Thursday, March 16, 2006

Hookey (Thursday's NCAA Preview) - Morning games

Game time (HUH!) is her

Noon-30ish Eastern:

Pacific vs. Boston College: If you are Pacific and your best player is a Euro-big guy, you don't want to play an overly physical team. Oops. Of course, this might be the one where BC shoots 1-14 from 3, and one of my final 4 picks loses in the first round. (It's happened more than once...)

Wichita St. vs. Seton Hall: I'm embarassed to say I know nothing about either team. WSU is representing the supposedly disrespected Missouri Valley Conference, whereas Seton Hall is a mediocre Big East squad. Seton Halls wins and Billy Packer gloats about power conferences, because I'm not lucky enough for him to have to shut it.

Oklahoma vs. Wisconsin-Milwaukee: Haven't seen UWM much this year, but having seen Tennessee plenty, I wonder how much of their ridiculous hustle and intensity was Bruce Pearl and how much was the team. Oklahoma's Kevin Bookout is a strong candidate both for the all-Ugly squad, and to be billed as "Young Butterbean" in a schlock boxing movie.

3PM EST:

Marquette vs. Alabama: My favorite. Middle of the road teams from power conferences. Marquette isn't an awful team to watch, Novak is a great shooter and James is an exciting PG.

Tennessee vs. Winthrop: Tennessee overrated as a 2-seed. That being said, I don't even know what state Winthrop hails from.

Florida vs. South Alabama: A potential upset here. Yes, Florida is athletic, but as always they are a poor man's Connecticut - talented, undisciplined underachievers with a whiff of poor coaching thrown in. The only thing I know about SoBama is that the last time they were in the tourney, Bill Mussleman was the coach and their small forward had the greatest mullet in tourney history.

Nevada vs. Montana: Somebody look it up, is this the first "All-Mountain Time" matchup ever? Seperated at birth, Montana coach Larry Krystkowiak and Nevada Matt Bullard-in-training Nick Fazekas.

Orphan (5 PM) game: UCLA vs. Belmont. Perfect beer food coma game.

3 comments:

XWL said...

Pacific almost made me look smart, but couldn't hold off BC into a 2nd OT.

And I'm sure Utah (Rick Majerus fielded a lot of solid teams) met Arizona at least once or twice in the 80s and 90s.

Also, the entire state of Nevada is on Pacific Time, anyway.

(Wiki is a great thing, looked up last year's tourney and Arizona met Utah State in the first round at the Taco Bell Arena in Boise, Idaho, and Utah met UTEP at the McKale Center in Tucson (El Paso is in the Mountain Time Zone, even though the rest of Texas is Central))

XWL said...

Noticed the comment about TiVo-ing the Tourney, hadn't even considered the possibility, sorry for the possible spoiler, if you read the above comment before watching the game.

Pooh said...

No, no worries, wathced the first 3 rounds at a sports bar and my eyes are bleeding and my hands are shaking so I had to come home....

Nice 68-28 run your Bruins went on vs. the, er, Bruin...