Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The Ides of March Madness
I don't do NCAA Tournament brackets. I might for a small office pool, but not up against thousands online. (I did bracket but didn't submit it at Yahoo, so I can't brag or gripe).
My rooting interests are: St. Peters College (Jersey City), Princeton, St. John's, Temple on the men's side. Rutgers, Princeton, Marist on the women's side. None of these schools are likely to make long run, but you never know.
It's hard to know how good Marist & Princeton women's teams really are. Both rolled through their respective conferences. Marist is ranked 19 in AP Poll, but on what basis I can't say. The NCAA selection committee didn't buy the ranking, & seeded Marist 10th. Unranked Rutgers is a 7 seed. I've watched very little women's basketball on TV, all random games. You'll hardly go wrong picking Connecticut, Stanford, Baylor, Tennessee for the Final Four. UConn beat Baylor, which beat Tennessee, which beat Stanford, which beat UConn. Factor in maybe Duke & Texas A&M & there's your elite. Below those there's some parity we could define as teams that cannot beat UConn.
I think all my teams except St. John's & possibly Temple (playing Penn State) are one & gone. The Johnnies probably peaked too early, & lost a key player to injury.Love to see Marist, a small college in upstate New York that broke off from the Catholic Church rather than change college policies, team stocked with mostly local girls, justify their AP ranking. Rutgers is an erratic team of former high school stars that hasn't yet lived up to the expectations or developed chemistry. Rutgers used to scare the giants, if not actually defeat them.
Out of the Big East, I would not mind Notre Dame making a run in both men's & women's. On good night, knocking down threes, Irish men can beat anyone. I can see the men in the Regional Final against Kansas. ND women are capable of reaching regional final against Tennessee.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
My rooting interests are: St. Peters College (Jersey City), Princeton, St. John's, Temple on the men's side. Rutgers, Princeton, Marist on the women's side. None of these schools are likely to make long run, but you never know.
It's hard to know how good Marist & Princeton women's teams really are. Both rolled through their respective conferences. Marist is ranked 19 in AP Poll, but on what basis I can't say. The NCAA selection committee didn't buy the ranking, & seeded Marist 10th. Unranked Rutgers is a 7 seed. I've watched very little women's basketball on TV, all random games. You'll hardly go wrong picking Connecticut, Stanford, Baylor, Tennessee for the Final Four. UConn beat Baylor, which beat Tennessee, which beat Stanford, which beat UConn. Factor in maybe Duke & Texas A&M & there's your elite. Below those there's some parity we could define as teams that cannot beat UConn.
I think all my teams except St. John's & possibly Temple (playing Penn State) are one & gone. The Johnnies probably peaked too early, & lost a key player to injury.Love to see Marist, a small college in upstate New York that broke off from the Catholic Church rather than change college policies, team stocked with mostly local girls, justify their AP ranking. Rutgers is an erratic team of former high school stars that hasn't yet lived up to the expectations or developed chemistry. Rutgers used to scare the giants, if not actually defeat them.
Out of the Big East, I would not mind Notre Dame making a run in both men's & women's. On good night, knocking down threes, Irish men can beat anyone. I can see the men in the Regional Final against Kansas. ND women are capable of reaching regional final against Tennessee.
Labels: sports
