Birthday! And a bit on the underdogs...
And on the March Madness front...
I think I managed to choose teams with great potentials, but just couldn't quite pull things off. I don't mean Duke's loss yesterday *sniff* because they were favored to win and had the coaching to do so. Despite being a young team, I see them with the same potential as the Phoenix Suns -- good but a bit weak last year with a team that's starting to really gel, but doing well this year with the return of Stoudemire, gelling the team even more. But I digress...
My underdog picks (that lost):
♦ Old Dominion. I saw them play against George Mason, last year's cinderella team, during regular season, and they had a fire that made a so-so team capable of top-seed performance. Alas, they didn't deliver during yesterday's game.
♦ Gonzaga. I still have residual affection for this team for doing so well... four? five? years ago. But the thing with college basketball is that good players graduate and freshmen need time to settle in. So this is a very different team -- especially with the suspension of one of its key players due to some *cough*drug violation*cough*
♦ Creighton. I picked this team on a whim, and it didn't turn out to be half as stupid a pick as I had feared. They still lost, but lost gloriously. Too bad they fell apart a bit in the end and lost some golden chances for scoring during the last minute or so of the game, forcing them into OT with a better team. But overall, Creighton had the potential for a neck-to-neck with Nevada, and they delivered that until the very end.
♦ Miami OH. Yes, I actually chose Miami, and wasn't sure until the last seconds of the game whether I had unexpectedly chosen a cinderella team. They did so well, especially against a much higher-ranked team, Oregon. To end the game with only a two-point difference is the equivalent of winning second, not losing first.
My other underdog picks:
♦ MSU. Well, it was an 8th seed vs. 9th seed game, and Marquette wasn't that much better as a team. I was glad to see MSU pull ahead from the beginning, but I wouldn't hold any future bets on MSU advancing too far. There's a lot more tightening that's needed for this team, and playing against UNC next? Nuh-uh.
♦ Illinois. The Illinis are doing well right now, leading Virginia Tech with a substantial lead at half-time. It's only been two years since they almost took the NCAA championship (remember that very exciting Final Four game in which the Illinis caught up something like 20 points to upset an expected loss?) so it's not an entirely new team. The team structure looks good so far, and as long as they hold it together and keeping making those shots like they did in the first half, I think they have a chance to defeat Virginia Tech here.