White View
Sleeper? Cinderella Pick My sleeper pick is Utah State. Their opening round opponent Illinois State is coming off a 30-point drubbing in their conference tournament and with a low 30s RPI probably feels like they should be in the big dance. Oh wait, you weren’t asking about the NIT tournament? What? No one really follows the NIT, you gotta be kidding me. Isn’t the NIT what March Madness is all about? Seriously though, I really like Vanderbilt. I know that they have a four seed and most people wouldn’t consider them a sleeper pick. But since they laid the smack down on Utah State at the beginning on the season, I have kept my eye on Vandy. They have a phenomenal scorer in Shan Foster. Big man A.J. Ogilvy, who the University of Utah could have picked up, has been tearing it up down low. I’m putting my gut on the line, and overall I just have a good feeling about Vanderbilt.
Best Region
I have to go with the East region on this one. My method behind this was I first looked at the top three seeds in the region. The east has North Carolina, Tennessee and Louisville. Those top three from top to bottom are the strongest 1-3 seeds in any region. Then I started looking at some of the lower seeded teams, and they have some teams that have won some tournament games in the past (George Mason and Winthrop). Not to forget that Tennessee was No. 1 in the nation just a couple of weeks ago. And how can we skip out on the all mighty and important play-in game that is located in the east region. Twenty-loss team Coppin State with the daunting task of playing the the storied team that is Mt. St. Mary’s.
Best first-round game
I think the most interesting game of the first round is Georgia vs. Xavier. The thing about this game is that Georgia is seeded 14th and is coming off three wins in two days to claim the SEC tournament championship. Xavier lost in the semis of their tournament to St. Josephs. It will be fun to see whether or not Georgia can keep up its post-season magic and make a run in the big dance. I personally think their dream run will be over after this game, but could you imagine if they did win a couple of games the story it would be? A team winning two games in one day and then winning the conference championship the next day just to get into field of 64. I guess that’s why they call it March Madness.
Player of the Year
How about Boise State’s Aaron Garner? If I were a Bronco fan, he would be my pick. After Utah State jumped out to a quick lead in the first half against Boise State in the semis of last week’s conference tournament, Garner came off the bench and scored 11 straight points for the Broncos at one point. Normally that’s not that big of a deal, but Garner is different. He ended up scoring 14 points in the game, again not usually an amazing stat. But for this guy, in the previous 10 games he had scored only 12 points! And the next night against New Mexico, he didn’t score a single point and missed his only two shot attempts badly.
Rant As I traveled down to Las Cruces, N.M., for the WAC Tournament last week, I once again was affirmed that we have the best fans in the world. We had by far the most fans from any visiting school, obviously excluding New Mexico State because they played at home. All I heard about from the New Mexico State student writers was how amazing our fans were. Noticing how well our students came together to perform chants and cheers, they said that our students must get together and practice before the game. They also couldn’t stop talking about the creativity of the cheers that our students came up with. And the real kicker was when in a press conference, Boise State head coach Greg Graham was complaining about how far away Las Cruces was and that they couldn’t get any fans there. I wanted to raise my hand and ask, “How do you explain Utah State?” Go Aggies.