It sounds kind of goofy, but there is some value in a missed shot. For instance, just compare it to a turnover. There is no offensive value in a turnover because the possession ends right there. But the same is not true for a missed shot, because there is a chance of the possession continuing […]

The best game of the sweet 16 is Louisville vs. Washington. This is going to be real basketball – presses, fast breaks, dunks, long range snipers. There are other games that will be great over the next two days, but they won’t have all of those elements. Louisville and Washington will score points, and that’s […]

Eight more games are coming at us Thursday and Friday. Only two are mismatches, with the other six being close to toss-ups, so there are bound to be a couple of classics that fall out of these. Here’s the list of games, in order of appeal, with rankings of tempo/offensive efficiency/defensive efficiency among the 16 […]

Cleaning up some first-round issues…collectively, this year’s 1 vs. 16 and 2 vs. 15 games were the closest ever with an average margin of victory of 13.1 points. And by "ever," I mean since the tournament went to the 64 team format in 1985. The previous low (14.3) occurred during the magical 1989 tourney when […]

So the madness got put pack in March tonight. A fun night unless you had a rematch of the 2003 final in your Final Four. It just so happened that the Vermont/Syracuse contest was the first game that I tried to take notes on using the Oliver possession scoring method. I really struggled with it, […]

For the second consecutive year, the basketball committee showed that it puts more emphasis on conference tournaments that any other games during the season. It also puts the ACC tourney above any others. Last season, Maryland earned a four seed based on three ACC tournament games. This season, Georgia Tech earned a five seed based […]

I’m going to keep tabs on this game in almost real-time. Hopefully this one will break the game diary trend and be competitive into the second half. But by doing a 3/14 game, obviously I am taking my chances. 14:01 – Arizona 10, USU 7 – Turnovers are the story so far with USU point […]

The second set of games provided the only late-game drama of the day session, with Utah beating UTEP 60-54. The game was tied in the last minute when Utah guard Mark Jackson knocked down an 18 footer for the game winner. Bogut finished with 24 and 11, but his occasional matador defense and poor free […]

The first set of games are done, and the two SEC entries involved did not play well. Alabama could not dig itself out of a huge first half hole and fell to the 12 seed Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Kentucky struggled with the 15 seed Eastern Kentucky. In the wacky world of college hoops, this one game […]

A double-double in the first half for Niagara’s Juan Mendez. 14 points, 10 boards, 2 blocks, 5-9 FGs, 3-4 FTs. The 14 seed Niagara trails Oklahoma 37-34 at the half. The biggest surprise is that Oklahoma is shooting less than 50% despite getting a number of layups/bunnies against Niagara’s porous defense.