Wow, What a Tourney

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This has been the most memorable NCAA Tourney since my Illini went to the Championship game in 2004. Not only have there been a lot of extraordinary Cinderella stories like Butler, Northern Iowa and St. Mary's, there have been so many close games that it is hard to catch your breath.

The Kansas State/Xavier game on Thursday night was one of the best basketball games I have ever seen. It was amazing to see Jordan Crawford hit game-tying deep 3s with less than 10 seconds left -- not once, but TWICE!! Wow and the shot at the end of the first OT had to be from 6 feet behind the 3 point line. It looked like a Lebron 3, not a college kid's three.

Clearly, the energy and effort put into that game had sapped some of the strength from KState as they were not as impressive against Butler. However, Butler deserves most of the credit as they played great defense on Pullen and Clemente and were able to clamp down on the ball screens which really made the difference.

The Tennessee victory was very impressive last night. I have never been a big Tennessee fan because they never seemed to play good defense and their offense was sloppy. However, they really have seemed to come together since kicking Tyler Smith off the team. It has been addition by subtraction and they have become a much better defensive team as a result.

They played the game that I had expected the Illini to play against Ohio State in the B10 Tourney. They pressed almost the entire game and they substituted regularly to wear down Ohio State's 6 guys. I am not sure how you leave yourself with only 6 players that get minutes, especially when you are as good of a recruiter as Matta. However, that is the sad fact for the Buckeyes -- they really have themselves to blame because they have no depth and eventually someone was going to wear them down.

I really excited for the MSU/Tennessee game tomorrow as well as the Duke/Baylor game with Baylor and Michigan State coming out victorious. I expect both of those games to be very close. I will enjoy watching Kentucky/WVA tonight but I do expect Kentucky to run away with this one.