Maryland fans forget their team won a national title three years prior to the last Carolina one and storm the court.
—UPSET—Texas 73, No. 2 Oklahoma 68. It was too bad Blake Griffin was taken out of this game. Did you catch him committing on the bench? Yum. In fact, it’s fair to assume Oklahoma would have won this if Blake was in there. That said, Willie Warren took advantage of the moment. But A.J. Abrams’ 16 straight points was the reason Texas ensured itself a Tournament berth.
—UPSET—Maryland 88, No. 3 North Carolina 85 (OT). There will be much shakeup at the top of the polls come Monday. Those yellow uniforms were offensive, but Greivis Vasquez and the Terps will consider them lucky. 35, 11 assists and 10 rebounds makes Vasquez BMOC in these parts. That’s the first trip-doub at UM in 22 years. What’s with the floor-storm, Terps fans? Your team has won eight of the past 11 home games against UNC. Be better than that. As for UNC: the defense is where?
—UPSET—Saint Louis 57, No. 25 Dayton 49. Rick Majerus, who has turned the Billikens around quickly, is good for one or two of these per year. Meaning: his team can beat one that’s better by terrific scheming.
No. 4 Pittsburgh 80, DePaul 61. Your new No. 1. For the second time this year. How can Pitt not get past the Sweet 16 this time?
No. 5 Memphis 70, Texas-El Paso 63. Good, gritty game. Tigers own an 18-game winning streak and haven’t lost in conference since long before the days of Derrick Rose.
No. 15 Kansas 70, Nebraska 53. Now that Oklahoma is tied with Kansas at the top of the Big 12 standings, we’ve got a pretty decent headliner Monday night.
No. 17 Gonzaga 92, Pepperdine 58. Heytvelt with a strong 28 and 11.
No. 22 Washington 60, Southern California 51. Southern Cal cannot afford to toe this line. Washington’s definitely the better team, though. Brockman, who had 14 grabs, was a man among boys in the color. UW is 11-4 and in control in the Pac-10.
No. 23 Louisiana State 79, Auburn 72. It’s about time Trent Johnson started getting some credit. Coach of the Year perhaps?
Notable:
Saint Mary’s 75, Utah State 64. Saint Mary’s just made it mighty complicated. Now it owns the tiebreaker between these two schools. Utah State probably kissed its at-large chances goodbye.
UNLV 75, Brigham Young 74. Vegas takes the season series, improves to 20-7, while BYU has a 20-6 mark. The Committee better reward the MWC.
Siena 81, Northern Iowa 75. Wasn’t nearly as close as the score indicates.
Florida State 67, Virginia Tech 65. Florida State has learned how to win close; Va. Tech, unsurprisingly, has not.
Oregon State 65, California 54. A head-scratcher. OSU has swept the Bears this season.
Yeah, I saw that Griffin thing… I still don’t understand what exactly happened.
http://march-to-madness.blogspot.com/2009/02/secret.html
Matt –
Two part question here. During the Siena game, they showed four mid-major programs and their RPI/SOS ranking. Siena not only had the 2nd best RPI AND SOS ranking (if I recall correctly; they might have been 1st in either), but they were the *only* team not ranked in the top 25. On top of that, they haven’t even received any votes! What gives? Utah St at 23? With a 169th rank in SOS? Hopefully the bracketbusters game will wake some AP writers up, if they actually watched the game and don’t go by the final margin. To even have to think about *if* Siena should get an at-large bid in case they don’t win their conference tournament is an insult to the program and their body of work this year.
Perhaps it’s simply the MAAC that gets no respect, pardon me Rodney. However, anyone who has paid any attention to the league this year knows that it’s never been this competitive, even with Siena holding a 3 game lead. Maybe Siena needs to move to the A-10 before they get any real attention. Blowing out a 4 seed last year and going 15-1 in your conference the following year with a hellish non-conference schedule (4th toughest in the nation) apparently doesn’t do it.
The problem with Siena is this:
Lost to Tenn by 14.
Lost to Wichita State by 2 — and WSU isn’t so great this year.
Lost to Okie State by 9.
Lost to Pittsburgh by 3.
Lost to Kansas by 7.
Problem is, Siena doesn’t even have a top 50 win. That will kill them. Its best win is either Northern Iowa or St. Joseph’s.
And the MAAC isn’t a terrific conference; it’s top 15, but certainly not top 10. I think, at minimum, the Saints have to get to the MAAC title game. Rememeber: the Committee says it pays zero attention to years past. I remember Utah St. being jobbed back in, I think, 03 after the Aggies only had maybe three losses.
Siena hasn’t proven it can beat a team that would even be a bubble team at this point. That doesn’t mean Siena can’t win once it gets there, but results in The Tournament don’t dictate the Committee seeded/selected wrongly.
Whoa Yetdog in the house! More central NY representation