Best Game: Wow, a lot of choices so far. I'm a sucker for buzzer beaters, so I have to go with Murray State-Vanderbilt. Close the entire way, capped off by a Danero Thomas 16 footer for the win. I'm somewhat surprised he got as good a look as he did, but he still had to make the shot. Well executed play by Murray State, and a heck of a win to advance to the 2nd round. I know a lot of people (myself included) saw this Murray State team as a potential upset pick in the first few rounds, and they came through.
Best Performance: Has to be Jimmer Fredette's 37 point gem in BYU's first 1st round win in 8 years, beating Florida 99-92 in double OT. The best part was, his teammate almost played better than he did. Michael Loyd Jr. came out of nowhere to score 26 on 7-10 shooting. Florida had chances at the end of regulation and the 1st OT and couldn't get off a good shot either time. Florida's inability to create consistent looks in the paint eventually became their downfall. In the future, I would suggest that Billy Donovan tell his kids not to put up 32 threes when you shoot 31% from three as a team. Meanwhile, BYU looked efficient and effective offensively and should give K-State (who looked impressive in their own right) one heck of a game.
Upset that didn't happen: The kids from RMU played their butts off and Nova did everything short of giving the game away at the end, including Scottie Reynolds going 2-15 from the floor, the entire team missing all kinds of layups and open jumpers, turning the ball over a couple of times in the last minutes and passing up a wide open layup to take a 5 point lead with 15 seconds to go. No offense to Nova, but it's a shame when a team plays that poorly and still ends up winning the game. Nova better be ready to play on Saturday, because Omar Samhan looked awfully good today and he will be ready to dominate the Wildcats inside. Honorable mention goes out to Sam Houston State, who hung with Baylor for 38 minutes before the Bears finally took over.
Game that got lost in the mix: Notre Dame-Old Dominion was incredibly slow and boring in the 2nd half, but it was exciting at the end, as Carleton Scott's 3 pointer rimmed in and out, giving Old Dominion a 51-50 win for the first upset of the day. ODU's height and 2-3 zone gave ND problems in the 2nd half, and the Irish struggled to hit open jumpers and only got 3 foul shot attempts on the day.
Most exciting game left tonight: I'm looking forward to Marquette-Washington, Tennessee-San Diego State, and Wake Forest-Texas.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
The Floida-BYU matchup must have been an exciting game! I wouldn’t know because the CBS station where I live was showing the Robert Morris-Villanova game and didn’t do any live look-ins of the Florida-BYU game. I really wanted to see the other game, especially as it progressed into overtime and eventually a second overtime.
Yea it was. Jimmer Fredette was unstoppable for most of the 2nd half. I still don't know how he got half of those layups in the air, much less in the basket. Florida caught fire from three in the 2nd to keep it close though
Post a Comment