March Madness Bracket 2011: Recapping the First Weekend of the Tournament

Wow. I have to be honest…I am still in shock after Texas lost to Arizona. I am in shock that Florida State DOMINATED Notre Dame. I am in shock that Butler lost and then won on two really dumb plays. What a great first weekend of the NCAA tournament. Here are the highlights, lowlights and most memorable moments of the first…well, three rounds.

Best Games:
Temple 66 Penn State 64- I called this one un-watchable, but I am glad I went against my own advice. While it wasn’t pretty basketball, the ending made up for it. Here is what that looked like, and IT wasn’t even that good looking.

Morehead State 62 Louisville 61- Like a lot of people, I had Louisville going pretty far in the tourney. No real reason, I just thought they would go on a run. No. 13 seed Morehead State (do you even know what state they are in?) had a different idea. Magic didn’t last long and they lost in the next round to Richmond. Here is the game winner versus Louisville taken from a camera phone. Nice.

Butler 60 ODU 58- Oh man, Butler is doing it again. A dramatic win over Old Dominion, then a crazy finish against Pitt. Hello Sweet 16. Here is the game winner against ODU.

North Carolina 86 Washington 83- I picked Washington to win this one, and I was almost right. What a game. Carolina trailed by 11 in the first half but fought their way back to win. Big defense paid off in the end.

Arizona 70 Texas 69- I don’t want to talk about it. Okay, okay, Arizona deserved to win. They dominated Texas through most of the game. The bench was unstoppable. J’Covan Brown kept Texas in it, but crazy counting, timeout calling and decisions spelled doom for Texas. What a crazy ending. Watch the ref count to FOUR when timeout is called.

Butler 71 Pittsburgh 70- This was easily the best game. It had everything. Good offense, good defense, good plays and two of the dumbest plays in the history of basketball. There are A LOT of people jumping on the Butler bandwagon, I guess for good reason. They're a fun team to watch. Seriously, the last 2.2 seconds of the game were NUTSO.

Lowlights:
Tennessee Volunteers- lost by 30 to a Michigan team that was beatable. What an unbelievable showing. Bruce Pearl is as good as gone.

St. John’s- They had great wins this season in the tough Big East, but Gonzaga took them to the woodshed.

Tristan Thompson, Game Two- For a guy that I thought could be on a college all star team, three points and four fouls against Arizona was horrible. He'll probably go pro next year, but the Horns will have to wait and see.

Louisville- Another Big East fraud? Morehead State was tough, but the Cards were a lot of people’s sleeper pick to make the Final Four.

Richard Cartmell- Sure I may be bitter, but that was the crappiest five count in the history of numbers.

Best Players (so far):
Jimmer Fredette (BYU)- Averaging 33 points and 6.5 assists per game. I want to be like him when I grow up. Big matchup against Florida coming up.

Tyler Zeller (North Carolina)- He's averaging 27 points a game for the Tarheels. Harrison Barnes is playing great too. Can’t wait to see them against a tough Marquette team.

Kenneth Faried (Morehead St)- While his points weren't overly impressive, his 15 rebounds a game was. He definitely opened up some eyes in the NBA.

Kemba Walker (UCONN)- In his second game against Cincy he had 33 points, but game one was more impressive. He notched 18 points, eight rebounds and 12 assists. The Huskies will go far if Kemba keeps it up.

Re-Picking the Brackets:
With what we know now, who would be in your Final Four? We will know this weekend.
Redo Final Four:
Ohio State (original pick to win it all)
Kansas
BYU (crazy pick again...but Jimmer)
Duke