Wrapping up this tournament weekend

I had to include this from the Sports Guy, even if it is a little late. This should be considered even more strongly after UCLA won to get back to the final four, Oregon put on a great effort against the defending champions, and USC built a huge lead (only to remember they were being coached by former Bulls skipper Tim Floyd) over the weekend.

2. Greg in Oregon argues, "You can dismiss all of us 'Pac-10 doesn't suck' posters but even if Kansas and Texas A&M played in the final, that doesn't NECESSARILY mean the Big 12 is better. It could mean they have two excellent teams ... and maybe 10 bad ones. Best league (to me) means best teams top to bottom, with at least a few making a deep tournament run. Washington finished seventh in the Pac-10, a very good team this year. Six others made the tourney and three into the Sweet 16. That's a good league (at least it doesn't deserve 'Pac-10 sucks!') in any book."

That's an excellent point. You're right, under that definition, the Pac-10 definitely doesn't suck. And the fact that USC (the fourth-best team in the Pac-10) crushed Texas (the third-best team in the Big 12) killed my long-standing argument that the Big 12 was definitively better than the Pac-10. So you know what? I'm waving the white flag on this one. Yes, WSU was overrated, Stanford and Arizona weren't worth a damn and nobody else in the conference mattered -- but UCLA and Oregon were good all year, and the fact that USC came together in the tournament submarined my argument.

Upon further review, the Pac-10 didn't suck this season. I will swallow my pride and admit being wrong ... as long as we can all agree that the Big Ten royally sucked. Thank you.

I could not agree more. I don't have much to say about the Oregon-Florida game, but there are a few things:

1. I was glad that the officiating was much more even than it was during the UNLV game. Sure, I felt like a few extra fouls were called against Oregon than there should have been, but it didn't seem like the consistent attempt to undermine the Ducks that was happening on Friday. And yes, I might have exaggerated that just a little bit.


2. I was really happy with how our bigs played in that game. My friend J-Lew pointed this out, but Florida really is only as good as their back court. We forced Green and Humphries to beat us by making it really hard for Noah, Horford, and Brewer to do what they wanted inside. And those two guards did a great job of hitting their shots.


3. We disrupted them and they disrupted us. We've been known as an outside shooting team, and most of our points came from the inside, since they wouldn't let us have a good look from beyond the arc. As I just said, their big guys were held in check, which is where they usually get their points, but their guards took advantage of what we gave them.


4. As I said in the running diary, this team loses only one of its main contributors, Aaron Brooks, and one decent role player, Adam Zahn. If they can come back with great intensity next year, look for the Ducks to improve on their finish in 2007.

I'm on spring break now, which is fantastic. I'm going to put the blog away and start reading The Fortress of Solitude, by Jonathan Lethem.