After three overtime classics and the biggest upset in about five years yesterday, Friday was comparatively a snoozer across the college basketball landscape. If you're a fan of a 1, 2, or 3 seed, that's a good thing. If you're that guy who only picks the top seeds in your bracket challenge, consider yourself a Day 2 winner as well. Of the top ranked teams in Day 2, Wisconsin came the closest to stumbling, but Johnny Davis refused to have his college career ended by a bunch of toothpaste.
Wisconsin-Colgate got interesting for a while, MSU-Davidson had some nice moments, and in a battle of early 2000s college football dynasties, the final ten minutes of Miami-USC had an instant classic feel to it. Other than that, opening Friday of this year's March Madness was underwhelming in a lot of ways.
The only "upsets" on the day involved talented middle-of-the-pack power conference teams, and those are never any fun. The only "game winners" on the day were free throws, which no matter how pressure-packed, just don't make for very memorable highlights. Two of the best games on the day were offensively anemic matches stuck in the 50s.
The tourney's leading scorers on the day were role players both averaging under double figures for the season: Cormac Ryan of Notre Dame (29 pts, 10-13 shooting, 7-9 three pt.) and MSU's Joey Hauser (27 pts, 9-12 shooting, 4-6 three pt.). So much for star power.
If Friday was one of the Greatest Four Days in Sports, then my sports fandom has rightfully entered an existential crisis, but the show goes on. March waits for no one. Here's the recap from March Madness Day 2, just in time for the machine to crank back into gear in a few more hours.
The Greatest Four Games from Day 2:
The first half of this one was about as ugly as it could get, with Miami's woeful outside shooting taking on USC's atrocious handling. By about the ten-minute mark of the second half though, the brick and turnover fest had tightened up to the point where it was starting to feel like "one of those games", destined to come down to the final possession.
USC turned the ball over 18 times, and unless you're Creighton, it's nearly impossible to beat a tournament level team when you do that. All the same, the Trojans very nearly stole the game in the final 40 seconds. Trailing by 7, Drew Peterson hit two threes and a layup (with a Miami turnover and free throw mixed in) to tie up the game.
Charlie Moore of the 'Canes got in the lane and found a pretty ticky tack foul to get on the line and hit two free throws to save Miami and knock out another of my Final Four picks. Unlike Kentucky's loss to St. Peter's yesterday, I didn't have quite the same enthusiasm for this bracket buster.
I wanted this one badly for Foster Loyer. After being a frequent target of hysterical criticism from his own "fans" at Michigan State, Loyer was eventually nudged out the door by some upgrades at point guard and I'm sure some gentle encouragement from Coach Izzo. He ended up at Davidson via the transfer portal and captained them to the Atlantic 10 regular season title.
And just like Happy Gilmore and Shooter McGavin, wouldn't you know it? They've been paired together. And you what? Scratch that Foster Loyer stuff, I just wanted State to lose, I have no feelings either way towards Foster Loyer.
This was an entertaining game from start to finish. I hate watch quite a few Michigan State games, and all I'll say is that I haven't ever seen Joey Hauser play like that before, and don't expect to again anytime in the near future, but the kid had a great game.
Aaron Hoggard can get to the basket in a way that Loyer simply isn't physically capable of, and his other replacement Tyson Walker has emerged as State's most reliable guy in the clutch. It's safe to say that MSU won the Foster Loyer trade, but this one got very interesting when Davidson took a five point lead midway through the second half.
State has a chance to end Coach K's kareer on Sunday.
Back in 2000 on The Marshall Mathers LP, Eminem asked the age-old question: "whatever happened to catchin' a good old fashioned passionate ass-whoopin', and gettin' your shoes, coat, and your hat tooken?"
Two decades later, he finally gets a definitive answer: Montana State, Eminem. That's what. Montana State.
For this game to crack my Friday's best says quite a bit about the relative lameness from Day 2, because this was not a great game. In fact, it wasn't even a good one and even 13 seed Chattanooga's upset bid couldn't garner the usual amount of excitement and nerves watching it because it was just such ugly basketball the majority of the time.
The two teams combined to shoot 7-32 from behind the arc, turn the ball over 24 times, and miss 16 free throws. Chattanooga had only 6 assists and committed 21 fouls... and they somehow had the lead for about 39 of the 40 minutes in this one!
One thing you can say about Day 2 of this year's tournament is that we've seen some clutch free throw shooting. In this case, it was Alfonso Plummer knocking down two with twelve seconds left to supply the Illini with their winning points. Chattanooga's Malachi Smith had a solid look at a game winner down at the other end, but he shot 4 for 20 on the evening, and his final shot went just a bit long.
If Illinois is looking to shake off the ghosts of last year's early exit to Loyola-Chicago, this isn't it. But they survive and advance, and unfortunately this was one of the better games of the day.
Day 2 Recap:
- Madness Level: 2.5 out of 10.
- Friday offered a handful of close games, most of them involving overrated Big Ten teams, but for the most part the teams that were expected to win got it done in the end. Not particularly mad in that regard.
- Three more double digit seeds advanced on Friday. Notre Dame and Iowa State both won their 11/6 matchups, and Miami in a 10/7. Similar to Michigan yesterday, none of these really felt like upsets as all involved high major teams.
- A heavy dose of snoozers, especially in the earlier games, really brought down the excitement level from Day 2. There were margins of victory of 35, 27, 24, 22 20, 19, a couple 17, and several more 10+, nearly all in favor of the better seeded team.
- For the second day in a row, no buzzer beaters. A couple of clutch free throws from Miami's Charlie Moore with 3 seconds left against USC are still the only "game winning" points from this year's tournament.
- Buzzer Beater Chances: 0 out of 2.
- Drew Peterson of USC had a desperation heave from about 35 feet that very nearly banked in, but instead sent my dark horse Final Four pick home.
- Trailing by one, Chattanooga had a clean jumper from the wing that went just a bit long and caromed off the iron right before time expired. Illinois escapes with one that they probably didn't deserve.
- My Bracket Status: Threat Level Midnight
- Picked 13 of 16 games correctly, but another Final Four pick goes down. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Arkansas loses to Teddy Allen tomorrow, which would only leave Arizona.
- Losses were USC, LSU, and Seton Hall--who rivals Indiana for the worst showing in this year's tournament.
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