NCAA Tourney Roundup

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Story Published: Mar 20, 2007 at 9:06 PM CST

Story Updated: Mar 20, 2007 at 9:11 PM CST

NCAA Tourney Roundup

Unfortunately, no team from the Bluegrass State will be marching into the second weekend this March.  Murray State, Morehead State, and Western Kentucky have been golfing for two weeks now.  Eastern Kentucky got to dance and tangoed pretty well with 1-seed North Carolina before bogging down late in the game.  Louisville had a nice home crowd in Lexington that helped them rout Stanford in the first round, but their youth showed late in the game in Saturday’s loss to a more grizzled Texas A&M team.  Yesterday, the talent gap was simply too great to overcome for Kentucky in their loss to Kansas. Many of our border states have faired much better.  Butler (Indiana), Southern Illinois, Tennessee, Memphis, Vanderbilt, and Ohio State are all still alive in the Sweet 16.

In this age of parity, it was slightly surprising that no team seeded lower than a 7-seed was able to run to the Sweet 16.  This will be the first Sweet 16 without a double-digit seed since 1995.  Part of that is due to the fact that non-BCS conference schools Southern Illinois and Butler were able to earn good seeds in the bracket.  Butler will have to go through Florida while SIU deals with the red-hot Kansas Jayhawks to advance to the Elite Eight.  The Salukis have the defense to make it difficult for anyone to score on them.  I like their chances much more than Butler’s to topple a 1-seed.

Of the 1-seeds, Kansas has found the path of least resistance to this point in the tourney, but Florida has the easiest path from here to Atlanta with Butler next and Oregon/UNLV in the Elite Eight if they dispatch the Bulldogs.  The Jayhawks will have to handle SIU, then either Pitt or UCLA—two very strong, physical teams.  Ohio State will be favored against Tennessee and have beaten the Vols once already this season, but Memphis or Texas A&M will present a major hurdle for the Buckeyes if OSU can advance to the Elite Eight.  North Carolina will face a hot USC team next, while Georgetown or dangerous Vanderbilt looms in the bottom half.

My final four picks still remain intact (Florida, Kansas, Georgetown, and Ohio State), so I will stick with those four until one or more of them bow out.  Game previews coming on Thursday.

~Cortney

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