Let's get the bad news out of the way first. My niece's team was playing in the Regional Championship game last Friday night. It was a very close game, but they ended up losing right at the last second off a layup bucket by the opposing team. They have a lot to be proud of with their season. It was unconventional to say the least given all of the restrictions and interruptions due to Covid.
I think they could have won the game if they had tightened up their defense a little more. It wasn't that the other team was far superior to them, it was just one of those things. The good news is, I think they only have two seniors on their team, so they should be in a good position to do well next season.
I know, you probably came here for the college recap like the title says, so here we go!
Some of the conference tournaments have started and finished already. Friday night we saw Loyola Chicago beat Southern Illinois by a pretty decent margin.
Spoiler Alert!
Loyola Chicago went on to be Drake on Sunday for the conference tournament championship and a trip to the big dance in Indianapolis. They were one of the tournament darlings a couple of years ago I think, so they might be one to watch this year.
Saturday gave us one cancelled game and ten games played.
The biggest upset of the day was probably unranked Providence over #10 Villanova. Another notable one was #17 Oklahoma State over #6 West Virginia. Some might think that unranked Notre Dame over #11 Florida could be considered a big upset, but I really can't stand Notre Dame, so I don't count it as one.
The rest of the action was pretty mundane on Saturday. Sunday on the other hand was pretty phenomenal.
This might shock you based on the results of another game that I am going to get to here in a second, but I think the single best game on Sunday was the Memphis game at Houston. If you didn't see the game or catch the highlights on Sports Center, stop what you are doing an look it up.
It is the scenario that everyone dreams about... Tie game, seconds left, inbound to center court, hail marry heave just a couple steps past half court, buzzer, SWISH. Game over! Really in my opinion the only thing that could have made this game better would have been a upset by Memphis instead of #9 Houston coming away with the win.
#5 Iowa held off #25 Wisconsin, #3 Baylor rolled over #18 Texas Tech.
I didn't bet on any games this weekend and I am really kicking myself for not betting on this one...
Unranked Michigan State took down #2 Michigan. I feel like there was a lot of rolled ankles this weekend. I saw at least two of them in two different games. I can't deny that Brooks from U of M suffering one wasn't a factor in the Spartans ability to come out with the win here.
The fact is, the Spartans still aren't playing great. They have some great moments and I think they have some great potential, but things are still in the works for them and while they are slowly coming together, I am not sure it will be enough to help them this season.
Let's look at the facts... Before this game the commentators were saying they could still be one of the last five teams into the NCAA tournament. They have wins over a #3 and #4 team in the past couple of weeks and now this win over the #2 team in the nation (sort of, Michigan was already on their way out of the #2 spot due to their Illinois loss earlier in the week). If Michigan State is able to do well in the Big 10 tournament, I think they are pretty much guaranteed a spot in the big dance.
If they don't do well, it might hinge on who they are and who their coach is that actually gives them a #15 or so seed in the tournament.
It looks like the only team playing tonight is Gonzaga. Should be a pretty unsurprising game for them. Check back next Friday when I go over all of the action from the week. Who will be in? Who will be out? It is an exciting time of year!