Frank Burlison

Sixteen second-round NCAA Tournament games gave us the following Friday:

*The eighth-ever No. 2 seed loss to a 15, with Georgetown and Big East Player of the Year Otto Porter falling victim to high-flying and crazy dunking Florida Gulf Coast University (78-68) – which has been a university since 1997 and was making its tourney debut;

*The South Regional’s top seed, Kansas, coming dangerously close to becoming the first-ever victim of a 16 seed before holding off Western Kentucky in Kansas City, 64-57;

*The continue superb collective effort of the five Atlantic 10 teams in the tournament, with La Salle (which knocked off Boise State in a First Four game Wednesday night) tripping up Kansas State (63-61) in a West Regional game played in Kansas City and Temple hanging on to beat North Carolina State (76-72) in an East Regional contest played in Dayton;

*Some of the West Regional’s top seeds continuing to make early exits, with No.’s

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When it comes to the world of sports, and especially the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament, “momentum” isn’t something you bring into a game with you:

It’s what you can build, and build upon, in 40 minutes.

That was the case in Thursday NCAA tourney second-round game played in Salt Lake City between Mountain West Conference champion and West Regional No. 3 seed New Mexico and Ivy League champion and 14 seed Harvard.

The Lobos, under the guidance of a coach (Steve Alford) who was the best player on an Indiana team that won a national title 26 years ago, were the choice of many to bag the four wins needed to go from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles (for the regional semifinals and final) and on to Atlanta for the Final Four.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – And now, on to that very painful process known as “round by round selections in the NCAA Tournament”.

Please don’t take out a second mortgage to show your faith in my projections!

 

MIDWEST

  Round 1: No. 16 Liberty d. NC A&T; No. 11 Saint Mary’s d. Middle Tennessee.

  Round 2: Upper, No. 1 Louisville d. 16 Liberty; No. 9 Missouri d. No. 8 Colorado State; No. 12 Oregon d. No. 5 Oklahoma State; No. 4 Saint Louis d. No. 13 New Mexico State.

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LAGUNA NIGUEL, Ca. – All of the pre-NCAA Tournament field and bracket speculation, via the work of the seemingly countless – and meticulous – “bracketologists”, has, in essence, rendered “surprise” almost non-existent each Sunday evening at this time of the year.

The projection of the 37 at-large selections to the 68-team field has become something approaching an exact science.

The only thing approaching something beyond eyebrow-raising when the 2013 bracket was unveiled involved the seeding of the teams – and several of the matchups (and potential matchups).

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LAS VEGAS – Suppose, if you will, that a survey was taken early last week of all of the media that covers the basketball programs from within the Mountain West and Pacific 12 conferences whose questions included:

Who will be the Most Valuable Players in the respective tournaments?

In the MWC, junior point guard Kendall Williams of regular-season champion New Mexico – the conference’s 2013 Player of the Year – would have received a lot of support.

So would have 2012 POY Jamaal Franklin of San Diego State and so would have soon-to-be NBA lottery selection in MWC Freshman of the Year Anthony Bennett of UNLV.

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