Tuesday, March 22, 2011

A Tale of Two (Great) Teams in One City

A good read: Adam Himmselsbach's piece in today's New York Times about Richmond and VCU, which are five miles apart.

Which got me to thinking, going into the tournament:

1. Would you have thought that the Big East would only get two teams into the Sweet 16?
2. If you had picked a city to put two teams in the Sweet 16, would you have put Richmond, Virginia? (Oh, sure, Carolina hoop afficionados, Duke and North Carolina aren't all that far apart, either, but they aren't in the same city).

I wouldn't have. It's also pretty amusing that the tournament committee pitted Florida State, with the best field-goal defense in the nation, against good-shooting Notre Dame, only, once again, to expose Notre Dame as the type of "day late, dollar short" team when it comes to the Big Dance. And, while he professes to know zero about college hoops, worthy opponents proved Charles Barkley right when he said that the Big East was overrated and only deserved to get eight teams in the tournament. To that, I would ask, which eight, because nine fared poorly.

Stay tuned. What could possibly happen next?

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