Stephen Curry will murdalize your bracket.

The sophmore from Davidson went off for 30 points, 25 of them in the second half to come back from 17 points down to upset Georgetown. Georgetown shot 63.4 percent from the field and still lost! The Hoyas had this game if they hadn't turned it over 20 times.

This Curry kid's draft stock just went through the roof... he's played two games in this tournament and has 70 points. He gave Adam Morrison another reason to cry when he went off for 30 points in the second half against Gonzaga.

Pappa Curry, also known as former NBA sharp shooter Dell Curry, must be proud of the way his son has performed in the tourney. Dell was the 1993-1994 sixth man of the year, ranks 17th all-time in 3-pointers made and is the all-time leading scored for the Charlotte Hornets, but his son seems to have a real shot at surpassing those accomplishments if his college career is any indication. He was second in scoring among freshmen right behind a guy by the name of Kevin Durrant last season and this season he dropped 24 on UNC, 20 on Duke, 29 against NC State and 15 against UCLA.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Cinderella is named Davidson this year. Forget Nova or Western Kentucky... Davidson has a real shot to beat Wisconsin. Georgetown only allowed 57.6 points per game, a mere 3 points more than the Badger's best in the nation 54.3 ppg. Obviously Davidson can handle defensive teams.

Why is it that I never know this shit prior to writing up my brackets?

The Downfall of Duke

Last year Duke fell to VCU. I still remember Eric Maynor willing his tam to a win. This year Duke fell to a more formidable team in West Virginia. Joe Alexander is the man on that team, but the person who was really responsible for this victory was back-up point guard Joe Mazzula. Mazzula had 13 points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists. Alexander added 22 points and 11 rebounds in the victory. Its also important to acknowledge Alex Ruoff's fade away 3 as the shot clock expired for sparking West Virginia's comeback.

Coach K can blame the cold for having to constantly blow his nose in the post game interview, but he'll have to blame the Mountaineers for the tears. For the Blue Devil's next trick they'll become the number one seed for the next tourney and subsequently also become the first one seed to fall in the round of 64. Or miss the tourney entirely. Either way I'll be satisfied.

Now I must watch the Michael Beasly show and hope that he and Bill Walker can beat Wisconsin, a team that rivals the San Antonio Spurs in boring but solid play.

My Penny Bracket

I've got a good 6 or so brackets floating around the internets and the outerntets, but I won't be talking about any of them except for "Abe Says" because I don't believe I'm in any position to be giving out advise on this subject, though I may gloat if I actually win one as that would be a first.

There are two rules I feel confident about giving and they are 1) Try to pick no more than 8 upsets (2 per region) in the first round* and 2) Don't trust one seeds as they have too much pressure to win the whole thing... I try not to put more than 2 in the final four.

Now onto Abe.

I decided to fill out an entire bracket decided by coin flips. Abe was the higher seed, his memorial the lower seed. I joined a large Yahoo group by the name of TUBBY SMITH in hopes of beating at least one of the other 500 people. I don't have a snowball's chance in hell of beating anybody.

Both Portland State and Texas Arlington immediately took out Memphis and Kansas. Amazingly in the east region North Carolina and Tennessee play in the elite 8 with Tennessee winning that game, but in the first round I have 4 upsets: South Alabama, Boise State, St. Joes and shifty fellows from George Mason who basically ripped everyone's bracket to pieces last year.

In the Midwest Siena and Nova join Portland state as the upsets. Wisconsin falls to Portland State in the elite 8 game.(Stupid coin)

In the South Temple, Cornell and Kentucky join Texas Arlington as the upsets. Pitt falls to Miami in the elite 8. Somewhere outside of Chicago Aaron Gray says, "I'd gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."

In the west Baylor, Georgia and Belmont are the upsets and BYU takes UCLA out in the second round. West Virginia takes out BYU to make the final 4. I am left with one of the shittiest final fours ever. Tennessee is the only team with a legit shot to make it for real and West Virginia has a very, very outside shot but Portland State and Miami have no business being there. Luckily, they fall to their counterparts and I'm left with a game I would actually like to watch a game won by West Virginia. Somewhere Kevin Pittsnoggle goes, "Dude, I just got a map of Morgantown tattooed on my ass!"

Some anal retentive bastard out there is probably going, "wait both Miami and West Virginia were 7 seeds, how did he flip the coin?" I gave West Virginia heads because I like the Big East better than the ACC.

*I don't consider a 9 over an 8 an upset

Blake Hoffarber's (2nd) miracle shot

Blake Hoffarber must spend entirely too much time in the gym thinking up ridiculous shots to attempt in order to have presence of mind, timing and aim to to make this sort of shot. The shot was amazing and almost an exact duplicate of Christian Laettner's shot against Kentucky in 1992.

That shot allowed Tubby Smith's record of seasons with at least 20 wins to continue for a 15th year. It also kept the gophers dreams of an NCAA birth alive for another day... Unfortunately The Gophers lost today to Illinois and have about a snowball's chance in hell of making it.

This shot along with his Minnesota state tourney shot may have put Hoffarber on the radar for the NBA. The kid is pretty good for a freshman who was not Tubby's recruit and after 3 more years of playing with the guys Tubby convinced to play in Minnesota he just might end up being drafted in the second round or maybe even at the end of the first.

Amazing. Indiana had so many chances to win this game.

San Antonio Will Win The Finals

Don’t worry Cavs fans, the only reason I said that was because I’ve noticed that any definitive statement I am forced to eat my words (here and here). The Cavs are the team I want to win, along with everyone not living in Texas, and I honestly think they have a good shot. The Cavs are absolutely nothing special without LeBron and people have been ragging on him since he entered the league about everything from free throw percentage to his ability to put up the last second shot.

That last second shot argument has always bothered me. People argue that he has been in the league for 4 years and still has troubles taking that shot. I say its because he dominated in high school and there was never any real need for that type of shot… the kid spent his high school years dominating everyone who attempted to play ball against him. When March madness rolls around who usually takes the last shot for a team? It’s the upperclassmen who have felt this pressure before. LaBron’s entry into the NBA was a baptism by fire, and he did way better than any high-schooled before him. KG may always pass up on the final shot but LeBron won’t have a problem after his best playoff performance yet.

It seems to me that LeBron figured out that he has to take control of the game and that he doesn’t have Scottie Pippen, B.J. Armstrong, Horace Grant, Kerr and Paxson. LeBron has the human equivalent of peanut brittle in Larry Hughes, a rookie who calls himself Boobie (come on ladies- lets make some interesting shirts) and Sideshow Bob Anderson Varejao. Lebron’s supporting cast is more like the supporting cast of a screwball comedy and I think he is beginning to realize this. This is why he knocked down the final two free throws in game 4 while laughing in the face of his critics. This is why he returned in game 5 with two dunks in the last 30 seconds to tie it up and followed those up with the rest of the team’s points in the two subsequent overtimes.

I truly believe that whatever sparked LeBron to a series win over Detroit saved the NBA finals. I know that I personally didn’t want to watch a Spurs/Pistons series. That sounds like the time I walked into the voting booth and got to choose between Bush and Kerry… both seemed like bad options. I only hope that LeBron can summon the force once more and defeat the darkside of the NBA. Look, I found some evidence… Its Pop and Palp.

I work, the world watches great basketball

Yesterday two great basketball games and one that set up a championship rematch occurred all while I was stuck at work. I refuse to comment on the Florida-Oregon game because Joakim Noah is a punk and they’ve already gotten more than their fair share of coverage. I hope Arron Afflalo gets his revenge and destroys the Gators next week. UCLA is less cocky, plays better defense and I’d rather not witness a pelvic thrust while the winners hoist their trophy.

The game that I missed that angers me the most was UNC-Georgetown. The game was an instant classic and I don’t have ESPN classic. I SOL. The game sounded amazing and ended with UNC chocking in overtime. I have Georgetown winning it all, so I’m glad to see that they came out on top. Now we get to see grandpa Oden go up against another NBA caliber center in Roy Hibbert and a chance to see if he can handle someone closer to him in ability. I had been under the assumption that Mike Connelly Jr. had been more important to the Buckeyes in the tourney until I saw this. I’m sticking by Georgetown because I believe they came out of the tougher conference and region and have more upperclassmen in the starting line-up.

The final game I missed yesterday was the Timber wolves over the Blazers. Garnett at the buzzer, are you kidding me? I don’t think people realize how good his season has been, this is his third best season… in his best season he won the MVP and in his second best he should have won it. Not a single person even mentions his name for the MVP and I understand that some of it depends on making the post season but imagine this team without the big guy. We’re talking Celtics bad. The other thing I liked about this win was that I believe the Blazers will be a very good team in the not too distant future.

We may not have had a Bracey sighting, but Randy Foye’s Ben Gordonesque performance in the fourth makes me feel better about a team that probably won’t make the playoffs. (And honestly I’m not sure I want them to make the playoffs if they are going to lose 3 straight to the Mavs and owe the clippers a draft pick for Jaric) Maybe it would be better to start James in hopes of drumming up some trade talk. I could handle packaging Davis and James for a big guy and something, then and handing over the reigns to the younger guys next year.

I’m just going to bring a TV to work from now on.

Duck Fuke!

Even if they don’t win another game VCU is already my George Mason. That game was the shit! People bled who weren’t named Hansboro. Paulus got beat up in an all around physical game. Duke’s bitching didn’t help- I loved watching the refs tell Duke players to get off of the ground when they were trying to get calls. That buzzer beater was amazing, it’ll probably make the top ten all time tourney simply because it took those snobby bastards out in the first round. Eric Maynor was so great that I didn’t mind having the fact that he grew up in Duke country pounded into my head by the announcers. VCU even lost their bid man! That defense was stellar. I told you that the 6 seed was a stretch. I told you. Finally we have an upset, and its one that nobody is really upset about. The only thing that would have been better is if Paulus cried a la Adam Morrison. Now Coach K has more time to focus on his career as an insurance spokesmen or deodorant or whatever crappy product deems him worthy. I hope the team doesn’t go home and order strippers to get over the loss, we all know how that is going to end…

Why do you hate me so, selection committee?

Topic #1: Sure, the selection comittee has got a hard job, blah, blah, blah. Yes, CBS doesn’t make it any easier by giving them a deadline to hand the brackets in. No Excuse! Every year the NCAA tournament selection committee shits on my parade. This year they put 3 of my bracket busters in the same damn region. I was counting on Davidson, Winthrop and Old Dominion to sneak under the radar and help me dominate my pools. No dice, if Davidson and Old Dominion do manage to win their first games they will play each other. I had not factored this into the equation. Thank god VCU gets a shot at Duke. Unless the Blue Devils start breaking noses again, they have no chance. That 6 seed was one hell of a gift.

Topic #2: The CBS Corporation should probably think about suspending the award winning programming like the Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill and Search for the next Pussycat Doll over at the CW so that they can offer viewers some options during the first few rounds. Granted, they can make some good money off of some sort of pay-per-view package, but I bet they could make just as much by cramming advertising down our throats on two channels. If ABC had the rights to the tourney I guarantee we would get games on the ESPN networks. I bet NBC would put games on MSNBC and CNBC like they did for the Olympics. The world is a better place when I can get an overdose from college basketball. Do something for me CBS.

Topic #3: mid-majors. What is the deal with having less at-large bids for the smaller conferences a year after one proved just how well these smaller teams can play in the tourney? George Mason goes out and rips shit up and now we have a smaller chance of seeing a repeat. Its like the big conferences got together with the committee in order to make sure that nobody finds out that playing well in a small conference is no different than playing mediocre in a big. Teams like Jackson State and North Texas have no shot of winning a game, but its not so much because they are in a smaller conference, but because they have to play the behemoths in the first round. Mid Major At-large bids should have gone up from 8 instead of down to 6... ya bastards. The likes of the SEC’s Arkansas and the Big 10’s Illinois screwed Drexel out of a spot in the tournament.

My only major hope for this tournament is that Florida doesn’t repeat… I don’t think I can stand to watch Joakim Noah celebrate anymore. Somebody needs to humble that kid. Maybe if I work on my mind control all week I can get him to hit a cheerleader instead of just swipe at one. Other than that I just hope for some close games and enough points to take some money in one of my brackets. Cheers and happy March Madness.

Free Bracey Wright!