NCAA Tournament Hoops Tonight

HOOPS
There are two "First Round" games on the slate tonight for the NCAA Tournament:

• (16) Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils vs. (16) Western Kentucky Hilltoppers at 6:40 pm.
• The winner plays #1 Kentucky but look at the bright side, whoever wins won a "First Round" game
• WKU is the only team in the field with a losing record (15-18) and first to reach with a losing record in 4 years.  The Hilltoppers have yet to play a ranked team this year and after their loss against South Alabama on February 18th, their record was 9-18.  And they shoot under 40% from the floor, good bad enough for 321st out of 338 D1 schools.
•  MVSU gets outscored by 0.4 points per game yet went 21-12, including 17-1 in SWAC play.  Maybe because they travelled to UNC, Wisconsin, Florida, Notre Dame, South Carolina, Arkansas, Northwestern, Ole Miss, and Iowa State.  Talk about schedule suicide.  You can't say they aren't battle tested.
• (14) Brigham Young Cougars vs. (14) Iona Gaels at 9:10 pm
• The winner plays #3 Marquette
• Iona  plays offense like a chicken without a head and has no problems scoring - they're 1st in the nation in points per game (83.3).  Oh, and they're 1st in the nation is assists per game (19.3).  So to make the case that because they "didn't play anyone" and shouldn't be in the tournament is ridiculous.  They went 6-2 in road games in December ... and went 0-0 in home games in December.  That's right, they spent an entire month playing road games.
• Sure, Jimmer is gone, but BYU can still light it up - 78.2 points per game (21st in the nation) but they play also play some defense now - Jimmer did not.  They lost to Wisconsin, Baylor, and St. Mary's in Provo and really didn't beat a good team on the road (unless you consider Virginia Tech a good road win).

I like Western Kentucky and Iona to advance to the "Second Round".

March Madness - Basketball and Baseball

NCAA March Madness - Basketball Edition
The field of 64 68 was announced on Sunday and I think the committee did a pretty decent job.  The biggest surprises were Iona (although they did deserve it more than a Drexel team that everyone has a hard on for) and South Florida (sure they play in the Big East, but they played no one out of conference and played a soft Big East schedule).  It's no surprise that both are in the "First Four" games today and tomorrow.

Kentucky, Syracuse, North Carolina, and Michigan State are the number one seeds.  Kentucky is the overall number one even though they have one of the most difficult roads to New Orleans.

I have to research a little bit and make my selections.

NCAA March Madness - Baseball Edition
Seeing how I tend to focus on the northeast baseball scene, I will stick with just that.

We'll start with the MAAC, a conference I know a little bit about.

• Niagara, a team that won 8 games all last season, is sitting as the only MAAC school at/above .500 - they're 7-7.
• Manhattan, my ex and defending champion, is 1-11 and riding a 10-game losing streak.  Their pitching will hold up fine once conference starts, but they've got to score runs - they've been blanked five times. 
• Iona and Rider are the only two teams who won their last game - Iona against Temple and Rider against Charleston Southern.
• Conference RPI is 26th.  Last year, they MAAC finished the year with an RPI of 22.
• Niagara, Canisius, and Fairfield are the only three to have a positive run differential this season.
• Marist has only played 8 games but their three wins are over Campbell, Old Dominion, and Coastal Carolina.
• Siena has had their typical early season struggles thanks to it's ridiculous schedule (SOS 48) - Tulane, UCF, Liberty, Lipscomb.
• St. Peter's hasn't really played anyone good either yet is 3-11.

It'll be a dog fight to get into the postseason.  The top four make it to Albany for the tournament.  A huge series occurs right off the bat as Manhattan heads to Marist to open up MAAC play.  Everyone always says it's not how you start but how you finish, but if you start like shit, it makes things a little more difficult down the stretch.

Taking Nolan to get a fresh pair of kicks after he finished up this bottle.  The kid is a walking machine now so it's about that time.

Have a great day.