March 24, 2006
Tournament Musings: Sweet 16 Friday
I am still trying to catch my breath. The highlights keep rolling on ESPN, repeatedly showing the last few seconds of the final two games from Thursday.
Kenton Paulino deftly catching the pass from AJ Abrams with his left hand and in one motion stopping his rush up the court and jumping from about three feet beyond the arc. Swish! Game over. Texas advances.
Jordan Farmar steals the ball from over JP Batista's head in the back court and tosses it to Luc Richard Mbah a Moute for an easy two points. Derek Raivio rushes up the court with the ball, harassed by the UCLA defense. The ball is knocked from him and Mbah a Moute dives to the floor to cover it up forcing the tie-up. Arron Afflalo manages to hit one free throw after getting fouled on the inbounds pass, keeping hope for the Zags alive. Gonzaga has one last heave down court to Batista. Clunk! Game over. UCLA survives and Adam Morrison collapses to the floor in tears.
Within about the game space of about a minutes, two No. 2 seeds survive what were amazing games.
Not to take anything away from the earlier two contests, but the second two were games that rival the finishes of last season's Regional Finals. And there is no reason to suspect that they won't lead to great games on Saturday making us recall last year's games once again.
So, with Thursday's games done and Saturday's games set, the MRI takes a look at Friday's schedule and who should still be playing on Sunday afternoon.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 1:00 PM | Comments (0)
March 23, 2006
Tournament Musings: Sweet 16 Thursday
8 games, two days, getting us to what last year was the most exciting two days of the season.
Not to take anything away from the championship game last year, or the Final Four, but it was all downhill after the Regional Finals.
So who is going to make it to the Regional Finals this year and try to live up to last year's buzzer beaters, comebacks and shockers?
Let's see what the MRI has to say about Thursday's games.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)
March 15, 2006
Tournament Musings: Lines 5 through 8
Now that you have the inside track on the top lines in the bracket, what are you going to do on the tough match-ups, the games anywhere from the 5-12 to the 8-9. We all know there are some trends but what do the rules from the first part tell us about the other games?
Let's keep looking at that first round.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 10:00 PM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2006
Tournament Musings: The Rules and the Top 4 lines
People think that just because I have a rating system, I always pick the games strictly according to the numbers.
Some of that is true, but a lot of that is not. The best brackets I have always have a bit of knowledge soaked into them to complement the numbers.
So what is that knowledge? I'll tell you. Let's look at the 2006 bracket and make some picks.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 8:00 PM | Comments (0)
March 1, 2006
Couch Musings - March 1st, 2006
A few notes on the action last night and a look ahead at who can guarantee themselves a berth somewhere in the post-season with a win tonight.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)
February 28, 2006
Couch Musings - February 28th, 2006
Conference tournaments in three leagues kick off tonight, setting up the conference championship games with the first automatic bids into the NCAA tournament. Here are a couple of thoughts before these games.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 12:00 PM | Comments (2)
January 20, 2006
Couch Musings - January 20th, 2006
The couch has been getting a lot of work this week. Here are five thoughts for you from the last few days.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)
January 17, 2006
Couch Musings - January 17, 2006
It is halftime of the Illinois-Indiana game and already I am starting to worry about my article from Monday. Why is it that nothing can actually go the way that I think it will? A couple of thoughts on last night's contests.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 6:52 PM | Comments (0)
January 12, 2005
Couch Musings - January 12th
I am seriously thinking that I will need to buy two more television sets at some point and place them all in my living room with their own cable boxes. Trying to flip between the Arkansas-Alabama, Missouri-Oklahoma State, and the end of the Villanova-Providence games, was quite a feat. At least when Louisville played like the Globetrotters against Southern Mississippi doing their best Washington Nationals impression, it left me free to watch the Ohio State-Wisconsin game in its entirety.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)
January 6, 2005
Couch Musings - January 6th
Well, what did we learn last night from seeing 2 of the last 6 undefeated teams take their first loss?
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)
January 4, 2005
Couch Musings - January 4th
On a night when I chose to pick all bottom MRI teams to feature for the Games to Watch, I had no idea that the system would pick so well in those games and so terrible in all the rest.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)
December 24, 2004
Couch Musings - December 24th
While seeing only half of the Providence-Memphis game yesterday, a few things caught my eye through the box scores.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 8:56 AM | Comments (0)
December 23, 2004
Couch Musings - December 23rd
Last night was the kind of evening when you are glad you have the ESPN Full Court cable television package. Without it, I only could have seen the Illinois-Missouri game, and you probably would have had a recap on it here. But through the wonders of modern television, I was able to attempt to watch 3 games at one time. Flipping between the UW-Milwaukee-Kansas game, the Illinois-Missouri game, and the second half of the UNC-Charlotte-Indiana game, meant that I couldn't cover one game in full but rather will just have to give my impressions on each.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 1:07 PM | Comments (0)
December 22, 2004
Couch Musings - December 22nd
A full recap of the Iowa-Texas Tech game will be coming shortly. Being there was definitely an experience and it was nice to finally see a game in person even if a real college stadium would have been a better arena to be in.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 1:17 PM | Comments (0)
December 16, 2004
Couch Musings - December 16th
Predictions for tonight's Ohio State-Texas Tech game and Friday's games are posted. I am not expecting the predicted winners or the percentage chance to change that much before tomorrow. I only posted Friday's a day early because traveling tonight may preclude me getting the data perfect for the games. Feel free to yell at me if I get them wrong.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 3:59 PM | Comments (0)
December 15, 2004
Couch Musings
A full recap and analysis of last night's game between UIC and Duke will be coming but until then a few notes from last night.
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Posted by Benjamin Miraski at 3:53 PM | Comments (0)