Wednesday Word NCAA TOURNAMENT EDITION!!!!

By Allan Lewis Alestle Sports Editor

(This blog only works if you press play on this video and keep reading.)

I have never been good at filling out brackets. Ever since middle school, I have been entrenched in the Madness and find this to be a special time each and every year. I remember taking the full-page bracket printed in the Edwardsville Intelligencer, tacking it on my basement wall and coming home from school just to watch basketball in surround sound from three in the afternoon until midnight, filling it out as each game goes final.

My eighth grade teacher and a few of my high school teachers would even take time out of the school day to turn the opening round games on. It is safe to say March Madness is an American tradition, something everyone young and old can relate to and bond over.

This time of year, basketball is the  hallway locker talk, water cooler talk and rocking chair talk. Everyone wants to know who is going to pull off the upsets and cut down the nets to “one shining moment.”

When it comes to the all-american office pool, everyone participates. In 7th grade we were selling brackets for $5 under the table with $60 payouts. Women who have no idea about basketball even buy in to cubicle competitions. Some have their husbands do the work for them, because for some reason they believe they can tell the future and others flip coins or decide using the ever-popular mascot-battle-royale technique.

Mountain Hawk beats Jayhawk. It’s the more effin’ cool variety of hawk, and probably has claws. Kansas’ mascot looks too happy anyways.

Done, and done.

Only once in my life have I actually placed in one of these bracket competitions. In 2004, I got second, pairing Georgia Tech against Connecticut for the national championship with the yellow jackets taking home the plaque.

People thought I was nuts. “Georgia Tech?! are you out of your mind? No, Jarrett Jack is the man, and he was, carrying GT all the way to the final, where they lost to the number one team in the nation. Since Connecticut was the favorite, everyone picked them to win the whole thing, and thus I came in second because I picked the right upsets.

That doesn’t happen all the time, because the whole damn thing is so random, the office secretaries have just as good of a shot at winning as Joe Lunardi.

It has always been my nature to cheer for the little guy. The whole mid-major philosophy I have began when I started following college basketball. After looking at past tournament brackets, I came to the conclusion this was in 2001.

The 2001 NCAA tournament was a good one to start with too.

This was the year Butler and Gonzaga emerged as 10 and 12 seeds to reach the second round and sweet 16. Holy Cross nearly knocked off Kansas. Nine years later, look at what Butler and the Zags have become. They are power teams in non-power conferences. Everything has to start somewhere.

In 2002, the little guy became more local, and in 2007 the little guy I had such admiration for as well as it’s former coach became public enemy number one. (I actually began to dislike this particular coach when he moved to a bigger in-state school but cracked a joke with him about my sports reporter’s starstruckedness when we visited his current school to watch SIUE play, so he’s an alright guy.)

OH! that guy!

And those are the Southern Illinois University Carbondale Salukis.

SIU’s sweet 16 run included defeating Bob Knight’s Texas Tech team and coming from behind to beat Georgia before UCONN dropped them from contention.

This really bummed me out. Carbondale, I am embarrassed to say was now my team, and I didn’t even know who they were until that tournament.

This season, I am not competing in a pool of any sort. Sure, I have filled out a bracket just for fun, but my predictions are way too bold to be considered for any prize money, and I don’t want Murray State to cost me any money. I am a supporter of mid-major basketball to the extreme. I am really fascinated by the way the majority of Division I basketball teams go unnoticed by the entire country. People see Wofford on the bracket and wonder who they are, even the majority of national basketball analysts are clueless to where the heart of college basketball lives. Sure, Duke, Kentucky, Kansas and North Carolina are special places. They have great fan-bases, tradition and are damn good at playing the game a majority of the time. They are not the only ones out there, and the NCAA tournament brings this into the limelight. The power six conferences (Big XII, Big Ten, SEC, Pac Ten, ACC and Big East) only account for 73 of the 347 D-I schools in the nation.

The fact is there is a hell of a lot of good basketball elsewhere (someday, SIUE will be included in that list).

Upsets happen. New heroes are born and college basketball is as much a part of me as it is something I want to work with for a living.

This year’s NCAA tournament will be no different, and by Saturday everyone will be complaining over who ruined their bracket, a right these schools relish having. When the brackets were revealed Sunday, I was discouraged to see Florida and Wake Forest sneak in. Give me William & Mary and Wichita State any day.

Last night, we had the play-in-game. The biggest atrocity in sports. Arkansas Pine Bluff defeated Winthrop and will advance to play Duke in the real bracket. Will they win? Probably not. A 16 seed has still never defeated a No. 1. Could it happen? There is the possibility, and that is what is so special about college basketball.

Instead of acting like an expert and telling you who WILL win their opening round games or even who SHOULD win, I will write about who COULD win.

Vermont: As I said, and everyone knows, a 16 seed has never won a men’s NCAA tournament game. The Catamounts provide the biggest chance in a while, facing Syracuse in the first round. I may be dreaming, but look at what we have here. The Orange are the most vulnerable of the top seeds. They lost an exhibition game to D-II LeMoyne at the Carrier Dome. Granted, this was an exhibition game and LeMoyne’s Super Bowl. Syracuse was playing to avoid injury and probably didn’t care too much. They overlooked LeMoyne. Vermont beat Syracuse in the 2005 tournament as a 13 seed. Vermont was 25-9 this season and 12-4 in the American East Conference and beat Rutgers. Under-seeded Cornell beat them by only eight. Marques Blakely is good. If Syracuse over-looks Vermont like they did LeMoyne history could be on the agenda.

Murray State: Here at SIUE, the Racers are a team we should be familiar with. They laid a 30 point beatdown on the Cougars at the Vadalabene Center and another lopsided win against us at home. I have seen this team play three times in person, the game at SIUE and twice at the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament and they are GOOD. This is a 30 win team, one of only three in the entire country. Sure, they didn’t play an SEC or Big XII schedule, but they won 30 games. I don’t care what league you are in, that is hard to accomplish. This team is not a one-man show either, the Racers are deep. Ivan Aska, B.J. Jenkins, Danero Thomas, Tony Easley and Issiah Cannan all average in double figures at around ten points per game. THAT IS FIVE DIFFERENT PLAYERS. Top it off with Issac Miles throwing in 9.5 points. Cannan hit a half-court shot from his knees. Murray can run on anyone, and is a very strong and athletic team. Put them up against Vanderbilt in San jose, and you have a TRUE neutral court match-up. The Racers are as dangerous as they come.

Oakland: This is a 17-1 team from the Summit League and winners of 21 of 22 games. They are hot, hot, hot! Point guard Jonathon Jones led the nation in assists last season and this is an attacking team. The Golden Grizzlies average over 76 points per game, and have a center averaging 17 points and 11 rebounds. Oakland lost games this season by more than double-digits to Wisconsin, Memphis, Syracuse, Kansas, Oregon and Michigan State, but those games were long gone in the early non-conference schedule. Their recent winning ways should bring confidence with them to the dance. Look for them to  push Pitt for 40 minutes, and potentially bust some brackets.

Cornell or Temple: Jay Bilas said during ESPN’s bracketology special Cornell should have been a No. 5 seed. I don’t know about that, as Cornell enters the dance as a 12 seed against another dangerous mid-major in Temple. This is going to be one of the better first round games on the agenda. Here we have two of the best three-point shooting teams in the nation, and two very experienced teams. This is the game everyone is singling out as a an annual “12/5 upset” more or less because of how evenly these two teams stack up. Cornell owned the Ivy League. Why is Cornell so sexy in the eyes of everyone around? Well, they beat Alabama and gave Kansas a scare. Syracuse beat them by 15, but Cornell is the team carrying the torch nationally for the little guy. Cornell’s big problem is rebounding. Jeff Foote grabs eight boards a game, but they really don’t have any inside presence outside of him. Cornell lives and dies with the three point shot. Temple beat Villanova, Virginia Tech and Xavier. This is a very interesting matchup between two very good teams. If Temple gets past Cornell, they could be a sleeper to contend for the Final Four. Seriously.

Wofford: I mentioned these guys earlier, and as a 13 seed playing against a streaky Wisconsin team they are going to be interesting to watch. The Terriers were 26-8 and reside in the Southern Conference. This team played a very tough non-conference schedule and made a few believers, including me the two times I saw them play on TV. They opened the season losing to Pitt by one. They then beat Georgia and destroyed a non-D-I school 81-39 before two close road losses to Bradley and Illinois while the Fighting Illini were still nationally ranked. Michigan State beat the Terriers 72-60. Fact is, this team can stick around and play against superior competition. In their league, they only lost one game: a two point loss to the College of Charleston. They will not be intimidated by Trevon Hughes, John Lauer and the Badgers. Both of these teams like to slow down the tempo. Wofford averages 61 points per game, Wisconsin just 56. Expect this game to be won in the 50’s. Anything higher and the Terriers are likely on top. Both teams shoot around 44 percent each game, but Wisconsin is superior at the free-throw line, so the Terriers need to keep Wisconsin away from the stripe.

Utah State: Who else is excited for this aggie-riffic showdown and finds it not the least bit ironic the WAC regular season champions were paired with Texas A&M? I’m not, I know how the committee rolls. Anyways, this is another dangerous bunch not everyone is familiar with. This team rolled through the WAC. They lost two conference games all season, against New Mexico State, (who beat them again in the WAC tournament finals) and Louisiana Tech, who knocked off Murray State as well. They avenged both of those losses in later match-ups. Out of conference, the Aggies really didn’t do anything too impressive. Their best wins were against Wichita State in a bracketbuster game which likely busted the Shocker’s at-large hopes and kept their own alive, and Morehead State. Both sets of Aggies score about the same amount of points per game, but USU’s game hinges primarily on defense, allowing 59 points a game. They have a guy named Pooh scoring eight points a game. I’m sold there.

Siena: Ah, Siena. (notice how they are underlined.) I am picking the Saints to roll ALL THE WAY TO SPORTS BUBBLE STADIUM AND CRASH THE DANCE BABY!!! (Totally deserved ALLCAPS for its randomness.) Okay, so Siena is not the strongest mid in the field, but they got a damn favorable draw in the tournament. Look, Siena is experienced. The last two seasons they have been in the second round of the tournament. They know what it is about, and experience is one of the most dangerous intangibles a team can have this time of the year. They are building a MEAC supremacy. They lost to Temple by four, (we can call that a good loss if there is such a thing) but lost decisive outcomes to Northern Iowa, Butler and Georgia Tech. Really, this isn’t a smart team to ride to the Final Four, but look at their draw. They get Purdue in the first round. Purdue with Robbie Hummel is one of the five best teams in the nation. Purdue without Robbie Hummel is as Big Ten as Iowa. The Boilers were a mess in their Big Ten semifinal loss to Minnesota. They were absolutely humiliated. With four minutes to play in the first half, they had six points. They went into halftime with 11. What happened to Minnesota in the conference title game against Ohio State? They were blown out. If the Saints get past Purdue they get the winner of Texas A&M/Utah State. Another winnable game. In the sweet 16 they are looking at Duke, unless a tanking Texas team or Louisville manages to find their way past the Blue Devils. At the bottom end of this bracket is Villanova (I guarantee they are knocked off by this point) and potentially Richmond, St. Mary’s or Old Dominion. The road is paved with gold for Siena. Alex Franklin and Ryan Rossiter will be big for Siena, as will be controlling the tempo and spreading the ball around and scoring underneath, with Siena averaging 14 assists per game.

Old Dominion: The Monarchs could be more dangerous than Siena. Look. At. The. Schedule. ODU played everyone. They beat Georgetown, and I’d bet money on them doing it again if given the opportunity. They beat Long Beach State, the second best team in the Big West by 39 points. They lost close games to Missouri, Richmond, Dayton, George Mason and Northern Iowa. Their worst losses were by 14 and 12 points respectively to Mississippi State and Virginia Commonwealth. Look, college basketball is all about how well you match-up with a team. Different styles dictate the play and some teams are better than others head-to-head but not on paper. ODU has the potential to be one of those teams. The Colonial Athletic Association is a tough conference to play in night in, night out. VCU, George Mason and William & Mary can play some ball. Notre Dame is better WITHOUT Luke Harangody and are over-seeded after a nice run in the Big East Tournament. ODU has the CAA’s player of the year, Gerald Lee and are tough defending and rebounding the basketball. Notre Dame on the flip-side is not a defensive team. ODU is not the best three-point shooting team out there, but inside the paint they are deadly.

Richmond or St. Mary’s here is your other mid-on-mid match-up, this one pitting a No. 7 against a No. 10. Like the Temple/Cornell contest, these are two dangerous teams from two of the best non-power conferences. Richmond is not only scary because they are nicknamed the Spiders either. They play in the Atlantic Ten, and have used their vicious bite to knock of Mississippi State, Florida, Missouri and Old Dominion this season. Out of the West Coast Conference, Saint Mary’s has always been second in power behind Gonzaga, but are quickly starting to make a name for themselves as another legit contender from the WCC. The Gaels downed the Zags 80-61 in the conference championship, after losing two earlier in-season contests to them. They routed New Mexico State, the WAC conference tournament champions 100-68 to open the season followed up by a 81-58 win over San Diego State, another tournament team. Vanderbilt beat the Gaels by two in Nashville. This game pits two very dangerous teams against each other. St. Mary’s has Omar Samhan, who is an absolute beast. The dude puts up 20 points and 11 rebounds every time out. That is insane unless your name is LeBron James, and then it’s a minuscule performance at best, but for college that’s hella good. Look at Mickey McConnell and Matthew Belladevoda and what they are able to pitch in, and you have a good college basketball team. This is also a team averaging 80 points a game. Offensively, it is hard to find any team capable of matching up with the Gaels. Their weakness lies on defense in the paint, and this is where Richmond comes into play. They can score too, with Kevin Anderson and his 17.8 per game leading the way. By the way, St. Mary’s is number one in the nation defending the three, with opponents shooting 17 percent from beyond the arc. Richmond can keep teams at bay too, at 24 percent. Both teams are near the bottom of college basketball turning it over, so whoever is able to hold onto the ball and play defense will take this one. It could become a track meet.

SIUE: just kidding.

Enjoy the tournament, games get underway at 11:00 Thursday. Good luck to all the bracketeers out there, I have a feeling you may need it this year.