Basketball Round Up

From number one to one and done. The Longhorns season ended just like the second half of the season played out, the Horns could not make free throws to close out a close game. They ended up getting into the NCAA tournament as a number eight seed against Wake Forest. The game was very close for a while, with the Horns making a great play to force the game to overtime. Texas twice rallied from double-digit deficits, then blew an eight-point lead as they missed foul shots and Wake made a 17 footer with 1.3 seconds left to win the game. It is a shame that senior Damion James went out on a sour note, he is a great player and has been a huge asset at UT, we will miss him.

The rest of the tournament weekend was super exciting with some amazing finishes. The biggest shocker has to be that the number one overall seed Kansas is out in the second round with a loss to Northern Iowa (UNI), I don't think anyone saw that coming. That means Baylor and KState are the only (all powerful) Big 12 teams left in the tournament. Isn't it always that way? A conference gets all the hype, this year it was the Big 12 and the Big East, then the teams fade and a conference that was supposed to suck, i.e., the Pac 10, has teams overachieve as Washington did against Marquette and UNM.

So we have a number 11 seed, Washington, a number nine seed, UNI, a number 10 seed Saint Mary's (who has a student enrollment of 3900) and for the first time in 30 years Cornell, a number 12 seed, in the sweet 16. That is an amazing amount of upsets after a tame year last year. I love underdogs, unless they are playing my team, so I hope Saint Mary's luck does not continue against Baylor, but go Cornell.