Tonight the third round of the NCAA Tournament will start with the tip off with Purdue against UConn at 7pm. Other games on the night’s schedule include Pittsburgh vs Xavier, Duke vs Villanova, and Memphis vs Missouri. All in all, a very attractive slate of games unlike the NIT tournament games being shown this week on ESPN. Just never got into the NIT despite some of the quality teams that are there.
As for my brackets, I am not doing too badly actually. Of my top 16, on three of my brackets, I have 13 out of 16. Not too bad of an average and for the office pool, enough to put me into a tie for first place.
The really bummer about the whole thing is that Wake went out in defeat in one of the worst games of the year for them. But I should not be too surprised; the team has exhibited Jekyll and Hyde tendencies in the last half of the season. It is not about talent. Plenty of that but rather it is about leadership on the team and the motivation that flows from that. Against top teams like UNC or Duke, each player is highly motivated to do their best but against lower ranked opposition, the team just could not get it going. That is when a true leader steps to the fore and brings the team along with him. If the team remains intact, that means James Johnson who has shown that he can get the team going through his efforts should be the designated captain even informally and adopt the leadership role that the team needs.
So it looks like a good weekend of basketball. Some excellent games and even though there are no Cinderella teams this year, I do not mind as long as I see some truly competitive games.
Let’s hope my bracket stays intact.