March Madness: From the Sweet Sixteen to the Final Four

OK, so 3 of my four teams are still in, my bad pick being Kansas. I'm not sure why I picked Georgetown over UNC for the reason of decent talent combined with great team over great talent and youth, but not UCLA over Kansas. I guess I overestimated Kansas' talent, and UCLA's losses at the end of the season really affected my decisions. Andoverjon has three in also, his one back pick being Texas, and AndyMetz.com has 2 out of 4, his bad picks being Pitt and Texas.
Anyways, on to the Sweet Sixteen. Kansas got a scare from Southern Illinois, but they played lazy basketball all game while SI was pretty much geared up and executing flawlessly. In the end, 5 to 8 possible NBA talents triumphed over one or two fringe NBA talents. A&M lost to Memphis, a game that probably 90% of the people had A&M winning despite being a lower seed. Douglas-Roberts was supposed to be injured, but he played a great game by getting 15 points on efficient scoring. Acie Law IV played subpar, shooting 6-17 and missing a crucial layup. In the end, Memphis just had too many athletes for A&M to overcome. After that, Ohio State was down to Tennessee 39 to 19 and 47 to 27 at one point, but clawed their way back. Despite Tennesse shooting 15-31 on 3's they still lost, though to be fair, OSU did get 2x the amount of free throws attempted. And lastly for Thursday night's games, UCLA pretty much dominated Pitt. They only won by 9, but it never looked that close. Aaron Gray further proved that he is not an NBA talent.
Friday nights games were just as exciting. Florida almost lost to Butler and their 3 point shooting, but Florida had 3 point shooting of its own, with both sides making about half their attempts. Florida showed why people were skeptical about them earlier this season by playing half-hearted ball, but in their end, their front line was too much for the short Butler players to overcome. The USC-UNC was exciting for a while. USC was up by 15 with 15 to go, but UNC quickly erased that deficit and USC just could not score. Taj Gibson almost had a double double at half time, but some questionable foul calls gave him 4 early on, and he had to sit out most of the second half, leaving USC with virtually no big men. Marcus Ginyard's rebounding really helped them, and I found myself thinking that it would be UNC-Florida because of the talent both teams have. Besides Hansbrough and the three top 10 recruits for freshman in Lawson, Wright, and Ellington for this year, UNC has Marcus Ginyard, the Mr. Basketball of Virginia, Danny Green, a McDonald's All-American and MVP of the ABCD basketball camp ( a prestigious camp where most of the best high school players go to. Tracy McGrady was MVP of this camp a while ago), Bobby Frasor, a McDonald's All-American and on All-ACC freshman team last year, ReyShawn Terry, a 6-8 230 pound pre-season All-American candidate, and Deon Thompson a 6-8 240 pound block machine freshman. That's a whole lot of depth and athleticism.
Next Georgetown got a scare from Vanderbilt, and won on despite Jeff Green traveling to hit the game winner. Usually when they call travels I wonder why, but this one was very obvious, so it's weird that the didn't call it. After this game, I could see why Georgetown was such a good team, they have great players in a mold that fits the teams needs well. John Wallace is a great handler and good shooter, DaJuan Summers is a great freshman with size (6-8 240) and skills, Jessie Sapp is a reliable alternate ball handler, and Patrick Ewing Jr. is a dynamite athlete off the bench. Finally, Orgeon disposed of UNLV pretty easily. They only won by 4, but were up by 16 or so with not much to play. TaJuan Porter was shooting lights out, but the real story is that they really have 5 shooting guards, and a shooting forward on that team, though with Malik Hairston's build and rebounding and blocking ability, he can play a decent PF in college.
On to the Elite 8. OSU creamed Memphis, and Oden made Dorsey eat his words. If you don't know what I'm talking about, 6-9 260 pound bruiser, Joey Dorsey said before the game that he was Goliath compared to Oden. Dorsey ended up scoring 0 points and grabbing 3 rebounds, so I guess Oden won that battle. Jeremy Hunt scored 25 points off the bench, but Memphis as a whole just didn't look like they wanted to win that badly. Maybe they shouldn't have thought so highly of themselves, and had more of an attitude like SI or Butler, because those teams played their hearts out. Next, UCLA throttled Kansas in a very sloppy game. Afflalo was hitting everything, and Collison made a couple of unbelievable shots. Shipp and Collison would try to run and gun and get turnovers, but once they slowed it down, UCLA found that Kansas couldn't stop them. Mbah a Moute was big down the stretch, and only Brandon Rush for Kansas seemed to want to get his team to the Final Four.
The Oregon and Florida game played out with Florida winning, but not in quite the way everyone thought it would. I thought Horford and Noah would have their way, being that Oregon only has one guy over 6'6" who plays regularly. Oregon used a strong 2-3 however, and it opened up the three for Green and Humphrey who combined for 11 for 21 for threes. When you shoot that well and have the size and talent advantage, you're bound to win. Shooting 43 free throws when you're opponent shoots 16 doesn't hurt either. For Oregon, Aaron Brooks played lights out, and showed that he could shoot well, and that his driving was equally amazing. He probably moved himself to the late first round if not then definitely early second round. Malik Hairston also showed that he could use his weight effectively, even if wasn't that tall, so he might be a late first rounder as well.
Lastly, one of the most exciting games of the tournament so far, Georgetown versus UNC. The media made a big deal of this because of the historic Jordan game 25 years ago, the fact that Roy Williams was an assistant coach for UNC then, that Ewing Jr. is on the team now, and that John Thompson's son is the coach now for Georgetown. I guess that's cool and all, but the amazing players in this game was enough for me. Carolina started out well, and Hansbrough was amazing from the line. Making at least his first 12 free throws. At one point, the free throw discrepancy was 34 for Carolina and 9 for Georgetown, a little cheap I think. It ended up evening out in the end because Carolina had to foul in overtime. For Georgetown, John Wallace's 3 pointer to tie the game up was great, and Georgetown played great team ball, while for UNC, only Hansbrough and Deon Thompson really played great. I think both Wright and Lawson hurt their NBA stocks in my mind, though I never could see why they were projected to be the 4th and 14th NBA picks at this point.
So, two 1 seeds and two 2 seeds. People say its not exciting because of the lack of upsets, but I think it's better because there are more nationally recognizable players and programs, and just a higher level of play for basketball.
Draft Stocks
Brandon Rush's stock went up in my mind. I think he's a lottery pick now because he can be the team leader in terms of scoring, and he already is a lock down defender. Julian Wright disappeared a bit, despite showing his athleticism off, but it doesn't really matter because everyone on Kansas is supposed to be staying except for Rush, who is still undecided.
I think Hansbrough would be a great pick right now. Maybe not lottery, but he reminds me of Troy Murphy in that he's not too athletic, but is a beast down low, and has great basketball instincts. Brandan Wright I think should see his stock drop a bit too, because he is all raw potential right now, much like Marvin Williams was a few years ago. I think Horford and Noah have firmly surpassed him. Lawson also played poorly against Georgetown, and though he still might go out, I think Conley has firmly established himself as the premier PG.
Oden has established himself in my mind as the number one pick, though I think he'll go back to learn more in the classroom and on the basketball court. Conley could be a lottery pick if he goes, but unless he wins a championship, I think he stays, as he should, because once he can shoot a three pointer, the comparisons to Chris Paul will be dead on. Daequan Cook has shown that he needs at least another year of college, but Ron Lewis has shown that he could definitely be a great bench player in the NBA if not a starter. He plays solid defense, can shoot, and is averaging 21 points per game against good competition this tournament. His clutch shot against Xavier didn't hurt either.
For UCLA, Collison has shown that he has the talent, but if Afflalo has another game he might as well leave now. He will probably never be a great NBA player, but he plays amazing defense and can shoot fairly well. If he does real well in the shooting drill, he could be around the 20th pick.
For Florida, as I said before, I think it's clearly Noah and Horford 3 and 4, with Brewer being around 14, but Green has shown that he can play at the NBA level with his 3 point shooting, though he only averages 3 assists a game, he might want to show that he can be the main man at Florida next year. Humphrey has shown that he can be Jason Kapono or Kyle Korver-like, and that's worth a shot at in the NBA.
For Georgetown, but Hibbert and Green have shown that they can be lottery players. Green has moved up to the upper-eschelon in my mind next to the Wright's, while Hibbert is firmly in the lottery. He looks a lot more polished on both ends then I thought he would be, and his passing is great. The only problem is that he wears a t-shirt to hide his body because if you could see it, you would think that the guy needs to start lifting because he could get knocked around a bit in the NBA, and he needs to be more athletic in general. John Wallace showed that he could be in the NBA, and the freshman forward DaJuan Summers showed that he could be a 1st rounder, though I think he should stay and be "the man" for a year or two at Georgetown to show scouts what he has.
Lastly, for Memphis, Chris Douglas-Roberts can be a first rounder, but I'd stay another year and work on my shot. Joey Dorsey was hoping that he could project to a Zach Randolph, but his performance against OSU was horrible, and he will have to work on his game a bit more.