The Sports Brewery

Cornell Big Red, St. Mary’s Gaels, Northern Iowa Panthers

Posted on 24. Mar, 2010 at 6:00 pm by Meerkat in Basketball, NCAA Basketball, NCAA Tournament

I think they can …

I think they can …

I think they can …

Hope.  The anticipation of the upset.  Witnessing history.  Watching some no name kid stick a dagger in the back of a big school.  Calling someone to say “dude, did you just watch that?!”.

This is what makes the NCAA tournament the best and most exciting playoff system in sports.

The 1st and 2nd rounds of the 2010 tournament have been awesome, but can it get better?  … oh yes, it can.  With low seeds like #12 Cornell, #10 St. Mary’s, and #9 Northern Iowa all advancing to the Sweet 16 … anything is possible in today’s parity-filled era of tournament play.  Sorry #11 Washington Huskies, but I think it’s fair to say you underachieved in the regular season (besides, they’re the dawgs, why would anyone want to get behind them?).  Anyway, back to the story.  Most years, the second week of the tournament is when the Cinderella schools  turn pumpkin on us and the brackets become a melee of big schools thumping each other for the crown.  Those days could be over.

The underdogs are not so under anymore.  Northern Iowa defeating #1 (overall) Kansas shook the egos of other big schools still in the dance.  On any given Sunday day … you can lose.  Nowadays, the big schools aren’t so big and the small schools aren’t so small.  The storybook run in 2006 by George Mason was a possible preview of future underdogs storming the final four gates.

Here now, George Mason’s shocker against #1 UCONN …

Back to the present.  Up first is the biggest potential upset, in Cornell over Kentucky.  The scrappy kids from the Ivy are gonna need their straight As game to topple the soon-to-be-pros from Lexington.  Future association employees John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins certainly don’t want their last game to be against a bunch of bookworms from Ithaca, NY.  And how appropriate will those NCAA commercials, where they say most of our student athletes will go pro in something other than sports, will be for this game?  Should the kids from Cornell and Kentucky exchange email addresses because they might need each other after school?  I mean every pro athlete needs a good agent or financial adviser these days.

Big Red vs Wildcats … looks very similar to a classic game played back in 1996.  Remember the coach that looked like a mad scientist?  The little school from NJ?  The defending champion that ran the fast break like no other school in the nation?

Here now, Jim Nantz & Gus Johnson …

Does it get anymore old school than a Princeton back-door cut for the winning basket?  Nah, I don’t think so.  That game is classic.

So how about St. Mary’s beating Baylor?  The Gaels have a balanced team with frontcourt big man Omar Samhan and beyond-the-arc threat Mickey McConnell.  But have the Gaels seen an all around athletic team like the Bears, yet?  Nope.  But a win, nevertheless,  is certainly within reach.

The most winnable game for the underdogs is UNI vs MSU.  The Spartans lost the heart & soul of their team when PG Kalin Lucas went down with an achilles injury.  Now the underdog should actually be the favorite.  Let’s see how Coach Jacobson’s squad handles the flipped script.  A UNI vs Ohio State Elite 8 game would be a ratings killer for the Midwest.

So this Thursday and Friday I will be cheering wildly for Underdog U, aka Cornell, St. Mary’s, and UNI.  Hopefully, with beer in hand, I’m watching these small schools pull off more exciting upsets to keep this tournament completely unpredictable.

By the way, what is Billy Packer doing these days?

Thursday

6:57pm PST – Cornell vs Kentucky

Friday

4:27pm PST – St. Mary’s vs Baylor

6:37pm PST – Northern Iowa vs Michigan State

Tags: Basketball, Cornell Big Red, NCAA Tournament, Northern Iowa Panthers, St. Mary's Gaels