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Great upsets

I don't like to brag much, but at one point this weekend in my family's bracket challenge on ESPN, my five bracket entires held the bottom five spots in the lineup of fourteen, which I assume is why no one reads this blog.

While I missed a ton of basketball this weekend, I did get to see much of my favorite game: West Virginia over Duke. I hate Duke and it's always fun to see them fail, though perhaps it would have been more fun had Preakness University done the honors in the first round. I don't really care for Bob Huggins, either, except that now I think he deserves a 200-foot statue and a place in the Hall of Fame.

To be fair, these program schools are a little odd. Beating Duke this year isn't like beating Jason Williams/Shane Battier Duke, and it's nothing like beating Trajan Langdon/Elton Brand Duke. In retrospect the Blue Devils were a pretty good team, but not really championship material. The odd thing about watching the West Virginia game was that I kept expecting Duke to make some kind of run, and they simply couldn't. How far the mighty have fallen, at least for now, and how sweet it is.

Also exciting is Georgetown's loss today to Davidson. Next weekend I have to catch me some Stephen Curry. Georgetown's loss left my brackets in tatters, too, but who freaking cares? The whole point of the opening weekend is watching high-seeded teams fall flat on their face, and if you get some great individual performances, too, that's all the better.

And finally, I guess a No. 6 should lose to a No. 3, but I'm still pleased that Oklahoma managed to fall short by so much (by 30 points to Louisville, a small town near my home). I absolutely can't stand Oklahoma, and I hate their basketball team as much as their football team, which is rare for me. The University of Utah is probably the only other school to inspire that kind of feeling from me. I mean I don't like Nebraska's hoops team, but I don't have to hear about them, either.

What did y'all think of the weekend?

Comments

John said…
I agree on all fronts. With Duke's FIRST round loss last year, they are starting to look like the overhyped chumps they always have been. I really wish Belmont/Preakness would have pulled it out in the first round, but I will take what I can get.

All of DC is reeling over the G-town loss . . . I thought they were overrated, but I thought they would last at least until the Sweet Sixteen. I wonder if this means Nike will be pulling their John Thompson/John Thompson III ads with the tagline: "There are no Cinderellas."

And watching Oklahoma get obliterated in any sport is worth the price of admission.

Overall, the weekend was solid, although I expect Davidson and Villanova to run their course next weekend. And North Carolina looked absolutely dominant, albeit against the likes of the Smoky Hill Institute of Technology.
9:57 AM
Mike said…
You know, Duke barely winning one game isn't nearly as bad as losing in the very next round. It's not rare for even a title-winning team to have at least one really close call, but the good teams bounce back. Duke didn't really bounce back at all, which just goes to show exactly what you said. And while I don't follow them that closely, I haven't heard of any Jason Williams-like recruits on the horizon who are supposed to turn it around for them.

Even I saw that "No Cinderellas" ad fifty times.

I'm pulling for UNC, of course, but yeah, it seemed like they and Kansas got the easy half of the bracket for sure.
4:35 PM
John said…
Yeah, Kansas and UNC got the easy half of the bracket . . . but I am starting to believe that Texas can emerge from the South bracket. Memphis just looked abysmal, and they have a track record of compiling a paper champion record in the regular season and folding like origami in the tournament.
4:59 PM
Mike said…
Yeah, I'd picked Texas to do well, though, so don't get too excited. On the other hand, I agree, especially since Memphis was 33-1 or whatever. It's almost like being a 1-loss team is more an indictment of your schedule than evidence of your greatness. I mean, nobody's THAT good, so if the record says you are, you almost definitely aren't & you haven't been tested properly (see recent teams like when Jameer Nelson was at St. Joseph's or when Dee & Deron were at Illinois, though at least the fellows in orange made the title game). Shoot, look at the '99 Duke squad, too.
5:50 PM
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