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#3 MIAMI FL VS #2 VILLANOVA (Louisville, KY. CBS, 7:10pm, est). Villanova is very tough to guard, and when they are hitting their shots they can be almost impossible to beat. They’ve blown through their first two games and played what was perhaps one of their best games of the year in the Round of 32 against Iowa. Miami has been up and down this season, but they’ve mostly been up. They held on to win their first two round games despite a big comeback from Wichita State. They’re defense is certainly going to get a workout tonight.
#3 TEXAS A&M VS #2 OKLAHOMA (Anaheim, CA. TBS, 7:37pm, est). There are times that Oklahoma has looked like the best team in the country, but there are many other times where they have certainly looked beatable. Even though they’re here, they looked beatable in both of their NCAA Tournament wins to get here. Texas A&M is coming off what is probably one of the most improbable wins in NCAA Tournament history by overcoming a double digit deficit against Northern Iowa in the final 44 seconds. These are old conference foes that now rarely play. Oklahoma is more battle tested, but TAMU has shown they can play.
#5 MARYLAND VS #1 KANSAS (Louisville, KY. CBS, 9:40pm, est). Maryland beat two double digit seeds to get here and Kansas blew through their two games as well. Maryland is good, but they will be swinging way over their weight in this one as Kansas has looked absolutely remarkable over the past month or so.
#4 DUKE VS #1 OREGON (Anaheim, CA. TBS, 10:07pm, est). Duke beat two double digits seeds to get here as they had to sweat out UNC Wilmington a little bit, and then had to hold on against a Yale team that mounted a furious comeback. It was no easy path for Oregon either who struggled to put away Saint Joe’s in the Round of 32. I like Oregon’s athleticism and think Duke will struggle defensively in this game. Like all the other games today it should be a fun matchup.
THE GRAND CANYON ANTELOPES
-The Grand Canyon Antelopes, this year’s team of the people, fell on the road to Coastal Carolina in the quarterfinals of the CIT in a game that came right down to the buzzer. As disappointing and as heartbreaking as it is when a team’s season ends, especially if it ends after a game they feel they could have won, they have a lot to be proud of. When we decided to adopt them as our “Team of the People” this year, we had no idea that we were going to have as much fun with them as we did. The fans were great. We loved the interaction on Twitter and elsewhere. We loved that our own Jon Teitel was actually able to get to one of their games in person. We loved some of the antics that we pulled, such as the #LopesWaiver tweets, twitter bombing the NCAA with pictures of Howard Beale, petitioning the White House to get them a waiver, calling Mark Emmert during a podcast of Under the Radar to try and get him on the phone, getting the WAC Commissioner to respond saying that he felt it was unfortunate, and so much more. I cannot tell you how much we enjoyed following them this year.
And, there really is much to be proud of. Most transitional programs are complete and total train wrecks. The teams are essentially on probation for four years, so it is hard to sell yourself to recruits and build yourself up when you’re going through that. If a team is good, or generates some quality players, they will often be tempted to transfer to a program that is not on probation. It is not easy at all to do what they did. They finished in the top 100 of the RPI, and finished second overall in the WAC conference. That is as successful as any transitional program has ever been. They still have one more year. Once that’s over, they will be a competitive program at the div1 level and will contend for NCAA Tournaments.