It's All in the Cards: 2013 NCAA Tourny Recap

In a year where a number 9 seed, 2 number 4’s, and a number 1 overall seed that I didn’t even know was in the top 10 in the country made the Final 4, there were a lot of people that had their bracket busted pretty early on. I was actually in decent position to make some noise following a pretty weak opening weekend for my picks going into the Friday of the Sweet 16, but Michigan completed a wild comeback to eliminate Kansas, Michigan St. was ousted by Duke (long past my bedtime), and you could stick a fork in my bracket after that. According to ESPN’s Tournament Challenge, I only wound up in the 22nd percentile of brackets, which is pretty shabby considering how much basketball I watch. Still, the NCAA Tournament showed again that if you think you are pretty smart when it comes to this stuff it can knock you down off your high horse a few pegs.

F***...

After watching what can only be described as a watered down, talent depleted, poorly played tournament, it was nice to see an actual basketball game breakout in the finale. The pace was so fast and there were so few whistles going into the 1st half under-16 timeout that I thought I might be able to watch the game and get to bed before 11pm. That turned out to be very wishful thinking, but last night’s game reminded us of what college basketball can be when it’s really good: teams playing frenetically, going all-out on every possession, and making great play after great play (as opposed to taking the air out of the ball on offense and playing hack-a-everyone on D).

The fact that Louisville topped Michigan last night was not surprising…that they survived an unbelievable shooting display from a little-used reserve guard and the worst game of the year (and benching) from their best player was. Spike Albrecht scored almost half of the Wolverines' 1st half points out of nowhere, and Russ Smith seemed to try to do a little too much all night long, but eventually it seemed like the Cardinals team speed, defensive pressure, and their own hot shooting from a backup were too much for Michigan to overcome.

Luke Hancock shot Louisville back into the game at the end of the 1st half.

Now, we move onto next season. There’s NBA Draft early entries to determine, big time recruits to put under the microscope, and teams to hypothesize about. April 9, 2013: when every team in the country can be filled with optimism and everyone’s 2014 bracket is still unblemished.