Well there's goes everybody's favorite pick to win the National Championship as Kansas goes down to a spiry Northern Iowa team. As Ali Farokhmanesh drained a three in the last minute, tilted his head back, and roared to the heavens, you could almost feel the landscape of the NCAA Tournament shifting under your feet.
Apparently the idea that there are a couple dominating conferences that were going to run all over the tournament were slightly over-exaggerated to say the least. The Pac-10 and the West Coast Conference have gone 6-0 going into today's games and after seeing the "inferior" talent in those bunches during the season, I don't think anyone predicted that. There were some who stated that no Pac-10 team should have been allowed in the tournament in the first place, and that the so-called "mid-major" conferences would eventually become overwhelmed by the level of talent of their more highly regarded foes. Guess that assumption was wrong...
And what happened to the supposed juggernauts in the Big East and Big 12. I mean I for one assumed (incorrectly) that once these scrappy, battle-tested Big East teams faced the rest of the nation, there would be no way that the other squads could match the play that was shown throughout the regular season. And I also made the assumption that Kansas's combination of talent and experience would just bully teams as they steamrolled their way to the Finals but that also was not meant to be.
Along the same lines, I don't know how any could continue the argument that there is nor parity in Men's college basketball as we have seen favorites like Georgetown, Kansas, and Villanova twice (as they could have easily lost to Robert Morris) get outplayed by supposedly weaker opponents. And I don't really buy the notion that this is just some sort of fluke because this is the principle that these one and done games are based upon.
Each of these games are the Superbowl for these teams, one loss and someone is watching the next game from their living room without a chance to bring the title back to their schools. You don't need to be better than the other team in terms of talent, you just need to outplay them in one game. And that's the magic that it March Madness. When the tournament expands (as it is probably going to after this year) we may have even more of these types of stories, and I for one cannot wait. For now I'll turn my support to Kentucky as it seems that they are the real deal with blowout wins in their first two games, but as we have seen through the first few days of the tournament, you never know.
P.S. Can someone tell me how Texas went from number one in the nation to getting bounced out the first round by another underachiever in Wake Forrest... just asking.
