I got to Philadelphia around 10:40 in the morning yesterday and met Tom and Sean. We picked up a parking pass and then went to the Wells Fargo Center. It was fine, but let's just say it's no Madison Square Garden. I've been in five different NBA arenas and we can safely say that Madison Square Garden is the best of them. Also, I've said this before and I'll say it again. I hate these standardized NCAA Tournament courts. When they were in Boston last year, they should have played on the Cetlics' court. The Celtics' parquet floor is famous. If you want to replace the Celtics' logo at midcourt with an NCAA logo, I can live with that, but these standardized courts are stupid (I might hate them even more than I hate the standardized Super Bowl logo). Anyway, we were all hungry when we got there so we looked for food. Our options were limited since it was a Friday in Lent and Tom is a hippie vegan. We all got black bean burgers. It was a pretty good option for a non-meat option in a basketball arena. We got our food and got to our seats just in time for the start of the Albany-Duke game.
 |
| Friday in Lent. Black bean burger and water. |
I was really rooting for Albany. I always enjoy a good upset and it would have been pretty cool to see Duke lose as a two seed in the first round (hold on, I'll save my rant for the next paragraph) for the second straight year. Also, three of my former camp employees are current Albany students. So it would have been awesome for them. Duke probably had the most fans there of all the teams we saw, but all the neutral fans were rooting for Albany. Albany put up a good fight. It never looked like they would win, but they stayed competitive until there were about two minutes left. It was a respectable performance for a 15 seed, but Duke was just too good. Seth Curry had 26 and Mason Plumlee had 23 and Duke won by 12.
 |
| Our view for the afternoon. |
Now it's time for my rant about "the second round" of the NCAA tournament. When the PA guy said something like "Welcome to the second round of the NCAA tournament," I said to Sean, "How did these teams do in the first round?" Of course, like 88% of the teams in the tournament, they didn't play in the first round. The NCAA doesn't want to call the first four games "play-in games," but they should just call it the Opening Round like they did when there was just one play-in game. It sounds ridiculous to call the Thursday and Friday games "the second round." All the TV guys clearly hate it, but they have to go by what the NCAA says. Jay Bilas said that they changed it to something that makes no sense. The NCAA needs to hire somebody as the VP of Common Sense to fix this one. There are plenty of other things the VP of Common Sense could fix, like not serving alcohol at these games. I get that you don't want to serve alcohol on campus to college kids, but this wasn't on campus. There would be nothing wrong with serving beer. Now I don't really like drinking too much at sporting events. It's always overpriced and I like to remember what happened at the game. But it would have been nice to have a beer at some point yesterday.
Back to the games. Game 2 was a showdown of Old Big East against New Big East, Cincinnati against Creighton. I was rooting for the new Big East as I always root against the Big East non-Catholic schools (note: this rule will not apply to Butler) and for the Big East Catholic schools. Creighton controlled the game. They led by five at halftime. They never trailed in the second half, but Cincinnati did make it interesting in the end. They had a three that would have tied it in the last ten seconds, but it rimmed out. Creighton made one last free throw and won by four. Doug McDermott led the way for Creighton with 27 points and 11 rebounds.
 |
| New Big East wins. |
We had to leave the arena after the second game. Tom went home and Sean and I had to kill some time. There was a place nearby that had several bars. We tried to go over there and get a drink since we couldn't get one in the arena, but it was so crowded between games that we decided that it wasn't happening. By the time we walked back to the arena, they were letting people in again.
Game 3 was another 2-15 matchup, Florida Gulf Coast and Georgetown. Of course, Sean is a Georgetown alum. Although I like seeing an upset, Sean and my loyalty to the Big East Catholic schools were enough for me to root for Georgetown. All the neutral fans were rooting for Florida Gulf Coast. Florida Gulf Coast came to play. And the longer Florida Gulf Coast stayed competitive, the more the crowd supported them. It got to a point where it was like Georgetown was playing a road game. Florida Gulf Coast led by two at halftime and then put up 54 points in the second half to pull off the upset by a score of 78-68. Sherwood Brown had 24 points and 9 rebounds, Bernard Thompson had 23 points and 7 rebounds, and Brett Comer had 12 points, 10 assists, and 6 rebounds. Otto Porter did not have a good game for Georgetown. Florida Gulf Coast had several big dunks during the game. But this game illustrated the silliness of college basketball's regular season. Florida Gulf Coast has now played four games that really mattered this season and they won them all. During the regular season, they just needed to win enough conference games to be in the top 8 of 10 teams in the Atlantic Sun Conference (which they did easily, they finished second in the conference). Then they needed to win their conference tournament. They did that and now they've won their first game of the NCAA Tournament. Georgetown, on the other hand, just needed to win enough games to get an at large in the NCAA Tournament. They did that easily, getting a 2 seed. The game against Florida Gulf Coast was the first one that they played all year that really mattered and they lost. Sean was definitely upset with Georgetown's performance, but he handled it pretty well.
 |
| Post-game handshake. |
The last game was San Diego State-Oklahoma. Oklahoma graduates 47% of their football players. I assume they don't care about academics for their basketball players either, so I was rooting for San Diego State. The arena started to clear out. Not surprisingly, there weren't a lot of San Diego State or Oklahoma fans in Philadelphia. Sean and I moved to much better seats at halftime. Oklahoma led by two at halftime. It was competitive for most of the second half, but San Diego state pulled away at the end behind Jamaal Franklin and his long sleeve t-shirt (21 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists) to win by 15. Perhaps the best part of this game was that I missed Notre Dame's terrible performance against Iowa State.
 |
| Our view for the second half. |
My dad went to the first round of the NCAA Tournament in Nassau Coliseum in 1994. I don't think it's been in the Coliseum since then and it definitely hasn't been in Madison Square Garden (although it's coming next year for the Sweet 16 and Elite 8). Maybe in the future it will be in the Barclays Center. So really, I never had the opportunity to go to the tournament until this year. I wouldn't want to go every year because part of the fun is just sitting at home and being able to watch all the games on TV. But I'm glad I can say I went once and I would definitely consider going again if I get another chance. Going to eight basketball games in three different days over the last two weeks was a lot of fun. I'm really happy that winter is over and it's almost time to move on to baseball, my favorite sport.
I went when the games were in D.C. in 2008 and was surprised at how underwhelming it was. Too many neutral fans (at most you have 40% of the arena with a rooting interest at any one time). They play in NBA-ish arenas too often now, which kills the college atmosphere. The players are tight, the refs are a crap shoot. Just altogether underwhelming. I saw Belmont take Duke down to the wire, which was entertaining, but for the most part it was disappointing.
ReplyDeleteDuring the 2011 year, I had the chance to go in D.C. again, and even had Thursday-Friday off work, and decided not to go, and it was one of the most fun weekends of my life (also St. Patrick's Day). Unless your school is playing in your city, I can't say that I recommend going to the second- and third-round games (sorry, Jim). It's not worth the price to begin with, let alone the opportunity cost of missing watching all the games (especially now that every game is on basic cable).
We had a pretty good crowd. The fans got behind Albany and they really got behind Florida Gulf Coast. And I liked the bands. But I hear what you're saying. If I lived in North Carolina (which seems to have the first weekend of the tournament every year except for this year), I wouldn't want to go unless Notre Dame was playing. I just thought it was worth doing once.
ReplyDelete