Sweet 16 Preview: ACC dominance

After the first mad weekend of March Madness, where all teams play two games in three days over the second and third round before the semi-finals of the regions that we call the Sweet 16.  Numerous things occur including shocks and surprises aplenty culminating in the removal of 48 teams since Thursday.  Here are my thoughts along with the prediction of the Sweet 16

Izzo and Pitino stand firm
Following regular season campaigns that brought all manner of inconsistency, it is telling that some teams can be relied upon come the tournament when parity is established by only playing what is in front of you.  In terms of Michigan State who had a problem with depth and talent, come the tournament they have a coach in Tom Izzo who now has more Sweet 16 appearances than first weekend eliminations. 

Tom Izzo - Michigan State

Izzo out-coached Virginia's Tony Bennett for the second season in succession schooling them in a 60-54 victory helped by a breakout by Travis Trice who had 23 points as they held the Cavaliers to under 30% shooting.  Michigan now play Oklahoma, for the right to play either Louisville or NC State; again this is a tough one to call, but as Rick Pitino has showed, he is capable of fitting in a system that benefits the nervy tension of tournament play as they stifle offenses and allow their own dynamic players such as Montrezl Harrell to be explosive in transition.

Can we play you every year?
Rock Chalk Wichita Shock. Kansas Jayhawks are the big noise in Kansas, the blue chip program but it shares a state with Wichita State Shockers who have now had the better tournament resume than the Jayhawks in the last three years now.  The Shockers keep asking to play Kansas year in, year out in a non-conference match that will help both programs. Kansas refuse and Wichita State feel disrespected and feel Kansas are scared to play them on the road or at a neutral site.  Sunday in the third round in Omaha held court for this in-state battle and the Shockers swept aside Bill Self's side in a convincing 78-65 win.  They now play Notre Dame on Friday with the prospect of facing Kentucky in the regional final.

Ron Baker - Wichita State

The Shockers are a tight unit who hustle and can score from deep led by Ron Baker in points and helped by Fred VanVleet and Tekele Cotton.  The defeat makes sure that Kansas will likely not play Wichita State again until they absolutely need to again.  As for Kansas, they need to come back next year - hopefully reloaded with talent as no-one looks likely to leave for the NBA - but return with a scorer possibly Clint Alexander who was suspended for academic reasons.

Duke have the answer
Watching Duke's dominant performance over San Diego State on Sunday, their play showed the answer to possibly to defeating the Kentucky Wildcats who they can only meet in the National Championship.  That is my selection for the title game and whilst I think Kentucky are too battle hardened for this tournament, perhaps Duke remain the best team to combat the Wildcats procession to historical perfection.
In Jahlil Okafor they have one of the best three players in the nation, his size and scoring prowess can combat Towns and Cauley-Stein in the paint.

Justice Winslow - Duke

 Yet it was the tempo of Duke's play in transition that made me stand up and take notice; led by Tyus Jones dishing it out to Quinn Cook and sometimes you will get a breakout game like you had from Justice Winslow (26pts, 6rbs) did on Sunday to help matters.  Duke will be happy with the match up versus Utah this weekend and then probably Gonzaga who have been impressive thus far, but you get the sense that Duke are aware of the possibility of their own run to the Final Four.

ACC is the best conference
All regular season it was touted that the Big 12 was the best conference in the nation due to the possibility of 8 teams - only 7 got selected - making the dance, yet that was due to the fact that so many teams beat each other that no team separated itself from the rest as Wisconsin did in the Big 10.  The first day eliminations of Baylor, Texas and Iowa State left the Big 12 sheepish at best, and now the presence of five ACC teams in the sweet 16 (ND, NC, LOU, NC State, Duke) means that the argument is dead, the ACC is best league because it is the toughest game and makes players ready for the tournament due to the high intensity and close matches they experience in the regular season.

Sweet 16 predictions (selection in bold)
Kentucky v West Virginia                                   NC State v Louisville
Notre Dame v Wichita State                              Oklahoma v Michigan State
Wisconsin v North Carolina                               Duke v Utah
Xavier v Arizona                                                UCLA v Gonzaga

Elite 8:
Kentucky v Notre Dame - Wisconsin v Arizona - Louisville v Michigan State - Duke v Gonzaga

That leaves your NextToTheAisle Final Four of Kentucky v Wisconsin and Louisville v Duke
What an amazing line-up of talent, teams and legendary coaches going head to head in Indianapolis. The Louisville-Michigan State match-up should it materialise is a toss-up and too close to call. For me it remains there for Kentucky to lose, although the possible matches versus the Fighting Irish and Badgers will be as true a test as they have faced all season.

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IU v MICH: Tale of Two Teams

Sunday 10th March 2013, once the Men's College Basketball is over may well come down as an important date for the two teams who played each other that night - Indiana Hoosiers and Michigan Wolverines - with the Big 10 regular season title on the line.

For the Hoosiers, it was the opportunity to win a Big 10 title for the first time since 1993 when Bobby Knight was in charge; for the Wolverines it was the chance to get a tie of the same title and also warrant a top 5 ranking before tournament week.

Michigan were up, and yet contrived to miss three free throws which would have put a knife in Indiana.  And yet a team who have been hot and cold for much of the Big 10 conference play, decided to be anything but ice from the line and throw away the chance of a big time victory.

The failure from the free throw line, allowed Indiana to have a chance and if you allow a team containing Cody Zeller and Victor Oladipo the chance to get a victory; those leaders will come to the fore.

That is conceivably the difference between these two teams who end up with only one more loss than each other; yes if Michigan had won, they would have finished 26-5 which is Indiana's finishing record.

Cody Zeller put away the go-ahead shot with 13 seconds remaining, yet it felt like an eternity as it rolled on the rim and then fell through the net to garner a 72-71 victory in Ann Arbor.

Whereas, Indiana could call upon two Wooden award nominees in Zeller and Oladipo to come up big and want to take the final shot; for Michigan it seems freshman Trey Burke went awol. Burke had 20 points but off of 20 shots, which is poor; Zeller had 25 points off of less shots.

Burke came to a standstill once Oladipo went man-to-man on Burke near the end of the 1st half, this caused Burke to worry and it did unnerve his play.  Oladipo gained another notch in his Player of the Year resume in  nullifying Burke last night.

What does this mean for both teams heading to the Big 10 tournament?  Indiana will not be concerned by losing their first round match, as it seems they are assured of a #1 seed in the tournament proper.  For Michigan, they would need to win the Big 10 tournament and hope teams like Duke, Kansas and Louisville all lose early also.

This loss could result in Michigan dropping from a #2 seed to a more likely #3 seed based on their level of wins this season - three of the six losses came by a margin of three points or less.  Their best win was probably at home to Michigan State Spartans by one point; there has been no dominant victory.  Unlike Indiana who beat Ohio State (then ranked #10) on the road 81-68.

The question marks remain again over the play of Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr who whilst being a great backcourt pair; the pair have not got that marquee moment like Zeller has had on numerous occasions this year.  Nor can they explode like Ryan Kelly has for Duke, and nor is the supporting cast as strong as say Ben McLemore's fellow Kansas Jayhawks who can step up if the freshman is having a rough night.  For Burke and Hardaway; the pressure of carrying the team appears to be too much to burden them with; this makes them fallible to an early tournament exit if they cannot sort out their defence, they can score for fun but then so can their opponents.

In other Big 10 results last night; Wisconsin held off Penn State 63-60; Michigan State defeated Northwestern 71-61 and Ohio State beat up Illinois 68-55 at home.  The Spartans and Buckeyes would have shared the Big 10 title with Indiana and Michigan had the Wolverines held on.  But for Indiana, there was a party that had been delayed by 20 years, Cody Zeller was ready to celebrate.

Michigan v Minnesota Preview

Following on from two victories for the underdog in College Basketball - namely Wisconsin Badgers defeating the pre-season #1 ranked Indiana Hoosiers in their home court, and then last night the Maryland Terrapins defeating the North Carolina State Wolfpack.

Whilst both are considered upsets, both have back stories and followed trends.  The Badgers have now won 11 straight versus the Hoosiers, and Indiana Head Coach, Tom Crean has never beaten Bo Ryan's squad during his four years in the job.  And NC State continued their trend of losing the game after they beat either Duke or North Carolina; they easily defeated Duke at home (the Blue Devils themselves had excuses as they were without big forward Ryan Kelly).  The Wolfpack are 1-7 now in the game immediately after they now defeat one of their big ACC rivals.

So whilst on paper the results may be a surprise, they should not necessarily qualify for an upset.

Tonight, we have another one of those maybe games when #5 Michigan travel to #9 Minnesota for another huge Big 10 clash.  The Big Ten has got a huge game every night now, seemingly the strength of the conference is more stronger in Basketball terms than Football at the moment.

Michigan are 16-1 having suffered their first loss of the season at Ohio State on Sunday 56-53, where they shot a season-worst 38.3% from the floor and had 13 turnovers.  Minnesota are 15-2, themselves also coming off a loss to Indiana 88-81, in what many considered the best performance by the Hoosiers all season.  However, Indiana followed that up with a loss at home to Wisconsin as noted above.  Therefore, both sides are in need of getting back into the winning habit.

Where will this game be won? Well expect a lot of physicality from the Golden Gophers, Tubby Smith's side led by Trevor Mbakwe who has 8 rebounds a game, and led by Andre Hollins and Rodney Williams who both hit double digits regularly.  Much like Ohio State did also, was attempt to stifle Trey Burke who shot poorly and struggled to dish out dimes to his team-mate Tim Hardaway Jr.

Also, due to the physicality of the Golden Gophers, the Wolverines have to make sure they do not foul too often as Minnesota average over 20 trips to the foul-line.  If Minnesota can force Burke to look for a pass instead of a shot, they may have half the job done.  When a National Player of the Year is not doing his job of leading from the front then the team ethic of the Gophers may have a chance to shine.

Expect a close contest with winner lucky to hit over 70 points, but if the Gophers win, will it be considered and upset?  Or just another indicator that the Big 10 is the best conference in College Basketball this season?

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