A look at the third-rounders:
East region Thursday
North Carolina-Washington State: OK, maybe I underestimated the Tar Heels a little bit….
Obviously a healthy Ty Lawson makes a big difference here. He played an immaculate game in Sunday’s demolition of Arkansas- 19 points (6-9 FG, 2-4 3pt FG, 5-5 FT), seven assists and no turnovers is 24 minutes.
Carolina scored 221 points in its two tournament games. Washington State allowed 81. Immovable object, meet irresistable force. Nobody in the college game does a better job of defending the ball and the post in the halfcourt. Ask Notre Dame’s Luke Harangody. The Cougars held him to 3-17 FG last weekend.
If the Heels beat Washington State down the floor and make threes - wing gunner Wayne Ellington scored a team-high 20 against Arkansas - they could romp again. If the Cougars can make it a grind, this could get very hairy. The “battle of tempo,” thing sometimes gets overblown, but this is an extreme case of it.
Carolina 79, Washington State 70.
Louisville-Tennessee: Tennessee reminds me of Steel-High under Marty Benkovich (not sure about the spelling) in the 1960s and 70s. They played man-to-man full-court all the time, even playing the hell out of the inbounds passer after made baskets. But if they didn’t get a turnover after the first or second pass, they tended to lose interest in defense.
Some with the Vols. They really want to trap that first pass, but have much less enthusiasm for defending the basket. Louisville, meanwhile, can and will attack you everywhere. For a phenomenal coach with a huge personality in a monster league, Pitino has been relatively low-profile in recent years, but it feels like he’s cooking something.
Louisville 79, Tennessee 64
West Region Thursday
UCLA-Western Kentucky: You watch plays like the ones Kevin Love and Darren Collision made in the final minutes of the struggle with Texas A&M, and you wonder why they don’t do that more often, and why this remarkably talented, tough team can have so much trouble scoring.
Western Ky. is similar to Davidson in that they rely on a two-guard (future NBAer Courtney Lee) to score and a pure point guard (Tyrone Brazelton) to get him the ball. The Hilltoppers are better defensively. The Bruins better wake up.
Intestesting fact: WKy is the only team in the field with a 100% graduation rate.
UCLA 58, Western Ky. 57.
Xavier-West Virginia: Funny how Bob Huggins, of drunk-driving conviction and microscopic graduation rate fame, had suddenly become Cinderfella. We’re currenly two West Virginia wins away from endless profiles of Huggins… colorful rogue or denizen of the dark side?.
No remaining team, except perhaps Davidson, is more reliant on one player as WVU is on Joe Alexander. He reminds me of Andy Panko at Lebanon Valley College a decade ago (don’t you love these local references?) -a skilled, athletic player with power-forward size who’s a matchup nightmare for almost everyone.
It’s also true that the Mountaineers don’t have a great answer for Xavier’s Josh Duncan. He’s more of an inside banger, not as potentially dominant a player as Alexander. West
Virginia 66, Xavier 59
That’s it for now. Busy day today with edition 3 of The Low Post taping at Clipper Magazine Stadium this afternoon. Be back tomorrow, or maybe tonight, with a look at Friday’s NCAA games.
