The second round started off with a BANG, a weird, crazy likely never-before-seen BANG! And I missed it as I was watching my beloved Marlins open their home Spring Training schedule off with a 10-2 victory over a bunch of people masquerading as the Houston Astros. The Marlins with three home runs from Avisail Garcia, Brian Anderson and Jerar Encarnacion. So, even though the Marlins started off with 3 bangs, they couldn't hold a candle to what happened in the North Carolina - Baylor game. North Carolina soars out to a 25-point lead with 10:08 remaining in the second half, when Brady Manek is ejected with a flagrant 2 elbow to the face of Jeremy Sochan. And yes, it WAS a flagrant 2. By definition, AND by intent. (If only we had a basketball referee in the pool that could chime in with his thoughts, right Larry Green of Palm City, Florida?) Manek had scored 25 points to that point, and there is no way Baylor was going to advance. But, bye-bye Manek, and a few minutes later point guard Caleb Love fouls out, and Baylor begins its full-court pressure and then all of a sudden we go to overtime. Baylor, however, ran out of gas, and North Carolina' Dontrez Styles banks a three-pointer and North Carolina wins 93-86. With that win, we lost a champion, Baylor.
We also lost a second champion yesterday when the 11th seeded Michigan Wolverines defeated the Tennessee Volunteers. Tennessee, who was probably playing the best in the country entering the tourney, just could not withstand the punches delivered by the Juwan Howard-led Wolverines (see what I did there?), and Michigan advances to the Sweet Sixteen.
Gonzaga and Kansas also withstood some serious challenges from Memphis and Creighton, respectively, to avoid the same upset at the number 1 seed that befell Baylor.
Joining North Carolina and Michigan as lower seeds to crash the Sweet Sixteen is St. Peter's. The Peacocks defeated the Murray State Racers to win only their second NCAA Tournament game ever, the first being Thursday night. This loss also deprives me of my story on the history of great tournament rebounding by Murray State, which I had queued up in my mind in case of a Murray State victory. But, St. Peter's victory also leaves me to hold a possible Shaheen Holloway story from his playing days for future use.
Arkansas also escaped with a close victory over New Mexico State, who just couldn't keep up with Arkansas' relentless defense which stymied leading scorer Teddy Allen, who could only score 12 after his round-one leading 27 on Thursday.
As far as the pool goes, nobody selected St. Peter's, but we did have two other games eligible for bonus points, North Carolina and Michigan, and we had plenty of people capitalize. A total of 11 people picked North Carolina to defeat defending-champion Baylor (so no repeat this year), and 10 people selected Michigan to defeat Tennessee (plus Dave Marzouca of Boynton Beach, Florida who selected Michigan to defeat Longwood - not bonusable, but still impressive to have a correct 11 in the Sweet Sixteen.) But, only one single entry - Jeremy Spuhler of St. Petersburg, Florida - selected both North Carolina AND Michigan. For that, he is awarded our "Selection of the Day" award, and also shoots up the leaderboard.
The antithesis of Jeremy is Dawn Lamb (Quarter), of Delray Beach, Florida, who managed to receive 0 points yesterday, and conversely shot down the leaderboard.
So, although we lost 2 champions yesterday, we also gained a champion. How so? Well, I neglected to include Philip Kroesen of Southampton, New York's choice of Illinois. Not sure how I missed that, as I have included his bracket in the scoring after each day, but perhaps I was just overlooking them, which is not what Houston is doing right now. So, although I add Illinois now, they may be removed shortly! The selected champions are: AUBURN, ARIZONA, Baylor, DUKE, GONZAGA, ILLINOIS, KANSAS, Kentucky, Tennessee, TEXAS TECH, VILLANOVA, Virginia Tech, WISCONSIN.
Gonzaga is lucky to remain in bold as they held on to defeat Memphis 82-78. Memphis, coached by its greatest basketball alumnus Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway, didn't look like they should even be in this tournament starting the season 9-8 with some really bad losses. (Memphis most prominent alumni include Isaac Bruce, Dixie Carter, Wink Martindale, Fred Thompson and former Marlins great Dan Uggla.) And although Hardaway looks a little rough managing his rotation when players have foul trouble and may need some seasoning with handling the clock and time outs, we cannot say that he cannot control his team. Hardaway allowed Emoni Bates, one of his "star" freshmen to return home to Michigan to check out his injured back - an injury that the team and medical staff never reported as having occurred, and this also allowed the team to be rid of Bates' controlling father and entourage, which developed since Bates was heralded as "The Next Kevin Durant" at 14, and named Gatorade National Player of the Year his sophomore year. Memphis then went 10-1 and made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Hardaway's handling of the Bates situation likely saved the school from having to fire its favorite son (or more likely, just putting him on the proverbial hot seat.). But, that has me wondering that if Penny Hardaway is Memphis' best basketball player (with Ja Morant quickly rising - literally), who else is there? Ah, I remember.
So the Memphis Tigers made the NCAA Championship games in 1973 and 2008, the latter team led by Derrick Rose and falling to Kansas as mentioned yesterday. [Ed. Note: The NCAA vacated Memphis' 2008 run due to SAT test-taking issues surrounding Derrick Rose.] But I remember vividly a player from Memphis' heyday, with four straight Sweet Sixteen or better appearances from 1982-1985, led by the incomparable Keith Lee! Keith Lee is Memphis' leading scorer, having scored 2,408 points in his career, and being named to the AP All-America list four times (first team as a junior and senior). In 1982, Lee's freshman year, Memphis defeated Wake Forest 56-55 before falling to Villanova 70-66 in the Sweet Sixteen. The following year, Lee led the squad past Georgetown before falling to to the Akeem Olajuwon led Houston Cougars 78-71 in the Sweet Sixteen. (Olajuwon spelled his name "Akeem" in college, changing it to "Hakeem" once he converted.). The Cougars would ultimately lose in the finals on the Derrick Whittenberg missed-shot/rebound dunk by Lorenzo Charles which gave North Carolina State the victory. Memphis lost to Houston again the following year in the Sweet Sixteen after beating Oral Robert and Houston. But, it was the 1985 Final Four run in which Lee really made his mark. [Ed. Note: The NCAA vacated Memphis' 1982-1986 seasons.
In the opening round, Memphis played the Penn Quakers, defeating them 67-55. Lee started off slowly, as he was saddled with foul trouble, finishing with only 8 points and 3 rebounds in only 20 minutes. In the second round, Lee was electric scoring 28 points, with 6 rebounds, in a narrow overtime victory over UAB. Lee again experienced foul trouble in the Sweet Sixteen against Boston College, and Memphis struggled to a 59-57 win. Lee scored 8 points in 25 minutes. (Boston College was led by a then-uneard-of Michael Adams, who would go on to be one of the greatest three-point shooters in NBA history.) But, in the Elite 8, with a Final Four berth on the line, Lee scored 23, with 11 rebounds, as Memphis beat Wayman Tisdale's Oklahoma Sooners 63-61.
The Semi-Finals game against Villanova is a tough one to review from the point of statistics, as Villanova routinely held the ball for minutes at a time to slow down the game, and would ultimately win the championship over Patrick Ewing's Georgetown Hoyas, with Villanova winning 52-45. Lee still finished with 10 points.
Lee finished the season averaging 19.7 points per game and 9.2 rebounds. This followed a junior year averaging 18.4 and 10.8, and 18.7 and 10.8 his sophomore year. Lee was even amazing his freshman year, scoring 18.3 points per game and gathering 11 rebounds per game.
Lee was ultimately selected 11th by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 1985 NBA draft, playing 5 seasons in the NBA.
Back to the pool, Javier Rodriguez 2 of Coral Gables, Florida is in sole possession of first place.
Players of the Day
5. Arthur Kaluma, Creighton - 24 points and 12 rebounds in the loss to Kansas.
4. KC Ndefo, St. Peter's - 17 points and 10 rebounds, 6 blocks, and by far the best player in the St. Peter's - Murray State game.
3. Hunter Dickenson, Michigan - 27 points on 8/13 shooting, 11 rebounds, 4 assists in Michigan's victory over Tennessee.
2. Brady Manek, North Carolina - Although R.J. Davis scored 30 for the victorious Tar Heels, Manek was THE story. 26 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists in 28 minutes, and a really stupid Flagrant 2 ejection.
1. Drew Timme, Gonzaga - 25 points, 14 rebounds and 4 assists. Timme scored 20 of his 25 in the second half as Gonzaga outscored Memphis by 14 in the half to win 82-78.
Stats of the Day
3. The entire bench for St. Mary's scored ZERO points in their 72-56 loss to UCLA.
2. JD Notae of Arkansas fouled out against New Mexico State by committing 5 fouls in the second half, four of them charges! Arkansas held on to win 53-48.
1. KC Ndefo of St. Peter's shot 7-9 from the free throw line. He is a 53% free throw shooter this year.
Best Social Media Posts
To be fair, I didn't really pay attention to social media yesterday.
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