What's Cooking

Some tidbits from the stove top:

Tom Crean was a guest on Fox Radio's GameTime Saturday and serendipitously, I hopped into my car just in time to listen. Let's just say his "I'm staying at Marquette" schtick was very unconvincing. He went on a couple thinly-veiled tangents and of course, mentioned that he "has a great contract" at Marquette. Finally, Crean concluded with the standard, "I haven't even thought about that" routine.

Kentucky would be one of only a few schools that would match Marquette's ridiculous compensation package, being a basketball-first (only?) university. Crean has the energy, ambition and recruiting ability for the job. But take away Dwyane Wade's Final Four run and Crean's resume is not that spectacular. Kentucky's search will begin with rejections from Billy Donovan and Tom Izzo before reaching names like Mark Few (Gonzaga), Billy Gillespie (Texas A&M) and maybe even John Calipari (Memphis). Crean is not good enough for the Kentucky job, but if they ask, he's as good as gone.

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Boy, oh boy. Good thing I only entered three NCAA pools this year. My second-chance picks for the Round of 16 were hopeless after the first night. My final chances for glory in any pool died with North Carolina's epic collapse on Sunday and Memphis on Saturday.

Speaking of which ... Memphis had my hopes up until the intention foul by Chris Douglas-Roberts on Greg Oden. The five-point play that ensued was a disastrous swing in momentum. To refresh, Memphis was leading, 60-57, when a wide-open Oden caught a pass under the hoop, where the much smaller Douglas-Roberts proceeded to wrap two arms around him. I'm not as surprised that an intentional foul was called as I am perturbed that the referees allowed Oden NBA-style continuation and counted the ensuing basket. In reality it was a foul before the shot. Oden made one of the two free throws and the Buckeyes kept possession, gaining a 62-60 lead they would not relinquish on two freebies by Jamar Butler. Ohio State outscored Memphis 30-16 over the next 9:30 to win going away.

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The guys at Sports Montage have a great post bashing Aaron Gray, one of the more overrated big men in America. Extra fun hearing it come from an actual Pittsburgh fan. If you want to know what I think of Gray, just look at every one of my brackets where I had VCU beating Pitt in the second round. He's a stiff. Like many other college basketball fans, Sports Montage also dislikes Joakim Noah, another over-hyped big man. Good stuff.

Sour Sixteen

With all my tournament brackets officially busted, it's time to handicap the Sweet 16. A second chance - huzzah!

MIDWEST
(1)Florida v. (5)Butler
winner: Florida
(3)Oregon v. (7)UNLV
winner: Oregon

WEST
(1)Kansas v. (4)S. Illinois
winner: Kansas
(2)UCLA v. (3)Pittsburgh
winner: Pittsburgh

EAST
(1)N. Carolina v. (5)USC
winner: N. Carolina
(2)Georgetown v. (6)Vanderbilt
winner: Georgetown

SOUTH
(1)Ohio State v. (5)Tennessee
winner: Tennessee
(2)Memphis v. (3)Texas A&M
winner: Texas A&M

FINAL FOUR
(1)Florida v. (1)Kansas
winner: Kansas
(2)Georgetown v. (3)Texas A&M
winner: Texas A&M

2007 NCAA CHAMPION:
Kansas

Is that possible? It is a risky proposition to put your faith in Bill Self at tournament time. When I look at Kansas, I see a team with at least five future NBA players. More importantly, the Jayhawks have supremely talented players that play very good defense. I will ignore the fact that Kansas has no seniors on their entire roster.

Badgers Bow Out

It is a sad day. We will never see Alando Tucker play in a Wisconsin uniform again.

Tucker couldn't put UW on his back this time. Falling behind by double-digits in the first half yet again is not a good idea against an underrated UNLV team with a chip on its shoulder. How can the Badgers come out so flat yet again? Is Bo Ryan partly to blame? Someone brought up a good point on the Badgermaniac message board about Bo's pattern of starting his upperclassmen: if Jason Chappell is so worthless, doesn't it benefit the team to avoid early deficits by playing your better players right away? The good news is that Chappell's scholarship is now free for the first time in five years.

Once again, Tucker's supporting cast seemed hesitant to feed him the ball in the post. That is an unfathomable outcome considering the team's current makeup and low 3-pt shooting percentage. With Krabbenhoft missing bunny after bunny and going "small" to match-up with the UNLV better, it is surprising the Badgers took a lead at all in this one.

Moving forward, Flowers has got to stay on the floor next year. Admittedly, I did not research this at all, but he seemed to be in constant foul trouble as the season wore on. I was glad to see him take it to the hoop a few times versus the Rebels, but he had turnovers on two horrendous passes that basically reversed the good karma. Until I decide otherwise, Flowers and our yet-to-be-determined offensive post presence are the two biggest keys to the 2007-08 season.

Three more observations:
(1) Landry finally executed another baseline spin move. Unfortunately, it did not result in a basket.
(2) Near the time UW took the lead in the second half, there was a pass ahead to Tucker that was basically a 2-on-1 with Landry. No alley-oop toss to Landry. No pass at all. Tucker pulled the ball back out. Indicative of how passive the team played for most of the day.
(3) In terms of our recent NCAA tournament losses, this one approaches both the SW Missouri State loss and the Georgia State loss. Being the first #1 or #2 seed to lose looks terrible nationally. If we thought we did not get enough respect before, look out. The season was not suppose to end this way for a team ranked No. 1 in AP poll only a few weeks ago.

At least 'Do seems like a great person. He will move on. I wish Tucker the best in life and hope we can follow him at the next level.

Kammron the Coronary

Watching Kam Taylor struggle and consequently catch fire puts me into cardiac arrest. So I guess it's a good thing that I had to follow UW's first-round game via the Yahoo scoreboard. Only now, 24 hours later, have I finally exhaled from that near disaster.

Who could have predicted the Badgers' free-throw shooting would save them?! Led by Alando Tucker's 9-of-10 shooting, Wisconsin shot a robust 83% from the charity stripe in the amazing comeback. Meanwhile, neither Flowers nor Landry stepped up, resulting in an ugly first half. I cannot say enough about Taylor's second half in which he scored all of his game-high 24 points and willed the team to victory. My sheer relief precludes me from writing any more on this topic.

On to today's games ...

I'm giddily (I think that's a word) watching my most anticipated match-up of the tournament: Texas A&M versus Louisville. Both these teams are proving to have the talent and fortitude to make a Final Four run. The winner of this game will likely knock off Memphis and can easily topple Ohio State.

I haven't seen any terrible calls in this game, but both the Aggies and the Cards are so aggressive that each team has multiple prime-time performers saddled with four fouls at the 15-minute mark in the second half. I'm legitimately worried that one of these teams will run out of players over 6'5" by the end of the game. Whichever squad has the pleasure of facing the Buckeyes can easily foul Greg Oden out if he's not given the NBA treatment by the refs. Heck, Oden already fouled out against Xavier this morning.