From Sixty Four to The Final Four

25 days ago

It's crazy to think that just a couple weeks ago we were spending Sunday night waiting to see what teams were going to make it into the NCAA tournament. Now, here we are waiting for the final four games to be played and by the middle of April college basketball will be done for another year.

I've said it before and I will say it again. I really do love this time of year. There is something about the college basketball season that is just magical. Even though my Michigan State Spartans didn't do as well as I would have liked this year, it was still great to watch them play. Frustrating, annoying, mind boggling, and great all at the same time!

Thankfully for me, the softball games I talked about yesterday happen during the day and the final four games take place in the evening, so I should be good to catch all the games without missing any of the action.

Before we get to the Final Four, let's talk about the elephant in the room. That great big beautiful baby blue elephant named Indiana State University. My nephew is a proud graduate of ISU and I am in turn a proud uncle of him (no matter where he went).

Indiana State faced off last night against Seton Hall for the NIT Championship. Just in case you don't now what that means, the NIT tournament is sort of the consolation tournament for teams that didn't make it into the NCAA tournament.

There has a been a lot of controversy given the fact that ISU has a 32 and 6 record yet they didn't make it into the NCAA tournament. There were many schools that had worse records who did make it in. Many of them were laughably routed from the tournament, so why wasn't ISU given a shot. Surely they could have beaten the Colorado State team that ousted Virginia 67 to 42?

It's pretty clear that the system is flawed. Probably not as flawed as the college football playoff system, but flawed nonetheless.

It was a pretty fantastic game with two teams that were pretty evenly matched. In the end, Seton Hall came away with the narrow victory. Indiana State seemed to be playing against themselves. I can't help but think they might have done better on any other night against the Pirates.

The Women's Final Four starts tonight with North Carolina State facing South Carolina. If that isn't a historic match up I don't know what is. It almost feels like a civil war or two sisters getting into a fight. Fun fact, South Carolina hasn't lost a single game all season.

That's right, their record is 31-0, will they hold on to make it 32-0? North Carolina State has been a bit of a darling story this year and their parallel run with the men's team is definitely news worthy. If I had to put my money anywhere, I would probably put it down on South Carolina.

Meanwhile, speaking of parallel runs, the UConn women's team has the second game tonight against Iowa. The Iowa team has a lot of pieces to like. I know Caitlin Clark gets the most attention, but I really love that freshman Hannah Stuelke, and Gabby Marshall is just a dream behind the three point line. No, not the crazy half court shots that Clark takes, but just a consistent presence when you need a trey. Plus Martin and Affolter are great too. The bench just feels deep too with O'Grady able to come in when Stuelke gets in foul trouble.

My big issue is the fact that Iowa tends to make some careless plays. Clark can be a bit of a "chucker" (anyone get the Seinfeld reference there?) and they aren't as tight as they could be sometimes. Add to that the fact that I really haven't watched UConn play this season and I don't know how this one is going to pan out.

There's going to be a lot of disappointed little ladies if Iowa loses.

Then on Saturday we have the Cinderella North Carolina State Men's team taking on Zach Edey and the Purdue team. I've said it before, I'm not a fan of Purdue. I'm also not saying Edey isn't a good player but I could probably play basketball well too if I was as tall as him. Sometimes it's just dumb luck and Purdue has been beaten three times before.

That being said, It's going to be a tall order for a NC State team that is 17-14 on the season. They have a lot of momentum behind them though and strength of schedule could come into play. Just look at all the other Big 10 teams that are still in the tournament (oh right...).

Finally, the night is capped off with UConn over Alabama. I think this one is going to squarely land with UConn. They are just that good. I hope so anyway. I can tell you, if the final ends up being Purdue vs. Alabama, I will likely skip it and get a perfectly wonderful nights sleep doing so.