Posts Tagged ‘Upsets’

Western Carolina moves to 10-1 on the season with emphatic 91-83 win over Louisville at Freedom Hall. Larry Hunter’s side looks to be the best in the Southern Conference this season. They should make a leap in the Mid-Major Top 25 this week.
With they way they defend and the way Jake Robinson strokes [...]

Score one for the good guys!

I’ve managed to catch some sort of nutty bacterial infection that has inflated my schnozz to Jimmy Durante-like proportions that is contagious on the very same day that ESPN’s 24 hour college hoops marathon tipped off. My doctor said I needed to stay home for a couple days so [...]

With top seed Pitt clinging to a 26-23 halftime lead, we can officially ask whether the ETSU Buccaneers can become the first 16th seed to win a first round game.
It’s clear that in slashing wing Kevin Tiggs, quick guards Mike Smith and Isiah Brown, the Buccs have the quickness and athleticism to hang with the [...]

A spirited effort by North Dakota State wasn’t enough, as Kansas held off the Bison 84-74. At several times in the second half, the Summit League champs had chances to make shots that would have gotten them on even terms with the Jayhawks, but they just couldn’t knock them down.
While NDSU’s senior [...]

The HIlltoppers survived a frenzied Illinois comeback attempt to eke out a 75-72 win over the Illini.
By upsetting one of the worst Big Ten teams I’ve seen in several seasons, not only did WKU avoid an epic collapse — they were up by 17 points in the second half — but they helped [...]

With twelve games in the 2009 Big Dance having been played so far, I’ve got to say that we’ve yet to see any buzzer beaters nor the sort of upsets that put the madness in March.
Cal-State Northridge gave Memphis a game and American played Villanova tough, but we’ve yet to any see any [...]

The guys in this video will pull off a first round stunner:
Thanks to the tournament selection committee seeming to forget that DI college hoops is played by conferences other than the Big East and Big Ten, this doesn’t, at first glance, seem to be a tourney that will be rife with what I consider upsets: [...]

(Aka: The pick SIena and Utah State edition)
Every year we do post on how you can try to apply a bit of “science” to what really is an art: divining which unknown squads from mid and low-majordom will bust brackets by knocking off some overhyped, overconfident power conference team on Thursday and Friday. [...]

Start with Basketball prospectus and then move on to Mike Miller’s spin at Beyond The Arc before checking out the outstanding post at CAA: Life as a Mid-Major, which makes a forceful argument for chucking the current way — RPI and all — of picking teams for the Big Dance. Something that I’m all [...]

Gotta love those kooky, nerdy Davidson supporters:

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can’t remember ever seeing a shooter as sweet as Curry at the college level. With his quick release and tireless ability to keep moving on offense, there seems to be nothing a team can do to defend him once he gets going. He wasn’t getting open looks on Sunday and Friday. He had a hand or two or four or six in his face every time he shot. Didn’t matter. Curry was money.

Maybe watching Reggie Miller during his senior year at UCLA or watching Calvin Murphy shoot the lights out for Niagara in the late 1960s is the closest it comes to watching Curry work his magic. I only sort of remember watching Reggie during his career at UCLA since I was 14 when he graduated and I wasn’t but a vision in the smoke from one of my parents bong hits when Murphy was playing college ball. So, as far as I know, watching Stephen Curry shoot the rock is as good as it gets in college hoops.

Compared to yesterday’s games like the scintillating 101-99 shootout that was the Drake-Western Kentucky scrap, the action in the Big Dance today was less than exciting.
After the thrill ride that was the concluding day of the First Round of the Big Dance, today’s been kind of a drag. Sure, it was great watching Duke [...]

From our perspective at least.
Let’s start by saying that I’ve never been happier that I went to work on the opening day of the NCAA Tourney. With the exception of Duke barely surviving Belmont’s upset bid, this had to be one of the worst opening days of the Big Dance in history. And [...]

With four games left in the first day of the 2008 Big Dance this is where we, at Notes From A Basketball Junkie, stand.
We’re a pretty pathetic 4-8 on Picks of The Day but confident that we’ll be on even terms by the time Mississippi Valley State-UCLA is over at about 12:15 AM [...]

As promised, we’re picking every game tomorrow. Here goes!
(all lines from Bet US.Com as of 1:45 AM EST)
Early Games
Georgia +8.5 over Xavier
Kansas -22 over Portland State
Temple +7.5 over Michigan State
Marquette -6 over Kentucky
Purdue -3 over Baylor
Kent State -2 over UNLV
Pittsburgh -8.5 over Oral Roberts
Cornell +14.5 over Cornell
Late Games
Duke -20 over Belmont
USC -3.5 over Kansas [...]

Throw in the fact that, as we pointed out in a previous post, the Committee seems to have made sure that Mid-Majors who play somewhat unique uptempo or deliberate styles of play have been matched-up against power conference teams that play the same way but with more talent and you have a recipe for a tournament with little of that trademark March Madness.

That being said, it’s not going to stop us from going where we always go and picking upsets. Without further ado, here are the Notes From a Basketball Junkie Upset Specials for the 2008 Big Dance:

Louisville, the only 3-seed that ranks in the top 150 in tempo, drew run-n-gun Boise State. Texas-Arlington is a run-n-gun team and they get Memphis. Belmont’s an uptempo 3-point shooting team and they get Duke, who plays the same way. Cornell’s a slick shooting team with a 7-footer girding the interior and they get Stanford, their mirror image except for the fact that they have two 7-footers.

One of the hardest things to do in the few days before the tourney starts is prepare for a squad that has a unique style of play. Sure seems like the committee considered that and tried to protect power conference teams by making sure they got matched-up with teams that play just like them.

Northwestern State’s upset of Iowa in the 2006 tourney remains one of my favorite upsets of all time:
With my best friend from Buffalo visiting New York City this weekend for several days of St. Patrick’s Day revelry, things have been quiet here. Now that he’s stuck at JFK nursing $9 beers while he [...]

Wednesday night’s games showed that the New Year has changed absolutely nothing in the increasingly insane 2007-08 college hoops season.
Take The Valley, Mid-Major darlings the past few years, for instance. Drake, also-rans from Valley season’s past, is 11-1 overall and 2-0 in The Valley after a 61-51 throttling of a Southern Illinois squad [...]