All Tournament, All the Time

High-Def and DVRs are the best, Gary Walters isn't, Drexel got robbed, One Man's Humble Predictions and other ramblings from the week that was.

By Greg Wiley
The Phanatic Magazine

The NCAA Tournament field was announced on Sunday to a few surprises. I'll touch on a few of them and then give you my predictions, but first let's just say I'm a little pumped to watch my first tournament in High-Def. I caught the conference tournaments in HD this past week and had trouble pulling myself away. I thank God for my DVR (I'm convinced it makes me a better person). I was able to pause the end of the Big East semifinal between Georgetown and Notre Dame with a couple minutes left on Friday night in order to tuck my kids into bed. Then started it back up again when I was done. In the old days (just a few years ago) I would have either missed the ending, made the kids completely intolerable by making them wait, or lost points with the wife, but because of the DVR I'm in the running for Father of the Year (of course I nominated myself for that award).

Let's take a look at what Selection Committee chairperson Gary Walters, the director of athletics at Princeton, had to say about the selection process. If you saw his CBS interview during the selection show, you heard him basically say that the committee looked at every at-large team as an independent and didn't compare them to others in its conference. Then, he goes on to compare Drexel (the biggest snub) to Old Dominion. Both schools are in the CAA. He also compared Big 12 schools Texas Tech and Kansas State to each other when asked. Sounds like they did compare conference teams to each other. Why not compare Drexel to Arkansas or Kansas State to Illinois?

Next, here are some teams that I feel aren't tournament worthy. Illinois (11 seed West), Stanford (11 seed South), and Arkansas (12 seed East). I'm also not crazy about Georgia Tech (10 seed Mid-West) and Texas Tech (10 seed East), but I'll live with them. My biggest gripe is with Arkansas, which looks like one of the last four teams into the tournament. Despite their good run at the SEC tourney, the Razorbacks had just two true road wins this season and were 7-9 in a weak SEC West Division. I'm tired of seeing mid-level teams from major conferences get bids over the mid-major teams who schedule like the committee asks and are successful. It is another example of the rich getting richer in NCAA sports. The mid-major teams rarely get a chance to showcase themselves for athletes or fans.

I feel bad for Drexel. The Dragons had a great year. They went on the road and beat Syracuse, Creighton and Villanova, the latter two being tournament teams, and finished with an astonishing 14-4 record away from home (13 of those wins as a true road team). The number of mid-major teams in the tournament has steadily decreased over the last four years and that bothers me. The Cinderella stories are what make the tournament so special and the committee is forgetting that!

Now, my predictions. I'm not going to go game by game, but I'll give some marquee matchups.

In the Midwest Bracket, No. 1 Florida and second-seeded Wisconsin are on a collision course for the final. Some intriguing match-ups within that region are: UNLV over Ga. Tech, Winthrop getting to the Sweet 16 and the ODU/Butler winner surprising four seed Maryland. Butler's not playing well right now. I expect ODU to win that one. But when it's all said and done, Florida will win the bracket (unfortunately).

In the West, I think Kansas is the weakest of the No. 1 seeds overall and will fall to Villanova. The ninth-seeded Wildcats have a win against Texas under their belt and should be able to handle the Jayhawks. On the bottom, No 3. Pitt and No. 2 UCLA will meet in the semifinal, with the teacher Ben Howland beating the student Jamie Dixon. Therefore, the Bruins will win the bracket against the So. Illinois/'Nova winner (I haven't decided yet).

I like four seed Texas in the East Bracket, which by the way is the strongest of all the brackets. Kevin Durant should be able to lead the Longhorns to the Final Four, just like freshman Carmelo Anthony did for Syracuse. Top-seeded UNC is playing well, but I always like a team that comes into the tourney off a tough loss -- like Texas. It's usually a lot to ask of a team like UNC to win more than nine games in a row at the end of the season. And with three straight at the ACC tourney plus a regular-season finale win over Duke already in their pocket, the Tar Heels will wear out at some point. Vanderbilt scares me as a six seed at the bottom of the bracket. When a three-point shooting team gets hot they are hard to stop in the tournament. Second-seeded Georgetown, though, should be able to contain the Commodores and earn a meeting with the Longhorns. But again, the Big East tourney winners, who come into the tournament winners of four straight and 15 of 16, will tire out against Texas.

Finally, in the South Bracket I'm hard pressed to find a team to slow down top-seeded Ohio State. Second seeded Memphis has won 22 in a row and will have to run out of steam somewhere -- I'm guessing in the semifinal against six seed Louisville or three seed Texas A&M. But regardless, the Buckeyes will come out of the bracket.

So, my Final Four is Florida, UCLA, Texas and Ohio State. You'll note that Florida and OSU are two conference tourney winners. Earlier I said I tend to pick against tourney winners, but in these cases it's hard to pick against these teams. The Gators are seasoned, coming off their third straight SEC tourney title and having already won the NCAA crown last year, so it's hard to say they will tire out. And for the Buckeyes, well, plain and simple they have Greg Oden. A lot of tourney teams are perimeter oriented, so when their shots don't fall they get in trouble. But with OSU, when it gets in trouble, Oden is there in the post to bail his squad out.

I really don't like having to pick Florida, so I'll say that the Bruins' lock-down defense will hold the Gators in check and UCLA will advance. In the other battle, I expect Durant to outplay Greg Oden, but Ohio State will win anyway (and Oden will still be the top pick), setting up a low-scoring final that the Buckeyes, I mean Bruins, no I mean Buckeyes will escape with.

Moving away from the hardwood and onto the ice, the NHL acted relatively quickly in suspending New York Islanders forward Chris Simon for at least 25 games for his tomahawk chop to Rangers forward Ryan Hollweg. The incident happened on Thursday, Simon was suspended indefinitely (pending the hearing) on Friday, pleaded his case on Saturday and Sunday learned of his fate. I applaud the NHL for its quick and swift action.

Simon will not skate again this season, forfeiting somewhere in the area of $80,000, and might miss action next year if the Islanders don't play at least 25 games before they get eliminated this year. But is it enough? In my opinion the answer is no. Simon came within inches of ending Hollweg's life. And the consequences are $80,000 and come back sometime next season.

I don't know Chris Simon. I hear he is a good guy. Maybe he is, I don't know. But keep this in mind, he's been suspended six times by the league in the past and has recorded nearly as many penalty minutes as there are notches on Wilt Chamberlain's bed post.

Hockey has a major problem on its hands and has taken very little action rectifying it. This is the second violent act with a stick in eight years and the third act that could have killed someone in that same time period (Marty McSorley's stick to Donald Brashear's head and Todd Bertuzzi's sucker punch to Steve Moore being the other two).

Yes, they have cracked down on certain penalties to make the sport more fast-paced and fan-friendly, but the violence has changed very little. One day a player is going to die because of the sports' barbaric behavior. I can't fathom why they allow fighting and it boggles my mind even more that they allow these players back on the ice that same game. The league encourages violent behavior and then when someone acts violently, like Simon did, they say that there is no room in the sport for it. If that was the case, fighting would be illegal...

Finally, the Dallas Mavericks won their 17th straight game on Sunday night. Avery Johnson really has his team playing well right now. They are the only team to have clinched a playoff berth and are on the fast track to the NBA title series. However, I'm not completely sold on Dallas being Title Town just yet. This is virtually the same team that collapsed in the finals last year and I'm almost certain they will do it again in the playoffs at some point. If the Mavs can get by San Antonio and/or Phoenix, then I'll believe.

If you care to ramble or just rumble, e-mail Greg at gwiley@phanaticmag.com.