Category: College Basketball

The Mason Midmajor Myth

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, Sports2 Comments

Monday's national championship game between Flordida and UCLA was quite possibly the worst final I've ever seen. The UConn shellacking of Georgia Tech in 2004 was up there on the anti-entertainment scale as well, but at least I knew the Huskies were putting on a preview of things to come in the NBA with Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon on the floor. There's a lot of potential with the guys on both Florida and UCLA, but certainly no locks for future stardom.

Thus, the focus for my last college basketball post of the season is to address the monolithic groupthink that has permeated the sports world since George Mason made it to the Final Four. The overwhelming view right now is that George Mason's NCAA Tournament run is going to change everything for midmajor schools and that Billy Packer ought to be hung in effigy for his ignorance. However, as the Sports Guy would say in paraphrasing the Wolf from “Pulp Fiction”, let's not start sucking each other's you-know-whats just yet.

As I wrote last week, George Mason's Final Four berth is the most improbable sports achievement I've witnessed in my lifetime and I outlined exactly why. I'm not sure how so many analysts all of the sudden believe that the preponderance of the evidence showing the major conferences (and the BCS conferences in particular) dominating the NCAA Tournament when it comes to the Final Four are suddenly going to be thrown by the wayside. There's a reason why the appearance of George Mason was such a major story: this was an aberration rather than a sign of things to come. This isn't the rant of a Big Ten snob. Quite to the contrary, let's think about this rationally from (1) a talent perspective and (2) how the college sports business works.

The talent gap between the majors and midmajors is going to widen again next year with the new rule preventing prep players from entering the NBA Draft until one year after they graduate from high school. Every single one of those players who would have skipped college to go to the pros will be heading to major programs. Even though this doesn't eradicate the prospect of college players leaving early for the NBA Draft, which is the area that majors suffer more from than the midmajors, a team is still better off with top flight underclassmen a la Syracuse's Carmelo Anthony in 2003 or Florida's Joakim Noah this year than a group of mid-level seniors when it comes to winning national championships. So, I doubt that the midmajors are really going to make headway when the majors are going to get their biggest talent infusion in a generation over the next few years.

At the same time, the rise of George Mason isn't going to do anything to alter the non-conference scheduling by the majors. George Mason might become one of a tiny handful of midmajors other than Gonzaga to regularly obtain home-and-home series with high majors, but the business of college sports dictates that fortune of those schools won't spread to their fellow midmajors. For example, Illinois typically schedules 2 true road games per year (Illinois playing "at" UIC at the United Center or Indiana playing "at" Butler at the Conseco Fieldhouse are anything but true road games), one of which is a return game for a team that they had invited previously to the United Center (typically an ACC, Pac-10, or SEC team) and the other usually being an ACC-Big Ten Challenge game. Is Illinois going to (a) give up a revenue producing home game to play a midmajor on the road or (b) replace a road game against an ACC-type team with a midmajor team? There's no way that the Illini would ever take either if those options. Even worse from the midmajor perspective, Illinois is typically one of the more aggresive schedulers of the top programs. Teams such as Syracuse and UConn often go through their entire non-conference slates playing only one or even zero true road games. The point is that the major conference schools go on the road sparingly, and when they do, they want to play other major conference schools.

As a result, I don't believe all the hype about the sea-change about to come for the midmajors. In fact, it's extremely likely that the majors will be more powerful next season. There's a reason why the story of Norman Dale and Hickory High was made into the movie “Hoosiers”: it was a once-in-a-lifetime event. The George Mason run is a great story that is going to be on that mythical level, as well, because it's not going to happen again for a long time.

Hello Goodbye: Opening Day and One Shining Moment

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago White Sox, College Basketball, Major League Baseball, Sports1 Comment

The first Monday in April is always the most bittersweet day on the sports calendar for me.  On the one hand, there's the NCAA National Championship Game, which means that after tonight we'll have to mothball college basketball all the way until November.  Since Illinois (and the rest of the Big Ten, for that matter) failed to get to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament, this period off is going to seem extra-long.  It also doesn't help that after the ousting of George Mason, this NCAA Final has almost no buzz going for it.  Anyway, I always harken back to the oldest adage in sports that defense wins championships.  In this case, the formerly high-flying UCLA has morphed into a bruising Big Ten/Big East-type team with suffocating defense.  Florida has the athletic advantage, but I believe that the Bruins' D will slow the game down similar to their regional final game against the super-athletic Memphis team.  It will be an close and ugly victory for UCLA.  Honestly, I'm just waiting for the "One Shining Moment" montage, which is the ultimate capper to any sports season (although I didn't see last year's rendition since I was being talked off the ledge after having my heart crushed in the Illini loss).

On the other hand, it's Opening Day in baseball and the White Sox have begun their World Series title defense.  I didn't stay up until 2 am to watch the end of last night's Sox opener, but it's great to see Jim Thome's hot bat in spring training carry over into the regular season.  This is probably the most excited I've ever been for the start of baseball season.  For my entire lifetime as well as the lifetimes of several generations of Chicagoans, the White Sox have come out of every offseason with tons of questions marks following a disappointing season.  However, the Sox erased all of those years of misery with their stunning World Series run last season and an offseason that strengthened the team even more.  I don't take much pleasure in how the Sox have become the dominant favorite to win the World Series again this year (I want to avoid the Sports Illustrated jinx at all costs), but it's a whole lot better than going through the motions of a 162-game season without anything on the line.

Picking only one of baseball, basketball, or football as my favorite sport is pretty much impossible – that would be like asking a father to pick one of his three kids as his favorite.  Every one of those sports has aspects that I love (my wife notes that I always have a sport to watch with deep interest, so my complaints about one of the seasons ending falls on deaf ears).  Suffice to say, saying goodbye to basketball (I'm not counting the Bulls here since even if they make the NBA playoffs, they're practically guaranteed to be swept by the Pistons – I won't have much more interest in the NBA after that occurs) while saying hello to baseball makes this a day of mixed emotions.

Bucky, the Pink Line, Kelvin, and the Final Four

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, Music, Pop Culture, Random Thoughts, Sports, Television2 Comments

Some random thoughts for your Final Four weekend:

1) Bucky Survives and Advances – Forget about Presidential elections. What terrifies me about the voting patterns of the Red States is that Bucky Covington could very well be our next American Idol. If you've watched this season at all and have any discernible taste in music (or just an appreciation of proper intonation), you know exactly what I'm talking about. Not only did he not finish in the bottom 3 this week, but next week everyone has to sing country songs (looks like I'll be just tuning in for the results show), which plays right into Bucky's Southern Strategy. We can't let this happen. Vote or die, people!

2) The Pink Line – I seriously thought the Chicago Tribune was pulling an early April Fool's joke on us with this morning's front page article. Unfortunately, every time I set the bar lower for the CTA, they manage to limbo right under there.

3) Kelvin Sampson Hired at IU – The only thing more surprising than the announcement of Sampson's hiring at Indiana is the tepid response of Hoosier fans. As I said before, IU fans were expecting Coach K to drop everything, move to Bloomington, and bring along Phil Jackson and Pat Riley as his assistants. Notwithstanding the ignorance of its fan base, I believe that Indiana made a great hire and he was certainly as close to the top of the coaching mountain as the school could reasonably attain.

Take this from an Illini guy who was hoping that IU would screw up and bow to nepotistic pressure to hire within the “Indiana Family” a la Steve Alford (or the gold standard of Isiah Thomas): anyone that argues that Indiana should have hired Alford over Sampson is insane. Sampson has proven he can win lots of games and recruit great talent at the basketball backwaters of Pullman and Norman. It's interesting to note that the Hoosier fans that are most critical of the baggage regarding Sampson's calls to recruits are pretty much the same people that vehemently defended a coach that choked his players. Seems just a little bit hypocritical for them to pull out the "integrity" card, no?

All in all, Kelvin Sampson is a great fit for Indiana and is going to provide some tough competition on the floor and on the recruiting trails in the Big Ten. Indiana fans ought to thank their lucky stars they got this good of a coach.

4) Final Four Predictions – I'm not betting against George Mason anymore – I'm a believer. So, I'm going with George Mason over Florida and UCLA over LSU in the semifinals.

Have a great weekend!

Spinderella Cut It Up One Time

On By Frank the TankIn College Basketball, Sports2 Comments

Pound for pound, the NCAA Tournament is the best event in all of sports – there's nothing even close to it. Super Bowls are more often than not pretty disappointing from a fan's perspective, there have been plently of lackluster baseball postseasons (although the last three seasons with the White Sox, Red Sox, and Cubs involved have been spectacular), the NBA and NHL Stanley Cup playoffs drag on for two months each, and don't even get me started on the BCS in college football. Meanwhile, the NCAA Tournament delivers improbable games and stories every single year in a one-and-done format. Does anyone ever remember there being a boring NCAA Tournament? It just doesn't happen. That's why I look forward to March Madness more than any other item on the sports calendar.

However, I've always thought the the Cinderella aspect of the NCAA Tournament was overblown. Sure, you'll see a number of low seeds upset superior teams on paper in the first round and a handful of midmajors get to the Sweet Sixteen on an annual basis. Every once in a while, teams like Gonzaga (who you can't call a midmajor anymore – they are the Duke of the non-BCS teams) or Kent State squeeze through to the Elite Eight. This is what makes picking brackets so fun. But when it comes down to where the stakes were highest – the Final Four – college basketball has been as stacked in favor of the powers-that-be as any pro or college sport.

History bears this out. Since the BCS was formed for the 1998 football season and until yesterday, only 2 teams, Marquette and Louisville, have made the Final Four that were not members of BCS conferences at the time of their runs and both of those teams are now BCS schools after having joined the Big East this season. At the same time, until yesterday, the last midmajor teams to make the Final Four were Indiana State and my sister's alma mater, Penn, in 1979. However, Indiana State had a guy named Larry Bird and came into the tournament that year as the #1-ranked team in the nation, so they were anything but a Cinderella story (in fact, they were an uber-Gonzaga). Penn was a bit of a surprise that year as a #9-seed, but the Quakers were well known as a historically significant program and their homecourt was and continues to be the Palestra, which is college basketball's equivalent of Wrigley Field (so the Ivy Leaguers weren't really outsiders). Considering this track record, it's interesting that the conventional wisdom is that college basketball gives everyone a chance to win it all while sports fans continually criticize the payroll disparities in baseball as being unfair to small-market teams even though the Florida Marlins have won two World Series championships in the last decade.

That's why I believe George Mason's breakthrough to the Final Four is the most shocking sports event that I've witnessed in my lifetime (I was alive for the Miracle on Ice in 1980, but since I was 2-years old at the time, I obviously don't remember that firsthand). Improbable comebacks, such as the Illinois eradication of a 15-point deficit to Arizona with 4 minutes to go in the game to make the Final Four last year (by the way, I popped in a tape of that game to watch that sequence again last night and I still can't believe how the Illini were able to do that. Even in the wake of the crazy White Sox postseason run, the 2005 Chicago Regional Final was personally the best sports moment of my life. Unless the Illini essentially do the same thing in a national championship game, the sea change from outright dejection to pure exhiliration in the span of a few minutes is something that probably will never be topped) or the Red Sox coming back from a 3 games-to-none hole against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS are at one level, but the teams who make the comebacks usually are at least expected to be competitive (for instance, the Illini had only lost one game all year and were the #1 overall seed in 2005, while the Red Sox had the second-highest payroll in baseball next to the Yankees in 2004).

What George Mason has done is simply beyond comprehension to me. The road that they took to the Final Four went through Michigan State, North Carolina, and Connecticut – teams that have a combined 4 national championships and 8 Final Four appearances in the 7 years since the aforementioned beginning of the BCS. What's even more amazing to me is that this isn't a fluky team jacking up three-pointers and draining crazy shots, which is typically how most underdogs win a game or two in the NCAA Tournament. Anyone who watched the game yesterday noticed that George Mason controlled the tempo of the game by taking the time get a good pass into one of their two big men in the post on almost every possession, who would then either take it to the rim if there was a one-on-one matchup or kick it out for an open three-pointer or short jumpshot if there was a double-team. Simple in theory, yet not very many teams are able to do this consistently (for example, this is what I've been screaming at Illinois to do all season). At the same time, the Patriots played great man-to-man defense on UConn – even though there were few turnovers, the Huskies got few wide open looks and did a great job of boxing out to grab key rebounds.

The point is that George Mason doesn't look like a midmajor on the court. When Bucknell beat Kansas last year, the Bisons seriously looked like they were half the size of their Jayhawk counterparts. Same thing with Northwestern State compared to Iowa this year. The Patriots, on the other hand, play and look like a team from a power conference. They've already ousted the most athletically gifted team in country in UConn, a team with 3 starters from the 2005 Final Four in Michigan State, and the club with the best freshmen in the country in North Carolina. I'll be the first to admit to having a huge bias toward the major conferences as an alum of Big Ten and Big East schools. However, conferences don't win championships – teams win championships and GMU has proven that it is as great of a team as anyone out there. Maybe Cinderella does exist, after all.

Morrison and Redick Bounced While Texas and Memphis Live On

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, College Basketball, Sports1 Comment

Incredible night of basketball, folks! I was ready print a mea culpa and admit that Gonzaga was for real after they were steamrolling over UCLA for most of last night’s game, but the Bulldogs’ terrible defense finally reared its ugly head by allowing the Bruins to score the last 11 points in the game and secure a thrilling 73-71 victory. Gonzaga was yet another case of the general public getting swept up in offensive firepower while forgetting about what really matters – defensive intensity. The Bulldogs, Dallas Mavericks, and Indianapolis Colts might be fun to watch in the regular season, but none of those teams are going to win the whole thing in their respective sports unless they get real on defense.

If it wasn’t for the stunning UCLA comeback, the Texas – West Virginia game would have been the top instant classic from this year’s tournament. With the Longhorns as my pick for the national championship, I thought Kevin Pittsnogle’s three-pointer to tie the game with 5 seconds left was going to be the death-knell for my bracket (granted, it’s already on life-sustaining equipment). There’s no way that Texas could pick itself up in overtime, right? Well, Kenton Paulino flipped the prospect of overtime the bird and nailed his own improbable three-pointer at the buzzer to clinch an Elite Eight appearance for Texas.

The evening was already going really well for me after witnessing LSU pummel Duke and J.J. Redick. Not only do I have LSU in the Final Four in one of my brackets, but it came at the expense of the most evil team in the all of sports (college or pro). If you don’t believe Coach K and his minions are the Team of the Antichrist, check out this proof that Minneapolis Red Sox sent me.

Those three thrillers more than made up for the Memphis – Bradley yawner. I didn’t put much faith in Memphis before the tournament not because of their talent – I’ve known that the Tigers’ athletes are as good as any in college basketball this year – but because of their weak conference. The lesson here once again is that I’m an idiot. I’ve got to give Memphis props for playing a hellacious non-conference schedule to compensate for the subpar Conference USA games (UCLA, Duke, Gonzaga, Tennessee, Texas, Cincinnati, plus 4 other BCS schools and UW-Milwaukee, to boot). Compare that to UConn’s line of preseason cupcakes. Remember this if they end up meeting in the championship game.

Quick predictions for tonight’s games: Boston College over Villanova (power usually beats speed in the tournament), Georgetown over Florida (just a gut feeling), George Mason over Wichita State (homecourt advantage for George Mason in DC), UConn over Washington (55% chance of a blowout by UConn or a 45% chance of a close stunning upset by Washington – there won’t be anything in between).

Enjoy the games and your weekend!

NCAA Tournament Picks and Land-o-Links – 3/23/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Basketball, Land-o-Links, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, SportsLeave a comment

My quick picks for tonight’s NCAA Tournament games are all chalk: Memphis over Bradley (although I’m proud of the Braves, the Tigers have too much firepower), Duke over LSU (probably will be a really close game), Texas over West Virginia (no longer will “Pittsnogle” be used as a verb in basketball), UCLA over Gonzaga (I will continue to pick Gonzaga to lose and call them overrated until the basketball gods rightfully bounce such an atrocious defensive team – they are the college version of the Dallas Mavericks).

Now, on to today’s links:

1) 2007 TV Rights Are On Big Ten’s Mind – Could Fox pay the Big Ten enough money to get the conference to abandon ESPN? I don’t care what the price is – leaving ESPN for more money would be fool’s gold for the Big Ten. The fact that no one outside of the Pacific time zone sees Pac-10 games has less to do with geography and more because none of their games are on ESPN. Plenty of hoops junkies have seen West Coast-based mid-major conferences such as the Mountain West, WCC, and Big West as a result of ESPN’s Big Monday. According to Teddy Greenstein, it looks like the Big Ten is going to do the right thing in the end and stay put.

2) Soap and the Campus: A Web-Site Spoof Succeeds – Have you ever met someone who went to Boston College? The old joke about them rings true: they think they’re Harvard in academics and Notre Dame in football. That’s a lot of bluster from a school that’s tied with our fair University of Illinois in the latest U.S. News rankings.

3) First Stadiums, Now Teams Take a Corporate Identity – If the MLS expands to Milwaukee, you know that the team must be called Milwaukee’s Best. There’s no other choice.

4) Chicago Parking Map – For those of you who can’t find a free parking space on the street and are willing to just give up and pay up, this should be a useful tool.

5) Signing New QB Should Have Been a Brees – I know that (a) Brian Griese isn’t exactly an addition to the Bears that makes my heart flutter and (b) complaining that Jay Mariotti is nuts is sort of like complaining that Chicago has corrupt politicians – it sucks but it’s never going to change. Still, what exactly were people expecting out of the Bears? It was a reasonable demand for the Bears to go out and get a solid backup quarterback, which is what they did in this situation by signing Griese. The Bears had as much of a chance of nabbing Drew Brees or Daunte Culpepper as the White Sox and Cubs had of trading for A-Rod a couple of years ago. Maybe I’m so happy to see that the Bears were proactive on the QB front for once that it’s coloring my thought process, but my gut reaction is that Mariotti needs to stop whining.

Melancholy End to the Illini Season and Looking Toward the Future

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, SportsLeave a comment

The fact that Illinois failed to get to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament after falling to Washington on Saturday was disappointing but not surprising. All this season, the Illini have been inconsistent on a game-to-game basis. It certainly wasn’t shocking to see us have an up-and-down game against a talented Washington team.

The tough thing about the aftermath of this loss is that we’re going to have to seriously dial back our expectations next season. From the moment after we lost to Duke in the Sweet Sixteen 2 years ago, we believed immediately that we would be national championship contenders in 2004-05 (and that proved to be correct). Last year, we at least had the satisfaction of making the Final Four and the national championship game while we could look forward to a solid, if not dominating, season with Dee Brown and James Augustine coming back.

Now, however, with Brown and Augustine having played their last game with the Illini, we don’t really know what to expect (as the Chicago Tribune pointed out a couple of days ago). We know that 2007-08 is going to be a resurgent year for Illinois with a banner recruiting class already in place featuring Eric Gordon, Bill Cole, and Mike Tisdale (and hopefully Illinois state champion Simeon guard Derrick Rose will join them). But that’s two years down the line. What is next year going to look like?

The best case scenario would be a performance similar to this year’s Ohio State team. A lot of Buckeye fans were looking past this season toward the ridiculous recruiting class starting in 2006-07 led by superstar center Greg Oden. However, the 2005-06 Ohio State team gave their fan base a lot to cheer for immediately by winning the Big Ten title outright. Considering how well Brian Randle, Shaun Pruitt, and Jamar Smith developed over the last 2 months of this season and the addition of another top big man in recruit Brian Carwell, the Illini could be pretty good shape to contend for the top of the Big Ten again.

Anyone who follows the Illini, however, can also envision the worst case scenario. The makeup of the Illinois team next season is going to be 180-degree turn from what we had in 2005. We’re going to have great size with Pruitt, Carwell, and Randle, which is positive. However, we’re also going to go from having three NBA-caliber guards that could all bring the ball up the court in 2005 to not knowing if we have anyone that can be counted on to be the primary ballhandler in 2006-07. When success in college basketball and, in particular, the NCAA Tournament is predicated on having strong guards, this is a scary situation for Illinois next season. Jamar Smith is as accurate of a jump-shooter as you’ll ever see, but he seems more suited to being a wing player that can spot up along the arc. The same thing can be said of Rich McBride. Chester Frazier received some playing time as a point guard this season, but he has yet to demonstrate that he can run the motion offense at the high level that we’ve become accustomed to seeing in Champaign. With all of this in mind, merely making the NCAA Tournament won’t be a given with this team next year.

My feeling is that we’re going to be closer to the best case scenario than the worst case scenario because of one overriding factor: Bruce Weber. As a coach, he may not have the smooth recruiting skills of Bill Self or the endorsement potential of Mike Kryzewski, but when it comes to Xs-and-Os, Weber is as good as they come. There were plenty of preseason observers that didn’t think Illinois would make the NCAA Tournament this year after losing Deron Williams, Luther Head, and Roger Powell, but the Illini ended up having a solid season (even if it did end on a sour note). A lot of coaches are fine when they have their own system in place and have the personnel to fit into that system, yet are at a loss when the makeup of the team changes. What Weber proved he could do this season is that he could adjust his system to the players that he had. The motion offense last season relied on perimeter play from Williams, Head, and Brown. By the end of this season, Weber adjusted the system so that the big men Augustine and Pruitt would be the focus of the offense. This will become more important next season as Illinois will need to rely even more on its frontcourt players.

2007-08 is the beacon of light for the Illinois basketball program right now. Before we look too far ahead, however, here’s to hoping that next season gives us some unexpected positive surprises.

Illinois is a More Balanced Sports School Than People Think

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Sports2 Comments

Tom Dienhart of the Sporting News wrote a post on his blog listing out all of the BCS conference schools and determining whether each one is a basketball school or a football school. He categorized Illinois as a basketball school, but said, “The Whiz Kid and Flyin’ Illini trump Butkus and Halas – barely.”

I note this because, for once, an observer that didn’t attend the University of Illinois actually nailed this right on the head – kudos to Dienhart for this. Most people outside of Illini Nation seem to automatically assume that Illinois is strictly a basketball school that doesn’t care about football. This isn’t an unreasonable premonition considering that Illinois has had one of most successful basketball programs in the country over the past decade while the football program has been correspondingly awful.

However, I’ve had to explain many times to others that Illinois isn’t anything like its Big Ten neighbor Indiana, where football season is considered a mild diversion until Midnight Madness. We do care about football and we do go to games. Is the passion for football in Champaign equal to what one would witness at Michigan, Ohio State, or Notre Dame? Certainly not, but remember that there are only a handful of schools across the country that come anywhere close to the high levels of consistent football support seen at those schools.

My point is that no one should assume that Illinois is just a basketball school. We love the basketball program dearly and it’s definitely been the main generator of excitement for alums and those on campus for quite awhile. However, we also deeply want the football program to get back into the upper echelon of the Big Ten and finally win some Rose Bowls again. Unlike the Hoosiers, Jayhawks, or Blue Devils, it’s in the DNA of Illini Nation to truly care about the state of the football team. Hopefully, we’ll be rewarded with some gridiron success soon to match our prowess on the hardwood court.

Jamar Smith is the Illini Bomb Squad

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, SportsLeave a comment

That was a really weird scene at the beginning of the Illinois – Air Force game last night when there was hardly anyone besides the teams’ pep bands in the arena at tip-off because the game’s ticketholders hadn’t been let in yet. This was a result of a food cart that some bomb-sniffing dogs thought was suspicious. It looked like the Illini and Falcons were playing an intramural game at IMPE.

Anyway, when the crowd finally filed in, everyone was treated to Air Force’s Princeton offense that maddeningly produced wide open three-point shots for them. Fortunately, the Illini were able to counter with Jamar Smith’s own long-range capabilities to win 78-69 and advance to a tough second-round date with the Washington Huskies on Saturday. Some takes on last night’s game:

1) Big Ten Wonk – Noted that the score was particularly high considering that Air Force aims to slow down the game to where the score is as low as possible.

2) Rick Morrissey (Chicago Tribune) – Description of the weird circumstances all around with the game.

3) Jay Mariotti (Chicago Sun-Times) – Points out that the Illini need to get more scoring from their entire group if they want to advance.

4) Wayne Drehs (ESPN.com) – Nice ESPN review of Jamar Smith’s performance last night.

5) Bryan Burwell (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) – Illini Nation has reason to smile a little bit.

As for the rest of the NCAA Tournament field, I hope you listened to me regarding Syracuse – Texas A&M and ignored me on the Orange’s fellow Big East washouts Seton Hall and Marquette. San Diego State was hitting everything last night; fortunately for Indiana, the Aztecs couldn’t play defense. Out of all the upcoming second round matchups on Saturday, I’m most sure of the Hoosiers taking out Gonzaga. The Bulldogs’ struggles against Xavier yesterday weren’t an accident – Gonzaga is one of the most overrated teams I’ve seen in a long time.

Enjoy the games this weekend and GO ILLINI!

2006 NCAA Tournament Predictions: Texas Two-Step

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, College Basketball, Illinois Fighting Illini, SportsLeave a comment

(3/12/07 UPDATE: If you’re looking for predictions for the 2007 NCAA Tournament, click here.) 

I fill out several brackets every year to cover my bases (including the obligatory “Delusional Illini Fan” bracket with Illinois going all the way for the championship), but here’s how I really think this season’s NCAA Tournament is going to shape up:

1) ATLANTA REGION

a) Teams With No Buzz That Can Surprise – Texas A&M, George Washington

b) Team With Lots of Buzz That Can Disappoint – Syracuse

c) Regional Final Prediction – Texas over Duke

2) OAKLAND REGION

a) Teams With No Buzz That Can Surprise – Indiana, Xavier, Marquette

b) Team With Lots of Buzz That Can Disappoint – Gonzaga

c) Regional Final Prediction – Kansas over Indiana (I can’t tell you how mortifying it is for me to pick such a matchup but I’ve got to put personal differences aside)

3) WASHINGTON REGION

a) Teams With No Buzz That Can Surprise – Illinois (before you call me a homer, we have the best shot to beat UConn of anyone in this region – I’m not saying that it will happen, as you can see in my Regional Final prediction below, but we’re going to be a tough out), Michigan State, Seton Hall

b) Team With Lots of Buzz That Can Disappoint – North Carolina

c) Regional Final Prediction – UConn over Michigan State

4) MINNEAPOLIS REGION

a) Teams With No Buzz That Can Surprise – Florida, Nevada, Wisconsin

b) Team With Lots of Buzz That Can Disappoint – Boston College

c) Regional Final Prediction – Ohio State over Villanova

5) FINAL FOUR PREDICTIONS

Texas over Kansas, UConn over Ohio State

6) NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME PREDICTION

I predicted the Texas upset over USC in the Rose Bowl for the football national championship a few months ago, so I’m going all-in for the Longhorns this year. On top of that, remember that Texas also won the College World Series last June.  I’m calling Texas over UConn to cement the greatest sports year that any single school could possibly have.

The start of the first round is only a couple of hours away. Merry Christmas in March, everyone!