Good evening everyone. I’ve continued to keep the blog going with posts from time to time. As a matter of fact, this is my fourth blog entry for today. I have also been working on the GMC Hoops Awards, and I’m making progress. However, I’m not going to set any sort of date fro when these awards will be posted. I don’t want to end up letting people down. Hopefully, I will have them up much sooner than the start of next season in December. Anyway, one of many ways you could figure that I’ve seen too many high school basketball games this season is how I do on my NCAA Brackets.
This year, I submitted all ten of my possible entries on ESPN as well as one each on CBS Sportsline, FOX Sports, and BracketBoy.net. Now, I could sit back and say that I got some bad advice from Bracket Boy, but I know that if I had spent some time during the season watching some NCAA games, I would probably be in better shape right now. More importantly though, I love that big Orange Bubblehead of his. His columns in the Star-Ledger are very funny, and I always enjoy reading them this time of year. However, I bet many of you are probably in the same position that I’m in with my brackets. As a matter of fact there are probably many across the entire country that are feeling the same way I’m feeling right now.
Although my brackets have been busted, I must say that the action over the past several days have been quite riveting. Especially on Friday with the two big upsets in Tampa by Western Kentucky (over Drake in OT) and San Diego (over UConn), and then on Sunday with several great games including Butler-Tennessee, Memphis-Mississippi State, and Davidson-Georgetown. Top seeds North Carolina and Kansas look overpowering to this point. The Tar Heels in particular. It’s one thing to blow out Mount St. Mary of the NEC in the opening round, but to manhandle an Arkansas team that knocked off Tennessee in the SEC Tournament, and then upended Indiana in the opening round is quite impressive. Then, there’s Louisville with the likes of Rahway’s Earl Clark, and Fanwood’s Derrick Caracter, who played at St. Patrick’s and Scotch Plains. The Cardinals were very impressive in dismissing Oklahoma in the second round. Memphis had their struggles against Mississippi State, and the Tigers free throw shooting will be their achilles heel if the home cooking of Houston doesn’t help Texas enough.
Davidson looks like this year’s George Mason although Kansas will be a tough obstacle to overcome if the Wildcats get that far. Stephen Curry, the son of former Charlotte Hornets sharpshooter, Dell Curry, has been phenomenal with 55 points combined in the second halves of the first two games of the NCAA tourney. So far, Curry has averaged 32.5 points per game in the tournament in victories over prominent basketball powers Gonzaga and Georgetown. Davidson entered the tournament like you would want your team to enter post-season play, on a hot streak with 22 consecutive victories. Another less likely Cinderella is Western Kentucky, which defeated San Diego to earn a Sweet 16 berth. The Hilltoppers, which last won an NCAA tournament game back in 1995 when South River native, Deon Jackson played at the school, have an up-tempo style that gives them a shot.
As far Final Four predictions…well, forget it!