ckupets04 said:
I am so glad Villanova beat Duke. Duke had a poor night shooting for the most part, Gerald Henderson had a forgettable night to say the least. I thought in the first half Villanova played excellent defense contesting most of Duke's shots but as the game progressed, particularly in the 2nd half Duke got a lot of open-looks, quality high % looks but the shots just werent falling.
Was anyone else surprised by the fact that Villanova in the 2nd half with the 13 point lead or so didnt start to use clock more? They were practically helping Duke by taking shots really early in the shot clock, and defensively they were putting Duke on the charity stripe as well down the stretch allowing the Blue Devils to put points on the board with the clock stopped. It was not until about 4 minutes left in the 2nd half that finally Nova started to run some clock on the offensive end and milk the clock.
Duke, early in the 2nd half I thought had too many empty offensive trips (where they were not getting shots off due to turnovers). They just couldnt afford to have empty trips on a night where they were shooting that poorly.
I had a feeling about that one. Nova was looking good in the first couple of rounds but they were playing in Philadelphia so they had a huge home court advantage. I thought Duke would give them a bit of a run and even though they really did not have an answer for Dante Cunningham, they also didn't have an answer for Scottie Reynolds. Nova wasn't particularly great at shooting the ball but Duke was absolutely awful.
I'm not surprised that Nova was taking shots early because they were confident but when you have the lead and are burying the opposition you just want to finish them off early. I'm not a huge believer in that though. It is much more difficult to play defense than offense and the opposition will get more tired that way. I think that they should have wasted more time on the clock as well but they won anyways.
My picks for tonight:
Louisville over Arizona. This one should be closer than people think. I think that Louisville is more balanced than Zona but Nic Wise has been playing so well and Louisville doesn't have top quality guards that can play with him. I think Chase Budinger can be neutralized a bit and Louisville needs a big game from Samardo Samuels to take care of Jordan Hill because he is absolutely relentless.
Oklahoma over Syracuse. This game is too close to call but Oklahoma has Blake Griffin and he is a man against boys. An absolute powerhouse and he seems to be back on his game after he went down with an injury. Syracuse has been playing so well and there defence has been outstanding. What a difference a few games make because at the beginning of the year, they were horrible.
Michigan State over Kansas. Another game that should be very close. I like the depth of Michigan State but it will be difficult to completely take Cole Aldrich at Sherron Collins out of the game.
North Carolina over Gonzaga. This depends on the status of Ty Lawson. NC is deep enough to win but Lawson should only take them that much further. The game that Gonzaga played against WKY scared me so I wonder how they will play the Tar Heels.
