2014 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, Round 3 and GAME PICS
...because I got to see some of this, yo.
So, perfect brackets were all a dream by Saturday. The bracket is at 37%; I won't even mention how the draft I took part in went. Poor choices from *this* fan.
Before the recap, the pics!
HALP I'M IN VICE CITY
The Amway Center, where the Orlando pod was held. I'm so, so sorry, Orlando Magic fans. No one deserves Amway as owners.
View of the court from the seats in Florida.
Picture of a Pepsi sign in the Dayton Flyers arena from the First Four. Note that their sign on the main scoreboard is covered up because Coke paid good money.
So, my time watching games was fun, even if they could have gone better. (Well, okay, Florida winning was probably a good thing, because three-fourths of the fans in Orlando were Florida fans. Pitt wins that and I'm hoping we make it home okay and that no one smashes my uncle's car window in.) The watchability of the games themselves could be called into question; the uncles in particular would like to never sit through Louisville/St. Louis ever again. Band-wise, it was close between Pitt and Florida, with slight edge perhaps to Pitt and a small cadre of vocal fans; St. Louis band or St. Louis fans, each by themselves, could have blown Louisville's crowd off the floor. (Also, Louisville band - WHY PITBULL?! WHY?!?!) As the play-in games went, we had an NBA scout in a seersucker suit sitting in front of us who caught on to the glances of myself and my friend somewhere around the first half of Xavier/N.C. State. He was not happy about N.C. State's team's overall selfish play or their vaunted point guard T.J. Warren's quick fouls in the first half, but did like the frame and mid-range jumper of Xavier's big man, Matt. I am inclined to agree on the latter; as to the former, saying someone doesn't know the "little things" to avoid the perception of fouls is saying you think you know how to hide things better from the ref when you can't see what the man is doing to pick up the fouls.
Enough about the vacation and games for now, though. To the conference breakdowns!
- B1G: 3-0 this round, 6-3 overall. They'll do no worse than break-even at this point - no quibbling about their bids, even Ohio State's and Iowa's, since they both lost to Sweet 16 teams. *sob*
- Big East: 0-2 this round, 2-4 record to finish. At least it takes a round now before I call them Big Least.
- ACC: 1-4 this round, 6-6 overall. YUCK. At least OSU isn't alone in losing to Dayton.
- AAC: 2-1 this round, 5-2 overall. Looking good from here (if you don't mind watching Louisville shoot); of course, there's the Louisville/Kentucky blood feud set up for next round.
- SEC: 3-0 this round, 7-0 overall. OKAY OKAY I TAKE BACK EVERYTHING I SAID BAD ABOUT YOUR CONFERENCE THIS YEAR I GET IT
- PAC-12: 3-1 this round, 7-3 overall. Only Oregon falls, and thus we have set up a 10/11 bout in the Sweet 16 and STANFORD GETS HOME JERSEYS
- Big XII: 2-2 this round, 6-5 overall, and would be okay except that was Kansas dropping to Stanford by fouling to start the second half. The only solace I have as an Ohio State fan is that Dayton's reward for beating us and Syracuse is giving the Stanford band a free shot at playing "Fly Like an Eagle".
- Mountain West: 1-0 this round, 2-1 overall. Mountain West can do no worse than break-even, and they'll be rather happy with that, I suspect.
- Atlantic 10: 1-1 this round, 3-5 overall. To break even, Dayton would need to win its next three games. Good news: this is technically still possible, and winning the first game is actually around a 50-50 shot. Bad news: the State of Ohio isn't necessarily rooting for you after this went on sale at the Dayton Daily News gift shop.
Your upset percentage in Round 3 is kinda high due to the SEC and the Florida regional: 5/16 = 31.25%; first two rounds are 13/48, or a little over 27%. I don't want to look at the SEC for possible extra teams, but the evidence is brutal. I can definitely say SMU from the AAC should have been in. Atlantic 10 could have maybe gone one shorter, except that Providence was the auto-bid and Dayton's certainly earned their place - maybe Xavier should have been left to the NIT this time? Also someone should have been sent to the NIT from the new Big East along with the Hoyas.
Until next round, I'll be over here crying over OSU's shooting inability.
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