convincingly by Arizona?

The only teams still alive for me are Butler, Kansas and UConn. At least I picked one upset right, but only because I'm a Butler fan.

Today Butler's going to have to beat Florida if they want to get back to the Final Four. It would seem to me that they're going to need a healthy Andrew Smith to have a chance. If he's hobbled by the ankle sprain he picked up against Wisconsin, it's going to be very tough for the Dogs to contain the Florida bigs.

Even if Smith is hobbled, it would be a mistake to write them off. I think Donovan knows that as much as anybody, and he won't let his team take them for granted. My pick was BYU to beat Florida, and it would have been fun to see a Butler-BYU matchup because I think they're similar teams. But so far Butler's been able to find a way to win, and my hope is they can do it again, whether or not Smith's ankle cooperates.

Since Ohio State's gone, I'm not even going to try to pick the national champ. Most everybody in the Elite 8 seems capable, although I'm not completely sold on VCU yet.

It's been a fun tournament. I've been missing the Hoosiers, though, and am still a little upset with them for all the bad decisions they've made in the years since the sham firing of Bob Knight that turned them from one of the top basketball schools in the country to a mediocre also-ran.

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