A look at the first three days of the most surreal NCAA men’s basketball tournament ever . . .
*The COVID-10 pandemic forced cancellation of the bulk of the conference tournaments, as well as the entirety of the NCAA tourney, a year ago – and pretty much wreaked havoc through the course of the current season.
The abrupt COVID-related conference tourney pull-outs of Duke and Virginia (ACC) and Kansas (Big 12) just days before the 68-team tourney bracket was revealed on March 14 were harsh reminders that – even with the vaccine-induced euphoria of late – the pandemic hadn’t finished its business of destroy the life-long NCAA tourney teams of so many players and coaches, and their schools’ followers.
Those reminders weren’t finished once the tournament started, either, with Thursday’s “First Four Games”.
Another one was delivered with the late Saturday news that the Virginia Commonwealth team – roughly three hours before its game with the Oregon Ducks was scheduled to tip in Indianapolis – was being removed from the field of “multiple positive tests”, according to VCU Coach Mike Rhoades.
Heart-wrenching, on so many levels.
Let’s a) pray; 2) hope and/or 3) keep our fingers crossed that as the field continues to shrink, that the results on the court – and not from results from the COVID-testing lab – send teams out of Indianapolis.
*The results of the first three days confirmed what was obvious since at least in January:
The ACC – as a whole – wasn’t nearly as formidable as it normally is.
Duke – which didn’t earn an at-large bid and missed the tournament for the first time in 26 years – wasn’t the only culprit.
Virginia – which wasn’t allowed to arrive in Indianapolis until Friday because of the program’s COVID quarantine and cleared all protocols in Charlottesville – and Florida State earned 4 seeds.
But the other four ACC squads were seeded 7 (Virginia Tech), 8 (North Carolina), 9 (ACC tourney champion Georgia Tech) and 11 (Jim Boeheim-coached and Buddy Boeheim-led Syracuse).
The Syracuse Orange and FSU Seminoles are the only crews still in Indianapolis
*Also holding up – at least reasonably well – was the notion that the Big Ten and Big 12 were the deepest and best conferences during the regular season.
Six of the nine Big Ten squads advanced to the second round, with the three that didn’t – First Four 11 seed, 2 seed Ohio State and 4 seed Purdue – losing in overtime.
And six of the seven Big 12 teams are still playing after winning by average margins of 12 points on Friday and Saturday.
Only 3 seed Texas – by way of its 53-52 loss to Abilene Christian in the final game complete in the first round – has left Indy.
*But the Pac 12 – which didn’t have a team seeded on the top four lines of the bracket, with two of its team seeded at 11 and 12, respectively – has five teams in the second round.
Four of those – Colorado (vs. FSU), Oregon (vs. Iowa after getting a de facto “bye” Saturday night), USC (vs. Kansas) and UCLA (vs. Abilene Christian) – will try to get Round of 16 games Monday.
Oregon State gets Cade Cunningham and his Oklahoma State buddies after dissecting 4 seed Tennessee Friday.
The first three days of the tournament also showed that “momentum” is a peculiar thing:
Coach Mick Cronin’s Bruins dropped four consecutive games to close the regular season in “come-from-ahead” fashion after leading deep into the second half.
But, “in theory”, UCLA has the best opportunity among the Pac 12 teams of getting to the Round of 16 since the Bruins are taking on a 14 seed in Abilene Christian Monday.
Of course, that “in theory” analysis didn’t do much for the 3-seeded Longhorns Saturday night vs. Abilene Christian Saturday – nor did it hamper the other seven 10-or-worse seeds that are in the second round.
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