South Paw for the win

The Chicago Tribune ran a contest coinciding with the NCAA Tournament to see who had the best mascot. After a flury of votes at the last minute, South Alabama's own South Paw won with 51% of the vote over Baylor's Bruiser.

Sweet 16 2008

The field of 64 have been whittled down to 16. So, who was upset? #2 Duke and #2 Georgetown were upset in the second round. Memphis, Tennessee, Texas, Stanford and UCLA all had close games.

Some of the interesting match-ups in the sweet 16. Michigan State and Memphis because Memphis still has some questions to answer about how they will respond against a good team where free throws could be the deciding factor. UCLA and Western Kentucky interests me because WKU is a Sun Belt team taking on a #1 seed. Wisconsin and Davidson, can Davidson's dream stay alive or will Wisconsin be the one to dash their hopes.

NCAA Round 1 Complete

The field is set for round 2 of the NCAA tournament with some surprising faces completing upset bids. #10 Davidson upset #7 Gonzaga to start off the day of upsets. While Matt, Shanon, Big Joe Duke and I were waiting to be seated at Bob Baumhower's Wings, we watched #12 Western Kentucky force overtime with #5 Drake.

While seated we then got to watch Western Kentucky fall behind and then catch back up. After trading some free throws, WKU was down by one point with 5.7 seconds left. The coach drew up a good play, Ty Rogers would inbound the ball to a player. Ty would trail him down the court drawing the focus to him then passed it to Ty a few feet behind him. Ty got the shot off and nailed the 3 pointer to upset Drake in overtime 101-99.

We were hoping that South would pull an upset but the outside shooting for Butler was too much. I hope the NCAA Committee do not think that it was a bad idea to invite USA because Butler is pretty good.

#13 San Diego upset #4 UConn in overtime so Sunday will see a matchup of #12 and #13 seeds.

The battle between the #8 and #9 seeds is typically a toss up, but I had a feeling Pelphrey would lead Arkansas over Indiana due to all of the problems Indiana has had coming down the stretch.

Then rounding out the day of upsets was #12 Villanova beating #5 Clemson. Which also sets up another match between seeds 12 and 13 in Villanova and Siena.

Well, this ends the great season that the Jaguars had. Unfortunately we have to wait several months before we get to see how the Jags look next season, but on the bright side only two players were seniors. However those two seniors really meant alot to this team.

Go Western Kentucky. At least make it to the sweet 16.

Half way through round one

Well, the first 16 games of round one was completed today with the winners advancing to play this weekend. No big upsets yet. #2 seed Duke avoided an huge upset by squeaking out a close game with 15 seed Belmont.

South Alabama takes on Butler tomorrow in Birmingham. Since I'm a cheap college student I didn't spring for tickets to the game so instead a small group of us are going to congregate at Bob Baumhauer's Wings Restaurant to eat, drink, and cheer on the Jags. Come join us!

Go Jags!

Tracking South

The NCAA Selections were released at 5pm and USA (26-6) was selected as a #10 seed in the East bracket. Their first round opponent will be another mid-major in #7 seed Butler (29-3). Butler is the Horizon League regular season and tournament championships and made it to the sweet 16 last season as a #5 seed. Some of Butlers big wins were against Michigan, Virginia Tech, Texas Tech, and Ohio State but not overly impressive. The first two rounds will take place in Birmingham at the BJCC. Matt and I are looking into tickets for the game on Friday since we would have a place to stay (thanks mom!).

While Pelphrey and his Razorbacks lost the SEC Championship game, they did get a bid to the big dance as a #9 seed in the East bracket (just ahead of USA mind you).

Go Jags!!!

Thanks to USA for their logos page and Matt for his great photoshop work since apparently I suck at it.

John Pelphrey is making his name known in the SEC

It was sad last year when John Pelphrey announced he was leaving South Alabama for Arkansas, but it was something we all knew was going to happen sooner or later. He was destined to be a big name coach, but not in at a mid-major school.

But few thought that in his first season in the SEC with Arkansas, that he would be challenging for the SEC title. The unique thing is that with the basketball tournaments, if you can get hot at the right time, all you need to do is win four games in a row. Today Georgia and Arkansas will be playing for the SEC Title and an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament. Georgia was next to last in the SEC (16-16, 4-12 SEC) while Arkansas is 5th out of 12 teams (22-11, 9-7 SEC).

As of the last bracketology update on ESPN, they still have the Jags in the tournament seeded #10 in the Midwestern bracket playing #7 Oklahoma in Birmingham. With the winner of #2 Tennessee and #15 Austin Peay playing the winner. Remember, this is not the official seedings. They will be announced today at 5pm on ESPN. I'll be wearing my USA shirt and cap. Go Jags!

Could upsets bump the Jags from the dance?

I like to see the underdogs get some revenge from time to time (as long as its not against Alabama or South). But this year, I'm not pulling for the underdogs as much. Since USA lost in the semifinals and being a mid-major school, it doesn't help to get into the big dance.

So, a little recap of last night. Alabama pulled out a big win over Florida, which isn't a bad thing since Florida was a bubble team. Syracuse lost the other night, again which is good since they were a bubble team as well. #13 Louisville was upset by Pitt, while Pitt does have a decent overall record, their record in the Big East is not that good. West Virginia beat #15 Connecticut. Georgia downs Ole Miss in overtime. While some of these aren't very big upsets, they have fairly equal season records but the losing team had better in-conference records.

So, now some bracketology. According to Joe Lunardi from ESPN, USA would be a #11 seed in the East bracket with a possible opponent of #6 seed Washington St.

Sun Belt Championship

Again, Matt and I attended the Sun Belt Conference Championship last night at the Mitchell Center between Middle Tennessee State and Western Kentucky. MTSU came out strong in the first half holding the lead until the end of the first half when the hilltoppers hit a three at the buzzer to take the lead going into the locker room.

But the second half was all Western Kentucky. MTSU would close the lead then the hilltoppers would find a way to break their momentum and won the game by 10 points.

The win by Western Kentucky will probably help South Alabama's chances of getting into the NCAA Tournament. With two wins over the hilltoppers and the hilltoppers being the Sun Belt Champs, it will help USA's RPI ratings. While the NCAA Selection board does not go by RPI (supposedly) it can only help our cause.

As for bracket projections, one site was projecting the Jags as a 9 seed in the Little Rock bracket with a possible opponent of Oklahoma. While another site is projecting them as a 12 seed and a possible opponent of Gonzaga. While this is all speculation, it does give hope that the Jags could get an at-large bid.

Either way, congratulations to Western Kentucky Men's and Women's basketball teams for their achievements this season and winning the Sun Belt Championships. Until next year, good luck in the NCAA's.

Jags fall to Middle Tennesse State

Despite Demetric Bennett's 32 points, the Jags fall to the Blue Raiders ending our 17 game home winning streak. Bennett was the only player in double digits for USA, while MTSU had four.

In most games the fans never agree with the calls made by the officials, but there were many times that the same thing happened with us resulting in a foul, that did not with MTSU. I guess this is what happens to the host team when the arena is filled with your fans during a 'neutral' event.

According to the ESPN analyst on SportsCenter, he believes that South Alabama deserves and will receive an NCAA At-Large bid come Sunday, during the selection show. It would have been better for USA to just win the Conference but if we still get in I'm happy. With this game and the upset of #22 Gonzaga, many people think that between these well deserving mid-majors possibly getting bids and the Conference Champions of these Conferences getting automatic bids. It will knock some of the 'bubble' teams out. One of them could be Florida.

If the Jaguars fail to get an At-Large bid, they have an automatic bid to the NIT Tournament for being the #1 seed of the Sun Belt Conference.

So, give it up to Ronnie Arrow and Jags. Especially for the two Seniors Daon Merritt and Demetric Bennett. Bennett averages 20.1 points, 41% 3pt, 83% FT, 5.9 Rebounds and 34.8 minutes per game. Plus Merritt averages 11.5 points, 32% 3pt, 72% FT, 2.8 rebounds, and 32.5 minutes per game. Thats quite a bit of statistics that will have to be replaced.

This will not be the last time I write about this team since they still have the NIT left if not the NCAA.

Go Jags!

Jags advance to semifinals of the Sun Belt Tournament

Matt and I attended all four games held at the Mitchell Center yesterday. The first game was South Alabama and the University of New Orleans. UNO was pesky and stayed in the mix the entire game. Only with 10 seconds left did the game really look like USA was going to pull out the win.

The Jags avoided a repeat of last years embarrassing upset in the quarterfinals. UNO put the Jags on the charity stripe 49 times throughout the game. With the Jags hitting 37 of them. Brandon Davis scored 27 leading the Jags scoring.

Bo McCalebb scored 25 for the UNO Privateers, adding to his nations leading active careering scoring numbers. This puts him ahead of names like Wayman Tisdale and David Robinson to make it to 21st in the history of the NCAA.

This also pushes the Jags record in the Mitchell Center to 17-0 for the season.

In other games that I saw yesterday, Middle Tennessee State outlasted Troy. MTSU played a solid game holding off a couple runs by Troy, but in the end the lack of an inside game and missed 3's doomed them in the end.

Arkansas-Little Rock topped Florida Atlantic 66-60 despite only going 14-32 from the free throw line. Neither team looked particulary good. It was after the 10 minute mark in the first half before either team made it to double digits in scoring.

The final game of the night was Western Kentucky Hilltoppers and North Texas. WKU dominated the game from the tipoff pretty much. The lead by UNT was short lived. A late rally from 20 points down was stopped by strong defensive play and missed shots.

The officiating was pretty bad for all four games. I'm not a referee, nor do I have the urge to be one (especially in basketball). But there were a lot of bad calls. Hopefully the officiating will get better.

Now, I have to note that the mascot for WKU is quite puzzling. He is some sort of red blob thing. Most of the time people were wondering what he was supposed to be calling him an ink stain, blood clot or just plain ugly.


Plus Hilltoppers? Just because they sit on top of a hill. If your school sits in a valley, you wouldn't call your team the valleywags would you? These guys must not be too creative.

The only thing worse is the Stanford Tree mascot.
Just sad.