EZ The Blog

When a washed-up sports radio host has only one outlet left.

Kentucky fans, I know this hurts to relive.  But, it was the best basketball game of all time.

It’s crazy for me.  There’s only a handful of events in my life where I know where I was when that event transpired.

On March 28th, 1992, I was with my grandfather watching the Indiana high school state championship at the old Hoosier Dome (RIP) in Indianapolis.  The game didn’t start until 8pm, but we got back to the arena early to watch the game–Kentucky vs. Duke.

I remember, despite constant grumblings, they wouldn’t show the game on the jumbotron inside the stadium.  So we had to go out to the concourse.

There were more fans crammed in the concourse all the way around the dome watching the classic game than there were in the actual dome itself watching the pregame shootaround for the state’s most important annual basketball game.

It was wild, but you all know that.

Want to see what a 96-team bracket would look like?  I decided to sit down and make one using the NCAA and NIT fields.  Check it out by clicking here: 2010 96-Team NCAA Tournament.

Keep in mind that this is using the NIT teams to add the extra 32 teams.  So some teams got in based on winning their conference’s regular season (therefore getting the automatic bid to the NIT).  I didn’t mess with the seeds too much.  I kept most of the seeds the same, except I moved the low-conference automatic bid winners down to seeds 22 through 24, and stuck the NIT teams above that, seeding them solely based on RPI.  Just so you know.

Enjoy.

Not that’s it up to me…

But after Syracuse’s second-straight loss (losing to Georgetown) and subsequent early exit from the Big East Tournament, I keep hearing the talking heads tell me that Syracuse is still a 1-seed.

If the tourney started today, they’re probably right.

But, as we learned with Louisville last year, wins in the conference tournament can serve as a last-minute caapul to that top line.

That’s two losses in a row for the Orange–still one of the favorites to win it all. Find me another team who entered the dance on a two-game losing streak and was still a 1-seed?

There’s still a lot of conference tourney hoops to be played.

Now, other teams that want that slot have some work to do, but there are a few who I think can swap with the Orange IF AND ONLY IF they win their respective conference tournaments:

- Kansas State
– Purdue
– Ohio State
– West Virginia

All of these teams would’ve theoretically pulled off some monumental wins en route to their conference crown.

And the top line.

The spincycle got a nice little run at the Yum Center Wednesday during Louisville head men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino’s standard day-before-the-game press conference.

Pitino said that his team’s goal is to make it to 10 conference victories (video of the presser, thanks to the Courier-Journal, is below).

I got news for Pitino.  Ten wins ain’t gonna cut it.  But that’s probably not news to Pitino.  He’s HAS to know that’s not enough, right?

The table to the right is Ken Pomeroy’s (KenPom.com) projection for Louisville the rest of the way which also predicts an eight-loss Big East slate.  The projections also show one win over ANYONE IN THE TOP 40 CURRENTLY–a home win over Georgetown (white suit optional).

This is NOT a NCAA Tournament-worthy resume.

Now, it probably won’t go like this.  No Rick Pitino-coached team ever does the predictable.

But take a look again at that remaining schedule–slice it however you want–and tell me how the Cardinals get into the NCAA Tournament as an at-large with just 10 Big East victories (and an 18-12 regular season mark).  They’d have to get to the championship game of the conference tournament to have a shot.

Watch Pitino here:

In lieu of typing up something, how bout just mumbling my way through it? It’s a little quicker.

I keep on hearing about this possible expansion of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tourney. Wow, another day of March Madness would be pretty sweet, but wait…

Well, consider me a sucker for the fairy tale.

The beginning of the game was just as I expected it. Roy Williams’ highly-favored Tarheels would sprint out to a early double-digit lead, and enjoy it for awhile.

And then Tom Izzo would coach his troops how to methodically cut into that lead, forcing a nailbiter at the wire.

Never happened.

As a plain ol’ fan of college basketball, it was frustrating. You want to see a game worthy of all the lore it was receiving.

Instead of a game, we found a TEAM worthy of such notoriety.

I thought Ty Lawson, after many questioned his toughness while shelved during a toe injury, showed the country why he was destined to quarterback this “franchise.”

Might as well call it that. There’s at least one Tarheel that starts most all of their games on the bench that will be an NBA player, not to mention the five regular starters.

The Tarheels made us question at times, but all-in-all, they become just the sixth team to start AND finish the year right where college basketball players and coaches dream to–number one.

If you’re like me, your college basketball hangover has begun. For me, it doesn’t even remotely start to improve until college football and the NFL arrive… and NO, I’m not talking about spring football.

So, to help curb the ills, how about some of the best post-championship reads out there on the web.

• My radio sidekick, mentor, and pal Rick Bozich files this blog post and does what ALL media should do immediately after a title game–post a preseason Top 10 for the following year.
• ESPN.com’s Pat Forde seems to always hit the nail on the head if you ask me. He wrote about how it wasn’t always roses for the ‘Heels en route to the title.
• FoxSports.com’s Jeff Goodman writes a mea culpa on Ty Lawson and assesses the (short) coaching carousel.
• ESPN.com’s Dana O’Neil has a good piece on Tyler Hansbrough’s rise to glory.
• I’m glad someone wrote something on Michigan State and their deserved and fate-filled trip to Detroit and the Final Four. ESPN.com’s Andy Katz did.

Hopefully baseball tides me over for the summer.

I’m officially pumped for the NCAA men’s basketball national championship game on Monday night.
If you know me, you know that I’ve got a lot of love for Tom Izzo. In fact, I’m a fan of any coach who knows how to motivate and doesn’t care to show emotion in front of his players as if he were one of the players (I’m also a huge Bruce Pearl fan for the same reason).

Of course, North Carolina is the best team in the country. They probably were all year.

And even though Michigan State has beaten the likes of two of the Big East’s best (if not THE two best) in a seven-day stretch, they still lack the respect they deserve. They come into the national title game as the “David” to the Tarheels’ “Goliath.”

I bet that’s the way Tom Izzo would want it.

And this is the same way great memoirs in sports get written. The Spartans come in to the game as underdogs, against the (apparent) number one team in the country who spanked them on that same “supposed” home floor by 35 points a just three months-and-change ago.

I’m not sure if Sparty shows up and beats UNC outright.

But we’ve seen this fairy tale written before.

Well, what a night.

My bracket took a hit with Duke and Memphis losing, Missouri looked like they were from another planet, and the Billy Gillispie drama continues to unfold.

What’s a shame is that Louisville is the overall number one seed in the NCAA Tournament, and that story has taken a back seat.

Part of the reason for that is that Louisville is playing a 12-seed, but the more important reason is one that U of L fans sometimes have a tough time hearing, reading, or saying.

UK basketball is the most important sports program to the people of Kentucky.

Now, don’t get me wrong Cards fans, your passion is way up there. It’s right there with the passion of Cat fan if you ask me.

But, having experienced this first hand as a sports radio talk show host in Louisville, if I learned one thing, it’s this:

Saw this in the Courier-Journal this morning. I think it’s safe to say that Rick Pitino definitely knows how to win that first game of the NCAA Tournament weekend.

Pitino’s Regional Semifinal Results

Is anyone else getting the feeling that they like the four # 1 seeds to get to the Final Four again, only to realize that it only happened for the first time ever last year, so you’re afraid to fill it out that way again this year?

I am so there.

Maybe all the chalk last year has me picking less upsets this year. I don’t know. Anyway, here we go. Cards fans, look away.

Read ‘em and weep (because, I am):