We are coming off a terrible first round, I’ll have more on that later.
I sneaky love the Round of 32.
But this is the round that really defines how people view the Tournament.
You get a team like McNeese fighting for a Sweet 16 while others expect to be there.
You get the standalone games early before getting smacked in the face with games later.
Let’s get into it.
Schedule
Bracket
We’re staring at a potential monster week next week.
I’m sure we’ll get a couple upsets, right?
But either way those upsets are really good mid-majors or a double digit major conference team.
This is where the lack of upsets can be fine, as long as these games are good.
We deserve monster matchups.
3 Best Games Today
1.
BYU vs Wisconsin
2.
Arkansas vs St. John’s
3.
Texas Tech vs Drake
Five Most Electric Players
This isn’t about the best.
Every March there are guys you just want to watch no matter what.
These are the guys you should enjoy watching play basketball today, not Johni Broome who everyone knows.
John Blackwell (Wisconsin)
2.
Quadir Copeland (McNeese)
3.
Christian Anderson (Texas Tech)
4.
Jamiya Neal (Creighton)
5.
Miles Kelly (Auburn)
Five Storylines/Game Previews
1.
Why the hell would I say intriguing?
I love the second round.
There’s an extra level of nervousness of getting out of the first weekend.
You need that break as a fan to regroup and get ready for 2 more games next week.
We’re really looking at a perfect day of TV right now.
We’ll touch on the games later but look at the matchups we have today.
Drake/Texas Tech is a stylistic mismatch.
Auburn against Kalkbrenner and defense there.
BYU/Wisconsin could be the game of the tournament.
Pitino vs Cal
Come on, like anything else would be here?
However, Fland is back and Theiro reportedly could be back today.
That means the rotation is getting changed for this game and how long they get comfortable again.
For St. John’s it’s the same story.
They look bad to start, smother you and blow you out in the second half.
But it doesn’t matter.
It’s Pitino vs Cal.
It’s Cal vs Pitino.
That’s the story.
I never thought I’d say that about Wisconsin, especially offensively.
But Tonje and Blackwell are as good of a 1-2 combo as it’s possible for you to have.
The style of play is what I’m interested in here.
BYU’s defense is based on taking away the rim.
Same goes on the other way.
Wisconsin runs drop coverage more often than not and BYU just destroys that.
But this is the game I’m most interested in.
Gonzaga should have been a 7.
This is officially the toughest draw ever for a 1 seed in the 2nd round.
They don’t play top-10 KenPom teams.
This award used to go to 2014 Kentucky vs undefeated Wichita State, Gonzaga gets it now.
I don’t even know if you could qualify Drake as a Cinderella.
Yeah they won their first real tournament game since 1971 but they are always in the Tournament.
McNeese has Will Wade and all these former high-major transfers.
McNeese got the lead on Clemson by just getting after it defensively.
Clemson couldn’t dribble the ball let alone score.
For them today it’s simple.
Limit Braden Smith having the ball in his hand and take away the Smith/TKR 2-man game.
For Drake, they are the slowest team in the country.
They just system you to death before Bennett Stirtz rips your soul out.
Dude hit a one-legged runner three for the hell of it against Mizzou.
