It's now the round of 16 so let's look back at the winners and losers from the first two rounds of action.
Winner: Low seeds. In the Sweet 16, we have a 12 (Richmond), two 11's (VCU and Marquette), a 10 (Florida State) and an 8 (Butler.)
Loser: Bruce Pearl. The coach who took Tennessee to the Elite Eight a year ago is out as head coach of the Vols.
Winner: ACC. The maligned conference has three teams in the Sweet 16--North Carolina, Duke and Florida State. This is the most of any league.
Loser: Pitt. The number one seed Panthers once again did not play to their seed in the tournament.
Winner: Kansas. The Jayhawks made it through the first two rounds of the tournament and now have a 12 and 10/11 standing between them and the Final Four.
Loser: Leslie Visser. Visser's sideline reporting days should be long over.
Winner: Gus Johnson: Johnson's manic calls of tight tournament games are now the things of YouTube legend.
Loser: Vanderbilt. The Commodores are another chronic under-achiever in the tournament, losing this year to Richmond in round one.
Winner: Viewers. The four network approach of CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV was a hit.
Loser: Craig Sager's stylist. Seriously, where does this guy buy his clothes and, more importantly, who provides him with fashion counsel?
Winner: Bill Raftery. The guy has "Onions!"
Loser: Marv Albert: Marv, it's the "Morris twins," not the "Marcus twins." Albert made the mistake, with Kansas' high profile brother tandem, when calling two different Jayhawk games.
Winner: Brad Stevens. Butler's coach proved that the Bulldogs' run to the 2010 national championship game was no fluke and thus cemented his position as the best young coach in college hoops.
Loser: Frank Martin. Look, most of the time I like Martin but his verbal undressing of freshman Will Spradling, at the end of Kansas State's loss to Wisconsin, was uncalled for and embarrassing.
Winner: Jacob Pullen. What a competitor--the KSU guard left it all on the court against Wisconsin, then showed the emotional toll caused by the sudden finality of a tournament loss.
You forgot one.
ReplyDeleteLosers: Missouri Tigers and Mike Alden for giving Mike Anderson yet another raise amidst rumors that he would leave, even though he has regressed two years in a row.
Well, I need to change this from losers to winners, good riddance to the man who "would retire at the University of Missouri."
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