Wow…great tourney so far…I had 20 brackets and as of today, 18 of them are toast…here are some random thoughts on the 44 hours of NCAA basketball I watched since Thursday’s noon tipoff:

1st 2 days kind of went to form, with favourites emerging victorious in all but these three…

VCU beating Duke was an easy pick…the Dukies can’t dribble and Eric Maynor, VCU’s fabulous PG was top 5 in the nation in steals and HATES Duke, the school he grew up 10 miles away from but did not recruit him…fantastic game with the requisite chippy-ness (Duke has to be one of the all time dirtiest teams) and Maynor draining the winning jumper from 17 feet with 2 seconds left on a little right handed dive dribble and step back to the left move (think MJ’s pet move to go to the his jumper from the top of the key) was classic…

Davidson gave their all against Maryland losing 82-70 with Dell Curry’s kid Stephan going for 30 points and throwing up crazy jump shots ( he hit a three off of 1 foot in the 2nd half!!! It was like Rick Mount-esque) like Vernon Maxwell on his 6th can of Red Bull…

Winthrop beating ND 74-64 was a gimme…the Irish were putrid from the foul line going 4-13 (31%) and disgusting from three going 4-22 (18%)…As for Winthop they out-assisted Notre Dame 20-10 and out-rebounded them 40-32…it was domination…

Louisville obliterates Stanford 78-58 and you know Syracuse, Drexel, Appalachian State and Kansa State are sitting there fuming at being left out of the tournament…

Saturday

Boston College never had a chance in the 62-55 loss to Georgetown that was not as close as the score indicates…for the Hoyas, Roy Hibbert was too much especially in the second half where he scored 15 of his 17 total points, 10 boards and mad a nifty little interior pass to a cutting Patrick Ewing, Jr. for a very nasty reverse dunk in traffic and 1…but the star was forward Jeff Green, who dominated with 11 points, 12 rebounds and 5 blocks, including a ridiculous tip dunk in the second half…Tyrese Rice continued his terrific PG play for BC, contributing 22 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists and BC forward Jared Dudley was his usual steady self with 19 points, 8 rebounds and 4 steals, but the missing piece was designated shooter Sean Marshal who basically disappeared…

Yawn…UNC beats Michigan State an 81-67 victory continuing its NCAA tournament dominance over the Spartans…UNC is now 4-0 lifetime against Mich. State in the Tournament…UNC PF Tyler Hansborough had a monster game with 33 points and 9 rebounds, but the game was never close…Hansborough might be the most annoying player in all of college basketball with all his yelling and fist pumping every 2 seconds…he;s so annoying, I’m still surprised Duke did not recruit him…

Ohio State survives Xavier 78-71 in overtime but only because Buckeye guard Ron Lewis made a loooooonnnggg three to send the game into overtime and then PG Mike Conley Jr. lost his mind in the overtime Conley dominated the extra period. He scored Ohio State's first seven points, then four free throws in the final 1:03….Super frosh centre Greg Oden fouled out with 9.3 seconds left on a weird bodyslam of Xavier forward Brandon Cole which should have been an intentional foul (2 shots and the ball) but ended up being a 1-1 which Cole making the front end to give Xavier a 61-58 lead with 9.3 seconds left, leaving the door open just a crack for Lewis’ loooonnnng three to tie…

Texas A&M’s 72-69 win over Louisville was the game of the tournament…Cards PG Edgar Sosa was en fuego hitting everything and anything totalling a career-high 31 points…however he missed a pair of free throws with his team down one with 29 seconds left and then missed a potential game-winning three-pointer at the end...the other star of the game, was Texas A&M's All-America point guard Acie Law, who had 26 points and hit 13 of 15 attempts from the line, including the final two at the end to seal the deal…he’s the closest thing to Sam Cassell since, well, Sam Cassell…

Pitt beats tourney darlings VCU 84-79 in OT…VCU’s full-court pressure ignited an amazing 19-point comeback over the last 12 minutes of regulation and sent the game into overtime, but the Panthers went on a 7-2 run to start overtime…Very balanced scoring for Pitt, but Canadian PF Levon Kendall, who fouled out with 3:42 left in overtime, had a terrific all round game with 8 points, 8 boards and 3 blocks, including a highlight real blocked layup in the 2nd half…

Butler beats Maryland by moving the ball, controlling pace and moving the ball via the pass on offence like they’re auditioning for Hoosiers or something…Playing the Role of Jimmy Chitwood was Butler PG AJ Graves who went for 19 points which included 4-9 from three…Maryland needed to hit Free throws to win and they only went 7-15, which in a close, ball control game, sealed the win for Butler…Interesting note, Maryland out-rebounded Butler 36-21, including 14-7 on the offensive boards…

UCLA beats Indiana 54-49 in the most boring game of the year so far, so boring that I watched about 30 seconds of it and flipped to the Food Network…that’s all you need to know, that and UCAL is not as good as they were last year, Pitt should destroy them in the next round…

Now Vandy beating Washington State 78-74 in double OT was a thrilla…for Vanderbilt Derrick Byars and Shan Foster (20points, 6 rebounds, 2 steals) were unstoppable in the 2nd half and OT, combining for 47 points, 27 of them by Byars (also 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 3 steals and 1 block)…the star was Byars, who was 5-of-9 from three-point range, and was so hot in the second half and OT that even a spectacular, game-saving block by Cougars F Ivory Clark of a Byars layup near the end of regulation did not cool off the should have been SEC Player of the Year…Byars made a game-saving left-handed block of his own on a Taylor Rochestie breakaway in the first overtime….

Sunday

UNLV’s 74-68 win over Wisconsin was the battle of the PG’s with Vegas’ Kevin Kruger (coach Lon Kruger’s son) going for 16 points, 6 rebounds and 7 assists, while the Badger’s PG Kammron Taylor had 24 points, 2 rebounds and 2 assists…Kruger junior shook off a shooting slump, a 1-of-15 in the NCAAs before he hit three straight late in the second half…By the way this was the best free throw shooting NCAA game I’ve ever seen with UNLV going 16-20 (80%...duh) and Wisconsin going 21-27 (78%)…

Kansas rolled past ninth-seed Kentucky 88-76…Kansas was too fast, too deep and too athletic for Kentucky as Julian Wright (21 points, 8 rebounds), Brandon Rush (19 points), Mario Chalmers (16 points, 8 assists) as Kansas led wire to wire, and was up by 20 at one point…the Tubby Smith watch begins now…I predict he’ll be fired by June 1st…

My goodness…nobody wants to play Southern Illinois…The Salukis incredible man to man defense held Virginia Tech to 2-of-13 3-point shooting while going 12-of-21 from three themselves in an easy 63-48 second-round victory over Virginia Tech…how good is the Southern Illinois man defence? They have not played 1 minute of zone all year…wow…

Florida beat a very game Purdue team 74-67 behind Al Horford and Corey Brewer (17 points apiece)…vaunted Florida centre Joakim Noah laid an egg (9 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 blocks) while getting dominated by 6’7” Carl Landry (Purdue's tallest player by the way) who’s 18 points, 10 rebounds and 4 assists had Noah looking for an ark…Noah’s whote to the press on Landry:”I give [Landry] a lot of respect…He's a warrior. There was not a single play when he gave up going for the rebound or for the shot. I feel bad for him because I know how hard it is to lose in the tournament." The people that should feel bad are the NBA team that drafts Noah in the top 5 this year…he’s basically Mikki Moore with an uglier jumpshot…listen, when you are an athletic 6’11” and a 6’7” guy is guarding you, you need to call for the ball and back him in…instead Noah spent most of the time on offence counting the animals two by two and not pressing Landry at all…

OK, enough with the Old Testament jokes…

USC destroyed Texas 87-68 …even with Durant going for 30 points and 9 rebounds, the Trojans got a balanced attack with 22 points from Nick Young, 20 points from Daniel Hackett and 17 points and 14 rebounds from Taj Gibson, who was dominant on the boards and also made 9 of 14 free throws…why was this such an easy win for USC? Because other than 20 points from AJ Abrams, nobody else from Texas showed up…

All you need to know about Memphis’ forgettable 78-62 win over Nevada (other than another Nick Fazekas Choke job…I’m telling you he’ll be Matt Bullard in the NBA, but that’s another matter…) is The Tigers came in making only 61 percent of their free throws, which is the worst among all tournament teams and in the bottom 10 of all 336 Division I schools…Memphis went 26-of-34 (76%) from the line in this game, which means they are playing over their heads right now and will crap out for sure in the next round against Texas A&M…

Tennessee beating Virginia 7-74 was all about the Vols PG Chris Lofton…Lofton hit all six of his free throws in the last 27.7 seconds, keeping Tennessee ahead and finishing with 20 points…it was an odd game for Lofton who went 4-of-16 from the field but 9-of-10 on free throws…it was a very tough finish for Virginia with guards J.R. Reynolds (26 points) and Singletary (19 points) playing well, but with Singletary missing an open three at the buzzer to tie…