A Day Full of Basketball-Bracketbusters Style

First off, here's the list of games I watched or listened to a part of today...watch out there are 19 of them throughout the day.
Bucknell vs. Northern Iowa
Missouri St. vs. Wisconsin-Milwaukee
DePaul vs. St. John's
Texas A&M vs. Baylor
Northern Illinois vs. Winthrop
Chicago St. vs. Valparaiso (Women's game)
Oral Roberts vs. Montana
Marist vs. Old Dominion
Fairfield vs. Loyola (Chicago)
Delaware vs. Cleveland St.
Louisiana Tech vs. Southern Illinois
Illinois-Chicago vs. Murray St.
Fairleigh Dickinson vs. Wisconsin-Green Bay
Niagra vs. Valparaiso (Men's game)
George Mason vs. Wichita St.
Louisville vs. Syracuse
California St.-Northridge vs. Boise St.
Fresno St. vs. Creighton
Santa Clara vs. Hawaii

That's the list...what an incredibly insane number of games. It was great fun though, considering two of those games went to Double Overtime before a winner was decided.

I must say for a Bracketbusters game, Bucknell and Northern Iowa was just as great as ESPN hoped it would be. This game presented the best in fundamental basketball. Being that I'm more of a fundamental basketball player and fan of the game, I love getting to see things like a ballhandler using the armbar to protect the ball from being stolen, passing inside to get easy layups, and "pick the picker" so you can open up a passing lane to get the ball inside to a forward or center for the high percentage layup. Ah, Bucknell may not have won the game on the scoreboard, but in my heart when it comes to fundamentals, Bucknell won. A wonderfully played game by both teams, I must admit.
The Chicago St./Valpo game for the Valpo women was incredible. At one point late in the second half, the women were down as much as 11 points. They came back with excellent passing and getting the ball inside for layups and some drawing of fouls. I was shocked that this game went to one overtime, but on Senior Day, the ladies were after my heart and they didn't give up when the win looked out of their grasp. What a way to win for the classy trio of seniors, who in the 2 years I knew each of them, they won my hearts with their play and character off the court. It will be different listening to the women after this season when I only know about 3 women on the roster again. It was a great ride watching and listening to these ladies play a game they love.

Louisiana Tech played a heroic game against Southern Illinois. With SIU being in the might Missouri Valley Conference many didn't believe that LA Tech stood a chance. The men of Tech showed they really want to win the bid in the Western Athletic Conference. It's possible they could get it, but they have to work out some kinks, but they should get there sometime in the near future. Keep it up Tech and you'll be there.

The Valparaiso men were a class act tonight as well. This started with the exceptional allowance of a senior walk-on getting the chance to start when another senior stepped aside and gave him the spot to start for the first and last time in the Crusader uniform at home. Way to go Homer for allowing Jim to have Seth's starting spot tonight. Jim really worked hard to just get into a Valpo uniform three years ago. He played a good game, even if he didn't get very many minutes (4). It was a great ride for this team..especially the group of seniors in their last home game as well.

While this whole concept of Bracketbusters is a unique opportunity for some of the "mid-majors" in smaller conferences to get some national exposure with a possible game on any of the ESPN family of networks, it sorta makes a fan wish that more of the games were actually good games, rather than opportunities for about 75 teams to just have a non-conference game that is a guaranteed return game for next season. It has gotten to be a bloated tournament setup where maybe two or three of these games are of good quality, otherwise many of the games are just extra drivel for ESPN to have something to replace the fact that they no longer show hockey and they really want to cause an office NCAA bracket pool to get blown up massively.
It's good to support teams that aren't in the bloated conferences like the Big East, Big Ten, ACC, SEC or the Mountain West, and the Big Twelve. These conferences get over-billed because they have all the big name schools mostly the one who overpopulate the brackets come tourney time or the top25 rankings throughout the season.
It will definitely be good to see how the Bucknells, Northern Iowas, and Southern Illinois-types will do in pulling the proverbial upset in the first round of the tournament. I hope for a few good ones, but it'll probably be an upset by one of the lower ranking teams in a major conference that does something in the second round or in the Sweet Sixteen or Elite Eight rounds.

I don't know about you, but this was a great day of basketball and I'm glad I got to enjoy it. If you don't mind, I'll get back to the games I'm currently watching or listening to...they would be the last two on the list above. Take care all...and have a good weekend. Watch some Daytona 500 or Olympic something, my cheeky wee monkeys.