Hello everyone, I hope you are having a great day! In the sweet sixteen, I went 50% in the picks I made on here, which is about right considering my bracket thus far. Today I'm going to expand a little and talk more about college basketball in general.
1. I'd like to start off the first point by giving props to Charles Barkley. That's right, I said it, Charles Barkley. For those of you who don't know who he is, Charles is a very interesting analyst for CBS right now. He played in the NBA for 16 years and is known as an all time great. After his basketball career was over, he has been known to make some bad decisions when it comes to alcohol, but still remains an regular analyst for TNT for NBA games. Since the basketball tournament expanded to four television networks this year, Charles has been part of the team that all networks go to before, after and during halftime of most all the games. At the beginning of the tournament Charles made his picks and said that Arizona would lose to Kansas in the Championship game. Everyone said he was nuts and blew him off because he usually says some ridiculous things, but so far so good as both teams are still in it and appear to be playing their way into the final four. Although critics may say Charles is crazy and shouldn't be listened to, you have to give him props for many of the picks he has made thus far.
2. When I filled out my bracket, I had picked St. Johns to make it to the Final Four in the SouthEast Region. Well earlier today, the Southeast region was decided by a team that few people picked last year to make it to the final and I'm sure, even less picked them this year. The Butler Bulldogs have just simply found a way to win against all odds and all types of teams and earlier today beat Florida in overtime to punch their ticket to Houston. Brad Stevens, coach of the Butler team is now 9 and 1 in the NCAA tournament. Those numbers speak for themselves.
3. Butler reaching the Final Four leads me to my main point I want to make today and that is about the so called Cinderella team. Butler cannot claim this title this year since VCU is still in the tournament. VCU will take on Kansas tomorrow, but I will talk more about that later. The idea of the Cinderella team is something that is overplayed and is unnesessary in college basketball today. Granted there are teams and schools such as Duke, Kansas, North Carolina, Kentucky and so on that people expect to win and be in the final four every year. These expectations are unwarranted and should not be considered anymore. With the one and done rule in place for the NBA, student athletes are coming to school for a year because they have to and then leaving. The school they attend is many times one of the "blue-bloods" of college basketball such as Kentucky, Kansas, or Duke. This means that these schools most likely have the best coaches in the nation and many times the most talented athletes, so people expect these schools to win every year. The idea of the "Cinderella" is that schools such as a Butler or a VCU do not get these great recruits, so they can never compete with schools such as Florida or Kentucky and so on. There is no need for the "Cinderella" label anymore because in the NCAA tournament, where it's one and done (single elimination) any team can beat anybody on any given day. These schools such as Butler, VCU, or even Richmond whom made it to the Sweet Sixteen, are teams that have great coaches who are usually younger, meaning they are closer to the age of the players and can relate to these players and know how to recruit them. These teams do not get the top recruits and the "one and done's", so the players on these teams are usually juniors and seniors. They are teams that have played together for at least two or three years and have bonded together and have experience playing with each other. When these senior laden teams start playing good enough to make the tournament, they can beat the "top programs" because these top programs do not have experience playing together, especially in such high pressure situations as the NCAA tournament, where if you play one bad half, you can lose to anyone as we have seen. The "Cinderella" team is just a term made up by the media in order to label what seems to be a lesser team, but if a team is playing this late in the year, they are anything but a "Cinderella."
4. As I finish up these 4 Points, it is currently half time of the Kemba vs. Derrick Williams show and Kemba is getting the best of Williams. I can only hope for a second half as good as the Butler vs. Florida match up I just watched earlier today. The games tomorrow will be very good as well. Kansas will take on VCU at 1:20 and then the final team will be decided for the Final Four when North Carolina takes on Kentucky in a true "blue blood" match up with so much basketball history between them, it is sure to be an instant classic. My picks for the rest of the games are as follows: UCONN 76 ARIZONA 74. And for tomorrow's games, KANSAS 82 VCU 68. and finally UNC 73 KENTUCKY 72.
Enjoy the games and please leave any questions or comments below! Thanks for reading!
Derek
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