Basketball in March is maddening
So, has college men鈥檚 basketball made your March maddening yet?
If not so interested in college basketball, betcha the emergence of 鈥渙range cone season鈥� and the accompanying 鈥淪top/Slow鈥� flip signs have you wondering about your travel bracketology!
(A little side note 鈥� Travels into Latrobe for the very foreseeable future will be frustrating, to say the least, with repairs to the (one and only) bridge that carries Route 981 over Loyalhanna Creek. One side of the two-lane bridge is to remain open. So, if the Lady Spartan/Wildcat Invitational at Latrobe Memorial Stadium is on your April 7 schedule of events, allow time to weave your way back to the stadium.)
All right, back to the NCAA Division I Men鈥檚 Basketball Tournament.
I am a glutton for punishment, especially when I think I can beat the 鈥渟ystem,鈥� so I filled out a couple brackets for one group and a third for a second league.
I successfully selected a bracket-high 38-of-48 games in the second league, but there鈥檚 too much thinking to figure out how my brackets match up with the other 鈥渃ontestants.鈥�
While my mom鈥檚 cat Pumpkin isn鈥檛 much for football and the Super Bowl, as was her predecessor Marvin, the beagle/basset hound mix, she is a college basketball fan.
Pumpkin, between naps, picked one of the two brackets in the other contest and sits atop the group by correctly selecting 99 percent (per ESPN鈥檚 math) into the Sweet 16.
Now, her East side of the bracket has been blown apart with the demise of Villanova and Duke, so she鈥檚 hoping South Carolina advances to the Final Four.
Perhaps it鈥檚 time for Coach K to relax, enjoy the grandkids and heal his balky back. His Blue Devils were bedeviled by South Carolina鈥檚 zone defense, 鈥渃hucking it up from the cheap sheets,鈥� enamored with the 3-point shot instead of working the ball into the heart of the defense for high-percentage shots.
Notre Dame and Mike Brey had me believing, too, but did exactly what West Virginia鈥檚 pressing defense wanted them to do: Dawdle while taking the ball out of bounds after a made basket; throw the pass low and into one of the outer thirds (because pressing defenses are predicated on defending two thirds, not three); don鈥檛 post anyone in the middle of the backcourt as an outlet to break the press; and attempt to dribble through the defense along the sideline.聽
Maybe more college teams should throw out an active zone and/or a zone press (2-2-1, 1-2-2, etc.) more often, because players seem to have no idea how to deal with either situation. Guess they don鈥檛 see it very often in AAU ball.
Back to Pumpkin鈥檚 Picks (catchy name, I know, but hey, she鈥檚 a cat), somehow her feline intuition allowed her to manage the other three regionals because all six of her remaining Elite Eight picks remain in the hunt.
So, between naps and bugging for food, she鈥檒l be rooting for Gonzaga, Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, North Carolina and UCLA to win today or Friday, then have Arizona, Kansas and UCLA win again over the weekend. Hey, if Pumpkin can pull it out somehow, there鈥檚 a nice bag of treats coming her way. (But, any winnings go to me cause I fronted her the entry fee.)
One certainty is the next two weekends should provide some very solid, entertaining college basketball.
Plus, the Pirates open the 2017 on Monday, April 3, the afternoon of the national championship game, so get ready for an exciting (or frustrating) day of sporting excitement!