<p>rodney,</p>
<p>The only team in IN that has really been doing well is Purdue. I only follow IL because S is an alum, and they were really disappointing. Bball in general in IN seems not to be as popular these days. Butler is a small school in a not too important conference.</p>
<p>There are several coaches in the BE who complain about the size of the conference & the rigor of playing 18 games against teams in the conference even before the BET. It’s a grueling schedule that takes its toll on teams. </p>
<p>Re: UConn playing 5 games in 5 days…only two players played significant minutes in all 5 games, so not everyone would’ve been spent when the NCAA tournament started. I was more concerned about an emotional letdown, but that hasn’t happened.</p>
<p>Interesting ending to the UNC/Washington game, too.</p>
<p>Definitely some controversial ref calls this year.</p>
<p>^ Heartbreaking… :(</p>
<p>PHILADELPHIA CABLE CHANNEL QUESTION</p>
<p>Quick question for everyone… after our daughter’s recital today, we are headed back to Philadelphia to stay since we have such an early morning flight. We are not familiar with cable channels out here. Is it pretty much a given that TruTV will be a regular cable channel when we get to our hotel? Because that’s the channel the Syracuse/Marquette game will be on. If it’s not a regular cable channel, then we’ll need to find a sports bar to watch it at. By the time we can leave here, we will just make it to Philly in time for the start of the game.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I buy the Big East Tournament excuse. Sure, you get the occasional outlier, like UConn playing 5 tournament games on consecutive nights. But most of the Big East teams that got NCAA bids played 2 or 3 Big East tournament games, same as teams in any other conference tournament. Villanova played only 1 BE tournament game. </p>
<p>Nor is there anything unusual about playing 18 conference games. That’s what the Big Ten teams do. Granted, there are some weaker conference games in a Big Ten team’s schedule, but the bottom of the Big East is pretty soft, too. </p>
<p>The whole Big East conference is starting to look overrated, given how rapidly they’re falling out of the NCAA tournament. It’s looking like when all is said and done, the Big Ten which started with 7 NCAA bids will end up with as many or more teams in the Sweet 16 than the Big East, which started with 11 teams in the tournament.</p>
<p>Thank you SOOO much CC parents. H and I now have a location in Philadelphia where we can watch the game. Our hotel does not carry TruTV!</p>
<p>I think I’m glad that I missed that Wash-UNC game. I was hoping for an upset.</p>
<p>Oh, man, Umich came from behind to almost pull of an upset! Wow, what a heartbreaker. But they’re young, coach seems really good, and I look forward to what they will do in another year.</p>
<p>^ Yeah, the young and undersized Michigan kids played their hearts out and almost pulled off a shocker. Great season, though. Many people were picking them for 10th or 11th in the Big Ten because they had only 2 returning upperclassmen, and they got off to a very rough start, going 1-6 in their first 7 conference games. But they pulled together and finished strong, going 8-3 in their last 11 games to end 9-9 in the conference, good for 4th place. Played well in the Big Ten tournament, absolutely demolished Tennessee in their first NCAA game, and gave Duke all they could handle. They’re a young team, mostly freshmen and sophomores, everyone coming back. You’ll be hearing from them again.</p>
<p>Ohio State absolutely demolishing George Mason. I think the Big Ten is stronger this year than anyone gave them credit for.</p>
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<p>I think Tennessee (and Bruce Pearl) absolutely demolished Tennessee. Not to take away from Michigan, but I think most anyone could have beaten TN in this tournament.</p>
<p>Interesting aside- A couple of the Vanderbilt players who I follow on twitter are going back and forth discussing this morning’s church sermon. Really neat kids.</p>
<p>Don’t have cable so couldn’t see the end of that UT-Arizona game. The guys on the radio were furious on a couple of counts (Jospeh signaling for a TO and not bein given one on the inbounding of the ball and a non-call on a foul at the end). Should they have been?</p>
<p>What the TV said was that it is against the rules to call time out after 4 in the 5 second count. With the shot at the very end, it appears the time had expired (light on, horn gone off) before the foul occurred. </p>
<p>My take is this appears both calls were right. I had never heard the rule about calling time out like that before, but that’s what they said so I’ll believe it…</p>
<p>On the inbound pass, the ref. got to a 4 count when the player tried to call time out. According to the analysts, you can’t call time out after they get to 4. I had never heard that, but ok.</p>
<p>On the foul at the other end, the analysts were remaining fairly neutral claiming it could have gone either way. It looked to me like Arizona definitely committed a foul as the Texas player grabbed the rebound and was trying to put it back up. But you couldn’t tell if the clock ran out before it occurred. </p>
<p>Either way, the game is in the books. Oh well, another hit to my brackets.</p>
<p>this has been a lllloooonnnnng day; and not one of the teams I was rooting for has won…</p>
<p>not sure I can stomach the next three minutes of the SU v Marquette game…</p>
<p>Just checking in after a crazy day of b-ball. Both Carolina and Duke’s games were WAY too close for comfort for my household. But I’m > than 50% in my brackets so far and my Final Four are still in play. </p>
<p>If you have an iPhone or iPad, we downloaded a GREAT free app March Madness. You can watch streaming videos of the games Live. Very user friendly. I bet it is available on other operating systems. Worth it!</p>
<p>Interesting. I’ve never heard that either.</p>
<p>I really like how Fox during football season has Mike Pereira, former VP of officiating for the NFL, on call in the booth for a controversial call. I think CBS would be smart to have that during March Madness. I think it adds a lot as well as educatates the viewer. Both my boys have ref’ed/umpired in their respective sports, and it’s interesting to see the game from the other side.</p>
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<p>Does that rule even exist outside of the head of a crooked ref? Oh wait, the rule only exist for UT players. </p>
<p>Too bad that controversial calls have to ruin a team’s season. What a disgrace!</p>
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<p>I hope I’m not being offensive, but as a Michigan alum I’m sick of hearing stuff like this. If Pearl or Tennessee demolished themselves, it must have been in the space of 20 minutes at half time, because going into the half it was a 4 point UM lead, and one of the TN players had scored 19 points on 6-6 shooting.</p>
<p>Maybe we could just you know, give the team that played really well some credit instead of coming up with some lame excuse about how TN was distracted?</p>