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Armadillo: Sunday's six-pack
Odds to win major league strikeout title this season:
7-2— Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw
8-1— Madison Bumgarner
10-1— Chris Archer, Chris Sale
14-1— Corey Kluber, Noah Syndergaard
18-1— Justin Verlander
20-1— Michael Pineda, David Price
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Armadillo: Sunday's List of 13: Wrapping up a super Saturday…….
13) Arizona 83, Oregon 80— High-level game; Wildcats jumped out quickly, held on at the end. I’m not big on debating seeding, but I do think that right now, both these teams are better than Gonzaga, if only because they’ve been tested so much more in the last nine weeks.
12) VCU 87, Richmond 77 OT— Spiders (+6.5) are our Bad Beat of the Day (they led by 3 with 0:30 left in regulation), but also they lost to their crosstown rival for third time this season. Has to be frustrating.
Bad beat #2: Penn (+7) lost by 8 in OT at home to Princeton.
Champ Week is great fun because of games like this one; VCU was in NCAA’s no matter what, but Richmond could’ve been a bid stealer, so teams like USC, Illinois State, Kansas State had to be rooting like hell for VCU, maybe harder than VCU fans.
11) Big Sky final: North Dakota 93, Weber State 89, OT— They used to be called the Fighting Sioux before the world became politically correct; now they’re the Fighting Hawks. Fitting that a team whose best player is Quinton Hooker won the first Big Sky tournament played in Nevada.
10) Duke 75, Notre Dame 69— Blue Devils are first ACC team to win conference tournament by winning four games in four days- they came from behind in second half the last three days.
9) Oregon lost Chris Boucher, its best shot blocker, with a torn ACL, damaging blow to their NCAA hopes. He was scoring 11.8 pts/game, grabbing 6.1 rebounds/game. Boucher played 12:00 last night AFTER the injury, which was found by an MRI today. Tough kid.
Minnesota lost senior guard Akeem Springs for the season with an achilles injury, big blow for the Gophers.
8) First day of the first-ever Ivy League tournament was an on-court success; Princeton snuck past the host Penn Quakers in overtime, while Yale beat rival Harvard to advance to the finals.
Princeton was 14-0 during regular season; would’ve been a bitter pill to lose to a 6-8 team that was playing on its home court. Harvard has a really good senior point guard, but their other four starters are freshmen. Unusual.
7) Random fact: Over last eight NCAA tournaments, the overall #1 seed has only won the national championship twice.
6) Nevada 79, Colorado State 71— CSU coach Larry Eustachy got every last drop out of his seven-man squad that had five frosh/sophs on it, but it wasn’t enough to win three games in three days in a conference tournament.
Question for Nevada is this: can they keep their coach now? Eric Musselman was an NBA head coach (Golden State/Sacramento); his salary in Reno isn’t that great (less than $400K). He was an assistant at LSU a few years ago; he’d be a great hire for them.
5) Illinois went 37-53 in conference play the last five years; they fired John Groce Saturday. Illini played for the national title in 2005 under Bruce Weber, but has only made tournament in three of last ten years.
Bob Williams is out after 19 years at Cal-Santa Barbara; Gauchos had a horrible year this season, but the three years before this one, UCSB was 34-14 in the Big West- they haven’t been in the NCAA’s since 2011, but this seems like a quick hook.
4) Texas State 83, Texas-Arlington 62— UTA was a team I was looking at to be a Cinderella next week; they beat St Mary’s easily in Moraga, but they got upset in the semis of their conference tournament, so they’re off to the NIT. Texas State plays Troy State Sunday for the Sun Belt title; will the winner be headed to Dayton for a Wednesday play-in game?
3) Cincinnati 81, UConn 71— Bearcats beat UConn three times this season, all by double digits, twice in the Nutmeg State. Cincy will be a trendy sleeper pick in brackets next week.
2) What could the biggest possible “worlds colliding” matchup in the first round of the NCAA’s? In 1986, Montana State played St John’s; something like that. How often does a team from NYC play a team from Bozeman, Montana?
How about North Dakota-UCLA? Vermont-West Virginia?
1— Random observation; officials called way fewer fouls in Champ Week than they did during the regular season. Watched games from all over the country: the Big West tournament could’ve been played on an outdoor court at Venice Beach— tremendous amount of contact was ignored.
Odds to win major league strikeout title this season:
7-2— Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw
8-1— Madison Bumgarner
10-1— Chris Archer, Chris Sale
14-1— Corey Kluber, Noah Syndergaard
18-1— Justin Verlander
20-1— Michael Pineda, David Price
**********
Armadillo: Sunday's List of 13: Wrapping up a super Saturday…….
13) Arizona 83, Oregon 80— High-level game; Wildcats jumped out quickly, held on at the end. I’m not big on debating seeding, but I do think that right now, both these teams are better than Gonzaga, if only because they’ve been tested so much more in the last nine weeks.
12) VCU 87, Richmond 77 OT— Spiders (+6.5) are our Bad Beat of the Day (they led by 3 with 0:30 left in regulation), but also they lost to their crosstown rival for third time this season. Has to be frustrating.
Bad beat #2: Penn (+7) lost by 8 in OT at home to Princeton.
Champ Week is great fun because of games like this one; VCU was in NCAA’s no matter what, but Richmond could’ve been a bid stealer, so teams like USC, Illinois State, Kansas State had to be rooting like hell for VCU, maybe harder than VCU fans.
11) Big Sky final: North Dakota 93, Weber State 89, OT— They used to be called the Fighting Sioux before the world became politically correct; now they’re the Fighting Hawks. Fitting that a team whose best player is Quinton Hooker won the first Big Sky tournament played in Nevada.
10) Duke 75, Notre Dame 69— Blue Devils are first ACC team to win conference tournament by winning four games in four days- they came from behind in second half the last three days.
9) Oregon lost Chris Boucher, its best shot blocker, with a torn ACL, damaging blow to their NCAA hopes. He was scoring 11.8 pts/game, grabbing 6.1 rebounds/game. Boucher played 12:00 last night AFTER the injury, which was found by an MRI today. Tough kid.
Minnesota lost senior guard Akeem Springs for the season with an achilles injury, big blow for the Gophers.
8) First day of the first-ever Ivy League tournament was an on-court success; Princeton snuck past the host Penn Quakers in overtime, while Yale beat rival Harvard to advance to the finals.
Princeton was 14-0 during regular season; would’ve been a bitter pill to lose to a 6-8 team that was playing on its home court. Harvard has a really good senior point guard, but their other four starters are freshmen. Unusual.
7) Random fact: Over last eight NCAA tournaments, the overall #1 seed has only won the national championship twice.
6) Nevada 79, Colorado State 71— CSU coach Larry Eustachy got every last drop out of his seven-man squad that had five frosh/sophs on it, but it wasn’t enough to win three games in three days in a conference tournament.
Question for Nevada is this: can they keep their coach now? Eric Musselman was an NBA head coach (Golden State/Sacramento); his salary in Reno isn’t that great (less than $400K). He was an assistant at LSU a few years ago; he’d be a great hire for them.
5) Illinois went 37-53 in conference play the last five years; they fired John Groce Saturday. Illini played for the national title in 2005 under Bruce Weber, but has only made tournament in three of last ten years.
Bob Williams is out after 19 years at Cal-Santa Barbara; Gauchos had a horrible year this season, but the three years before this one, UCSB was 34-14 in the Big West- they haven’t been in the NCAA’s since 2011, but this seems like a quick hook.
4) Texas State 83, Texas-Arlington 62— UTA was a team I was looking at to be a Cinderella next week; they beat St Mary’s easily in Moraga, but they got upset in the semis of their conference tournament, so they’re off to the NIT. Texas State plays Troy State Sunday for the Sun Belt title; will the winner be headed to Dayton for a Wednesday play-in game?
3) Cincinnati 81, UConn 71— Bearcats beat UConn three times this season, all by double digits, twice in the Nutmeg State. Cincy will be a trendy sleeper pick in brackets next week.
2) What could the biggest possible “worlds colliding” matchup in the first round of the NCAA’s? In 1986, Montana State played St John’s; something like that. How often does a team from NYC play a team from Bozeman, Montana?
How about North Dakota-UCLA? Vermont-West Virginia?
1— Random observation; officials called way fewer fouls in Champ Week than they did during the regular season. Watched games from all over the country: the Big West tournament could’ve been played on an outdoor court at Venice Beach— tremendous amount of contact was ignored.
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