Home again?

I thought it was pretty bad when Duke (to say nothing of NC State) was able to play in Raleigh in the men's tournament, as that's damn near a home game.  But I didn't realize, until this evening (we tuned in for the end of the Duke women's game) that the women actually got to play at Cameron.  Is that typical?  Because, if so, that's really strongly favoring the "power" schools.

Disappointing...

After two rounds of the NCAA tournament (sorry, four games does NOT make a round), I'm disappointed about where I am.  My best year, I got nine games wrong in the entire tournament (yes, that's considerably better than I've done since).

This year, even after picking North Dakota and San Diego State to win in the first round (and having OSU winning one game, rather than zero), my best hope is to get 22 games wrong.  Duke losing to Mercer certainly hurt a lot, in that respect, as did Syracuse losing so early.

I guess the ACC let me down.

Lightning note

Recently mentioned progress on Bejeweled Blitz.  Well, I said that I was getting close to the end of tournament progress, just based on how close I was getting to my personal high score.

It turns out that I was even closer than I thought, because the Phoenix at 1M points is the last one.  When you defeat it, it shows up at the top of the list again the next week, again at 1M points (all others increase their scores a bit after being defeated).  So I think that's the end of the road.

I guess my next goal in the game will be to try to reach 1M coins available (I've gotten a little over 800k before, and am currently at 640k).

March Wrap-up

I posted previously on the start to the NCAA tournament this year.  So how did it end up?

In a word: terrible.  I got 39 of 67 games right, and didn't get a single one of the final four.  In three of the regions, I did ok (missing three, four, and five games in the region).  But the last was a disaster.  I don't have it handy, but I think I missed nine.  And, obviously, I missed the last game in all four.  Oof.

European Axis, game

Just watched the Italy-Germany game on the DVR. The result was fairly disappointing, but it was quite a good game. Germany dominated play for most of the game, but two bad defensive breakdowns on counterattacks gave Balotelli, and Italy, all the openings it needed. Last game, Balotelli got lots of chances, but couldn't convert. This time he only had a few chances, but he buried two of them. The first involved a relatively innocuous cross that the defender, mysteriously, failed to even make a play on. That left Super Mario uncontested in the air from about six or eight yards out; he didn't hit it very hard, but the goalie still didn't have a chance. The second was on a long through-ball where Mario got ten yards behind the defenders while the ball was in the air. They tried to catch up, but he got the shot off before they could even try to contest it, and it hit the back of the net right at the side netting (a very pretty shot). Again, no chance for the keeper. I'd like to say that, from there, it was all Germany attacking, but that stopped being the case with ten or fifteen minutes left. At that point, the Germans were pushing forward so hard that they left huge, gaping holes in the back. It was rather surprising that it didn't end up with a much larger margin, thanks to that. Germany did manage to get one back in stoppage time, when a hand ball in the box was called, and Oezil converted the penalty kick. But that was all they had; they really didn't get many good chances. They just didn't show any real ability to get possession in the box against Italy. Oezil had one nice drive to the side of the net, but he couldn't get it to a teammate facing the net. Other than that, it was pretty much all long shots, with one or two closer ones that came off of deflected passes (and were not sitting at the right spot for kicking). It was a disappointing performance for Germany. I thought they looked good in the midfield, but just couldn't penetrate at all. Oh, and their corner kicks were awful. I don't think a single one of them gave a decent scoring change. Thinking about it, they did have one nice chance on a set piece from twenty-two yards out, but Buffon made a very good save on Reus' shot. The one good thing about the game was that it was good to see a game not end up one-nil (or won on penalty kicks after a scoreless draw). It was actually a pretty exciting game, especially the first ten or fifteen minutes of the second half when Germany was driving the play and keeping Italy back on their heels. But it still leaves us with Spain and Italy. I'm not sure what to cheer for; maybe I'll just cheer for Balotelli and a good game. But I suspect it'll be pretty boring, with Spain passing all around Italy and the Romans mounting the odd counterattack. We'll see.

Angletalia

I haven't been watching much of Euro 2012; I keep forgetting to set the DVR. In fact, the only day of pool play I saw was the first day of the Germany/Portugal/Netherlands/Denmark group of death. I also missed most of the quarterfinals; the one exception being the final one, which was between England and Italy. I'm fairly indifferent to the Brits; I like watching Rooney play, and they normally manage a few other good players. I'm not too fond of the Italian diving team; too physical with zero ability to take it in return, it seems like. Although I do like Balotelli; maturity issues aside, he's a fantastic and creative player. All of that left me hoping for a British upset, but with little expectation of that coming to fruition. But despite hearing that the Brits hadn't been playing well on offense or defense, I still expected a closely fought match. And I guess it was that, if you limit your comparison to the scoreboard. But the Italians dominated the game from the get-go. The British just had no midfield quality at all, and couldn't maintain possession at all. In fact, I don't think they got a single chance on goal from a gradual build-up; it was all counterattacks when the Italians got too many men downfield, and missed a close chance. In fact, without some bad luck (by the peninsulars) and good goaltending (by the islanders), this game would have ended up four-nil or five-nil. Well, the Brits might have managed a goal; they did get a couple of very good chances. But with that luck and goaltending, it kept seeming like they might still score and upset. And when they went to overtime, that still seemed to be the case. Unfortunately, my DVR quit before the game actually ended (two and a half hours should be long enough, but that forty minutes of pre-game hosed me), so I didn't see Nocerino's goal called back offsides. And, of course, I missed the penalty shots. I must admit, I thought the Brits would have an even shot at winning if they got to PKs, but it was not to be. The shots, themselves, were pretty creative. Balotelli did his slow-shot that I've mentioned before. One of the other Italians cheekily chipped the goaltender. And I seem to recall there was one other oddball, but I can't rememeber it at the moment. Anyway, that all left me a little disappointed, but it was decent game. The Brits deserved to lose, as they were badly outplayed, but did manage to keep it interesting. As far as individual performances, Balotelli was a one-man wrecking crew; I think he had more chances than everyone else on the field. Not anyone else; everyone else. I'm still astounded that he didn't manage to convert any of them. Rooney did not have a good game; he seemed a little off. Of course, some of that might have been that he just wasn't getting any touches. As I said, no midfield to get the ball to him. And because they were so few and far between, he was probably trying to do too much. Nocerino also had a nice night, despite being a late sub. He had the disallowed goal in overtime, as well as a great chance late in regulation that was stopped by an outstretched foot in an excellent (and somewhat lucky) play by one of the British defenders. Oh, and I alluded to Hart having a very nice night in goal. He deserved a lot of credit for the game making it to PKs. But the Italians will be playing Germany tomorrow night in the second semifinal.

Not Every Dog Has His Day

The Dogs were not served last night in the national semifinals. VCU and Kentucky both went down, although both games were quite good.

The Butler/VCU game actually left me with an ambivalent feeling. It was good to guarantee that the two underdogs would play each other, in that it guaranteed one of them would play for the title. But it was bad in that it didn't give them a chance to both knock out another top seed, and be able to play one another for the title.

In any event, I was happy to see Kentucky go down. I was disappointed about VCU, however. I was hoping that they could continue their run. Like George Mason, five years ago, I had a feeling they were going out, but I was definitely hoping the feeling was wrong.

In any event, major kudos to the Rams for showing so many other teams their horns. I hope that they'll do a bit better next year than GMU did the year after their run (winning their conference but wiping out in the first round of the tournament, as I recall).

In any event, Butler/UConn tomorrow night promises to be a good game, as well. Unfortunately, if I were a betting man, I would put my money on UConn. But we'll hope for one more for the dogs.

The Madness Continues

I suppose the two basketball games today were decided the only way they could be, with both underdogs continuing on (well, assuming you can really call Kentucky an underdog, regardless of relative rankings/seedings).

Congratulations to VCU, and especially to their coach, Shaka Smart, who definitely outmaneuvered Kansas. Actually, that was really surprising; Kansas started out playing really well, with some beautiful passing. That led me to believe that VCU was going to be sunk, and badly, but they came back pretty quickly. And they showed good defense with a lot of threes in the first half to take a hefty lead at the half. Kansas managed to cut it down to, I think, a two-point deficit at one point, but that was the closest they got.

And congratulations to Kentucky as well. Their win assured that the final four won't include any #1 or #2 seeds. It's only the third time no top seeds have made it, but I'd be shocked if either of the two previous times didn't include any two seeds as well.

Oh, and a small correction to my previous mention of the tournament. I was sure I remembered GMU being a 12 seed, but it was pointed out today that they were also an eleven seed.

Alas, RPI, It Was Not To Be

I got my undergraduate degree at RPI (Div III for all sports except hockey, hence my general lack of caring about who wins in the NCAA basketball tournament). Because of hockey being the only Div I sport, that's almost entirely the only one people care about.

The one exception to that is football, a few years ago. For a couple of years, RPI made noise in the Div III football rankings, even getting to the national championship game one year.

When I went to RPI, we had Joe Juneau and several other very good players for my freshman year. That was a really wild year; defense entirely optional. I remember one of the games against Harvard that year was 9-8, and I don't remember that being especially atypical. But I don't remember them being especially successful that year (though I didn't follow the team particularly closely that year, despite already being a hockey fan from following the Caps for years; I blame that on ROTC).

And I think I remember the year after that being really miserable, leading to a coaching change.

The remaining several years were very good for the school, with regular rankings in the national Top Ten. But we never really made it over the hump, wiping out early in the ECAC tournament each year, and never getting an at-large bid for the NCAA tournament.

Incidentally, I believe the only player off of those teams to make the NHL was Neil Little, our awesome goalie. Well, awesome by NCAA standards. Obviously, he was only marginally replacement level in the NHL. Actually, I'm shocked he only played those two games, because that means it's a total fluke that I even heard about him playing.

Since then, the team has been downright miserable. I don't believe they've had a winning season from my graduation until this season.

All of which is a very roundabout way of leading up to this year. They didn't start all that well, but got on quite a roll in the middle. They even knocked off then-#1 Yale. I believe they peaked at #6. But the last couple of weeks were bad and the ECAC tournament was worse. And yet, they somehow got an at-large bid to the main tournament. I was hoping they would manage to turn things around a bit.

I got home from an ultimate frisbee game, and turned on the video for the game. Two-nil already, in favor of North Dakota. Ugh. I think I watched about ten minutes, which was enough to see two more goals scored. At that point, I'd had enough. Four-nil close to the end of the second period, if you aren't a better team who's been very unlucky, is damned near hopeless. What did I end up missing? Two more goals for the Fighting Sioux. Double-ugh.

So congrats on a fine season, RPI. But I'm very disappointed about the finish. I hope things can improve next year.

Quite a Tournament

The NCAA, despite my general contempt for them, has quite a basketball tournament going on at the moment. There have been quite a number of upsets, and there haven't been all that many blow-outs. Every game of which I've watched a chunk (except the Arizona-Duke and George Mason-Ohio State games, of which I only saw a few minutes out of the first half) has been a real nailbiter, with some really wild finishes.

In fact, Butler has now had three wild finishes (the first two of which they really didn't deserve to win) in their four games. Three of the top seeds are gone, with the fourth playing their fourth game tomorrow.

One region had the 10, 11, 12, and 13 seeds all advance out of the first round, and winning a combined eight games (with VCU playing for a chance at the final four tomorrow). The one downside of that is that it has led to probably the easiest tournament ever for a #1, with Kansas playing #16, #9, #12, and #11. In fact, I'm now looking at the bracket to check on those; I had missed Notre Dame and Purdue getting knocked off by those guys.

Anyway, as one who mostly just roots for the underdog, that's pretty darned cool.

Hmm... the Elite Eight consists of a 1, 2-2s, a 3, 4, 5, 8, and 11 seeds. That's quite a mix. Disappointed that we won't get another 12-seed in the final four, a la George Mason's run five years ago, but we could still get pretty close.

What else? Well, only one region went without an upset in the first round, although that one had one upset in the second round, and both games were upsets in the third round. Three of the four eleven seeds advanced past the first, and two of them went past the second, as well.

The one thing I can't figure out is why two of the play-in games were where they were. That is, how do you end up with a play-in game for an eleventh or twelfth seed? That just doesn't make any sense. They didn't mind doing it, though, obviously.

Thinking about it, I wonder how pissed the NIT organizers were about that (the three additional teams in the NCAA tournament, that is). The NIT used to be the tournament that people followed, back when you had to win your conference to make it into the NCAA tournament. Now? Nobody really even cares about the NIT. I can't imagine that it makes a significant amount of money.