I’m so over this tournament. Whether it be the inconsistent officiating or the fact I hated every commentator involved in today’s games, I can’t imagine a Final Four I’m less enthused about. A rematch of last year’s championship game? Fantastic, although it’s best to remember how absolutely terrible last year’s championship game was. Oden vs. Hibbert? That might be interesting if Hibbert showed any sort of dedication to destruction when he’s playing someone other than Aaron Gray. Jeff Green is simply dominant when he chooses to be, yet that choice is made so sparingly his teammates don’t even recognize his calls for the ball. Plus he totally traveled, no matter what Billy Packer said. Still, let’s take the time to sift through the wreckage of an utterly uninspiring tournament thus far:

Best Games
VCU vs. Duke, Round One- The saving grace of a miserable first couple of days, which included the Rams’ pressing and rather dirty style of play with Duke’s pompous arrogance that accompanies a bunch of Sweet Sixteen runs in a row and a decade of not falling in the first round. Josh McRoberts couldn’t assert himself against a team with no one his physical equal, and as the second half ran down, all of Duke’s guards found themselves sprawled on the floor, bloodied by Eric Maynor, B. A. Walker and company. By the time the jumper fell at the end after Dockery’s tying lay-up, a nation rejoiced the birth of a Cinderella and the death of the Blue Devils in one fell swoop.

Ohio State vs. Xavier, Round Two- Before the collapse in overtime, Xavier played a near perfect game, with their bigs knocking down shots and perfectly executing the "Trees waving slightly in the wind" strategy against Greg Oden. Drew Lavender played well most of the game, but alternated in deplorable attempts in the lane (most of them on the break) when he had no chance of finishing. Oden sorta intentionally fouled, there was some sorta chokeage on the free throws and Sean Miller definitely screwed up by not fouling. All of this accompanied by Gus Johnson’s magical call:

"Lewis has been awesome…lets it go….[barely understandable>BRINGS IT HOOOOME[/barely understandable]"

North Carolina vs. Georgetown, Elite Eight- The game everyone looked at as a potential classic turned into one before the Tar Heels’ collapse in overtime. North Carolina played their game, trotting out a dozen different players to test the Hoyas’ depth, but Georgetown showed that JT3’s system is holding down their offensive potential as they pressed the accelerator to the floor when need be. You can poke a thousand holes in Roy Williams’ post game strategy- use of timeouts, rushed shots, waiting until it was far too late to get his shooters out onto the floor in overtime – as the UNC coach had to have flashes of some of his previous uber-talented teams falling before their time should have came. A great offensive display by both teams for the first thirty five minutes, then the Tar Heels decided to let the Hoyas take over, and take over they did. Hansbrough alternated between "message-sending dominance" and "shooting his team out of the game", but one can hardly put the blame for this game on him. (EDIT - As pointed out by PB, JT3's system is sort of necessary to keep Hibbert on the floor. He looked like he was about to die halfway through the first half. If Ewing, Jr. continues to evolve, he'll make a suitable running replacement for the big guy.)


Best Announcers of the Tournament
Verne Lundquist and Bill Raftery: They lost points for Raftery screaming out "Dagger!" when Ohio State was hitting threes with seven minutes left in the game, but their singing of "You Can Call Me Al" during Florida’s Horford-led run against Purdue was enjoyable, and a nice little tribute to Paul Simon. A shame Memphis didn’t win so they could bust into "Graceland", but perhaps another time. (I also really enjoyed, obviously, Gus Johnson and thought that the Enberg/Bilas team was solid, although Enberg really slipped with some of the calls and Bilas’ channeling of Raftery sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. Saturday’s games were obviously significantly better called than Sunday’s.)

Worst Announcing Team
James Brown and Len Elmore: You’d think I’d go with Packer and Nantz here, but I surprisingly didn’t hate them as much as I usually do, although I still obviously wished anyone else but the Brown/Elmore team was calling their game. Brown has no freaking clue what’s going on, and Elmore exists on lame clichés and shout-outs to the long-gone Terrapins. If Brown had a better color guy, perhaps he could have pulled off the transition to studio, but Elmore was not that guy.

Best Coaching
Bruce Pearl: I know a lot of people think Pearl’s a sleazebag, but I love him. He plays an up-tempo style, gets animated on the sideline and is a great interview. He made the correct decision to foul Sean Singletary in the Virginia game to avoid letting him shoot the three the first time, but a solid screen freed up the great Cavalier guard for a game-tying look at the buzzer. He also dictated the pace against Ohio State and certainly had things in hand before the shots stopped falling and the amazing luck of the Buckeyes prevailed. A lot of people had Long Beach State going to the Sweet Sixteen, but Rocky Top made short work of that theory and the accompanying idea that they were severely overseeded.

Tim Floyd: This is more of a preemptive giving of something to Floyd before his little Trojan house comes crashing down around him with the arrival of OJ Mayo. His team completely dominated Texas in every facet of the game, to the point that when a friend that didn’t get to see the game asked me why they lost, I could only say "Southern Cal just did everything right". Also had things cruising against UNC before the wheels came off, Gibson left the game and he lost his damn mind. Still, we should reflect on Floyd’s nice run before the sanctions come, considering OJ Mayo is going to be nothing but trouble. Joey from Straight Bangin’ handles it well, and I encourage you to read the whole thing and listen to the PTI interview:

I am also still wary of Mayo, though Floyd's account of the New York Times story's subjects fills in some gaps. I don't want to vilify someone whom I don't know and who's in a situation with which I am unfamiliar, but as a sports fan, especially one who follows college sports and the tawdry world of recruiting and alternative compensation for athletes on campus, how can you not be suspicious of a rising freshman who has already enumerated goals of marketing himself and earning recognition as a program's savior? No matter how Mayo and his advocates frame those goals--maybe it's part of a next-level marketing plan, maybe it's hubris--aren't they similar to so many of the problems teams encounter when players are selfish? Don't they seem to lend themselves to problems that already afflict the USC sports culture, one in which celebrities crawl the sidelines and agents may or may not be making illegal contact with players? Again, the rules and conventions of our college-sports system may be built on a misleading foundation and should perhaps be significantly changed, but until they are, shouldn't we be concerned about abiding by them?

Troy basketball is about to collapse under the weight of its own overreaching ambition to create Duke/UNC West.

All-Tournament Team Thus Far

I certainly realize that there’s a certain amount of subjectivity in this, including sample size and how important you consider advancement versus fulfilling seeds and great play

G Eric Maynor, VCU- 36 points, 16 assists, 6 steals and both the game-winning shot against Duke and the spearhead of the 19-point comeback against Pitt. A friend hypothesized after the game that if you fielded a team of Eric Maynor, Kevin Kruger, Drew Neitzel and Acie Law IV, you’d never lose a close game. Although some of the others on that list fell a bit flat as the tourney progressed, one cannot doubt Maynor’s impact.

G Ron Lewis, Ohio State- In the three games that mattered (sorry Central Connecticut State), Lewis clocked in with over twenty points in all of them, accumulating 19 rebounds, 9 three-pointers and a perfect 21 of 21 mark from the line. He also saved the Buckeyes’ season against Xavier with a Gilbert Arenasesque three that couldn’t have been more perfect. He’s showed some hops and a great touch from deep, so of course, no NBA team would consider taking a flier on him in the second round with all the foreign players available.

G Chris Douglas-Roberts, Memphis- The numbers weren’t overly impressive (about 15 points per), but anyone who watched his effect on both the Texas A&M and Ohio State games realizes the influence he had on his rather unseasoned Tiger team and their four opponents. Also led the fury of defensive pressure that frazzled the Aggie backcourt into a poor shooting night, and before the fouls started to mount up and Joey Dorsey proved completely worthless against Oden, kept his team in the game before making a truly stupid foul on the big guy.

F Jared Dudley, Boston College- If you didn’t watch BC’s games against Texas Tech or Georgetown, then there’s no way for me to do justice to what Dudley did for his team in those games. Against equal-to-superior talent across the board, Dudley strapped his team onto his back and although the numbers were decent (19 points and 7.5 rebounds per), there were long stretches of the game where the ACC Player of the Year was the only one accomplishing anything for his team. A bad draw against Georgetown ended his senior run in the second round, but his team wouldn’t have made it that far, or been competitive against the Hoyas, without him.

F Jeff Green, Georgetown- You could put Roy Hibbert here, but since Green hit the game-winner against Vanderbilt while Hibbert sat on the bench with five fouls, we’ll give it to the smooth Big East Player of the Year. Lockdown defender, great post moves, good finisher, fantastic passer and the superlatives just roll off the tongue. Played all 40 minutes against a more-than-game Vanderbilt team and played all but two minute against the Tar Heels, throwing up a 20 and 12 against a slew of inside opponents that just kept coming off of Williams’ bench.

Other players strongly for this team: Tyler Hansbrough (bad game against Southern Cal, poor finish against Georgetown), JR Reynolds (smote by injury), Sean Singletary, Chris Lofton, Aaron Afflalo, Derrick Byars, Kevin Durant (not his best, still the only player apparently giving a crap), Roy Hibbert, Al Horford (going to be so sweet in the NBA paired up with an offensively gifted center), Aaron Brooks, Edgar Sosa.

Other players not considered for this team: DJ Augustin, Luke Harangody, Aaron Gray and the Dominic James/Scottie Reynolds "CHUCK IT DEEP!" Big East combo

Worst Style of Play
Ben Howland and the UCLA Bruins: I hated how Howland mucked up the games when he was at Pittsburgh, and after a promising start to UCLA/Kansas, his clutch-and-grab, relying-on-prayers-at-the-end-of-the-shot-clock offense and inability of any of his teams to shoot free throws (seriously, I thought it was just with the Panthers, but now the Bruins are awful from the stripe). The halftime score of UCLA/Indiana was 20 to 13. That’s an abomination to the sport, and was there any doubt Pitt/UCLA would be the worst Sweet Sixteen game? Now they’re going to try and do it again on the stage of the Final Four, and I’m hoping Florida treats them like it’s 2006.

---

Update [2007-3-26 0:34:26 by CW]:Reconsidered. Whammy: