College Basketball Recap

(3) Mizzou 102, (2) Memphis 91

Has anyone else been more impressive this tournament than Mizzou? JT Tiller had a career night for Mizzou as he broke Memphis' 27 fluff game win streak. Tiller finished with 23 points on the night. Mizzou almost blew it as they let up a 24 point lead to 6, but free throws really sealed the deal for them. Freshman point guard Tyreke Evans finished with 33 points for Memphis, but the problem of course (again) was free throws. Memphis only hit 18 of 32 from the line, I guess Calipari should start taking them a little more seriously figuring it has cost them two tournament games.

(1) UConn 72, (5) Purdue 60

After cruising through the first two rounds in the tournament, UConn found itself in a little bit of a challenge yesterday until late in the second quarter. Hasheem Thabeet had his coming out party scoring 15, rebounding 15, and blocking 4 shots. But what the stat line won't show you is his overall defensive dominance. Since Purdue lacked size, it was close to impossible to score from the paint due to Thabeet's size.

(1) Pittsburgh 60, (4)Xavier 55

Does anyone else hate having Pitt as their winner? Levance Fields was star of the game hitting one of the most ill advised three point shots with 50.9 seconds left on the clock and hit it. Pitt was trailed 54-52 before Fields hit that three pointer to put the Panthers up for good. Sam Young led led Pitt with 19 points, Fields had 14 and DeJuan Blair had 10 points and 17 rebounds as they needed it to overcome a 8 point deficit at halftime. Pitt finally got over the sweet 16 hump and is on to the elite for the first time in 8 years.

(3) Villanova 77, (2)Duke 54

Dante Cunningham had 14 points and 11 rebounds and the third seeded Wildcats beat the Blue Devils for the first time in more than 50 years. Villanova took advantage took advantage of Duke's pathetic shooting 27% to advance to the elite eight. Kyle Singler had 15 and Jon Scheyer had 13 but went 3-18 and "star" Gerald Henderson had the worst shooting performance I have seen in my life going 1-14 finishing with 7 points.

How The Bigs Have Fallen

Yesterday was a day of surprises, upsets, and 4 hour games. UConn, Pitt, Oklahoma AND Kansas all fell yesterday. I'm not going to get into the UConn game because Wilde already took care of that but let me quickly touch on the other games.

74 West Virginia, 60 Pittsburgh

Offensively Pitt did not have it yesterday. Bob Huggins implemented a perfect game plan and with the scoring coming from Da'Sean Butler (16), Devin Ebanks (20), and Alex Ruoff (18), Pittsburgh didn't know how to respond. After West Virginia was able to get Blair into foul trouble this team didn't know how to step up. This makes me scared come tournament time, because the Panther rely to heavily on Blair and in the three games Blair has fouled out this year, Pitt is 0-3.

71 Oklahoma State, 70 Oklahoma

Big game James Anderson won the game on 2 free throws with 2.3 seconds to upend the overrated Sooners. Blake Griffen had a big game with 17 points and 19 rebounds, however, he was the one that fouled Anderson while tussling for a rebound. With this loss Oklahoma lost a chance to be a number 1 seed and possibly a number 2 seed in the impending tournament. Oklahoma is scaring me a lot with this late collapse, and will be very difficult to judge coming up.

71 Baylor, 64 Kansas

LaceDarius Dunn. Dunn is the reason for this upset as he dropped 24 points by drilling 6 3 pointers.

81 Providence, 73 (1)Pittsburgh

Holy Shit. Who would have thought that the Friars would upset the top seeded Pittsburgh Panthers.

Weyinmi Efejuku scored 16 points for Providence, which took a 20-point lead and then turned back one last rally by No. 1 Pittsburgh for an 81-73 victory Tuesday night, the school's second win ever over a top-ranked team. Providence was a bubble team before this game and much like BC, I think this win puts Providence in the tourney. The game was within reach until Dejuan Blair fouled out of the game when the Panthers were losing 77-70. This now puts Pitt in 4th in the Big East.

In other news

LSU beat Florida last night to clinch a share of the SEC title. it is pretty impressive what they have been able to do this year. no one predicted they would be this good.

(4) Pittsburgh 76, (1) UConn 68

This is one of the most physical games I have ever seen be played. The match-up coming into the game was Hasheem Thabeet vs DeJuan Blair and Blair won this match-up pretty dominantly. Blair wasn't afraid of Thabeet's size as he finished with 22 points and 23 rebounds and most importantly got Thabeet in foul trouble and made him a non factor. Thabeet finished with 5 points and 4 rebounds.
Levance Fields who was shut down for a majority of the game, hit one of the biggest plays of the game. He hit a 3 pointer and scored all 10 of his points in the final 3:09. His first 3 gave the Panthers (24-2, 11-2) the lead for good at 64-61 with 3:09 left. His second 3 with 2:21 left made it 67-61, and he added four free throws in the final minute.

Either way it was a hell of a game and it looks like Pittsburgh is my early favorite to win it all.

College Football Recap

There was only two real upsets on the day:

Vanderbilt 14, Auburn 13
Dp was wrong and I'll be honest I didn't see this one coming. Vandy is not 5-0 for the first time since 1943. Auburn's offense finally came back to haunt them as their passing game was some of the worst I have ever seen (a total of 98 yards). Auburn was in control of this game till the 3rd quarter, when Adams was able to get them into the endzone. Still, I'm sorry I can't take Vandy seriously. I know they are playing awesome, but this bubble will bust. I swear to you.

Pittsburgh 26, #10 South Florida 21
South Florida just chokes every time they are in the top 10. Tonight they did it again. LeSean McCoy was just awesome for Pitt as he ran for 142 yards and 2 TDs, oh yea by the way he is only a sophomore. I think South Florida will do the same thing they did last year, drop out of the top 25 picture with a couple of losses. Sorry, it's not your time.

Watch out, Hawaii is up on #22 Fresno State


-BMack