NCAA Tourney Changing, Somewhat for the Better (Bettor)

It was an eventful first four days of the men’s basketball tourney and it is readily apparent things are in the process of change. When a team like Arizona, who has been to the tournament as often as a sunny day in Tucson, is the Cinderella story, well you can see the landscape is changing. The charm of big time upsets and unnatural storylines is giving way to the “chalk” ruling tournaments.

The NCAA Tournament is the only of its kind where the beginning of the post-season is more anticipated than the end. Do millions of people fill out Wild Card weekend brackets in the NFL or wait for the Super Bowl. The start of the NBA playoffs is met with the excitement of “Samantha Who” returning to airwaves. (If you don’t what that show is, the line is on the left) The Baseball and Hockey playoffs, be serious, unless you are big fan of either sport.

What we are left with isn’t so bad, as the matchups could hardly be more intriguing and whoever ends up being national champion, will not have any easy games left on the docket. It just points to the selection committee doing there jobs with excellence.

The Big East had five of their seven picked teams make the Sweet 16, setting up the possibility of East Regional final between top seeded Pittsburgh and Villanova. The Panthers were the shakiest team to advance, playing two rather emotionless affairs, while coming away victorious. Regular and post-season champion Louisville was pushed by Siena, which might be a good thing for the Cardinals. Overall the Big East stands at 11-2 and 6-7 ATS.

The Big 12 validated themselves as a strong conference that was probably a little underrated with 8-3 showing and having three teams advance. The Big 12 was tremendous 11-1 against the spread.

The ACC was trying to convince others in January that its conference was every bit as good as the Big East. Not many were buying, feeling the elite teams where as good as any other league, just not the whole contingent. This was proven with North Carolina and Duke making this round. The ACC didn’t show well with .500 record and paltry 3-6-1 ATS record.

There are those that felt the Big Ten was surprise this season, being better than anticipated, however the tournament has shown the league to be slighting above average with Michigan State and Purdue advancing. Collectively, the Big Ten is 6-5 and 4-7 ATS.

This was supposed to be mildly down year for the Pac-10, but after the first round, opinions were about to change with first round record of 5-1 and 4-2 ATS mark. Then the reality of stiffer competition set in and only the presumed last team invited, Arizona, had what it took to move on and the Pac-10 is 6-5 and 5-6 ATS at present.

The SEC was ridiculed all season and was quietly dispatched with 1-3 SU and ATS record and doesn’t have a team in the Sweet 16 for the first time in two decades.

Other Betting Notes:

In the first round, the higher seed was 21-11 with an undesirable 10-21-1 ATS record. When you include the play-in game, favorites were 22-11 and 11-21-1 ATS.

The second round brought quick and abrupt change for higher seeds and favorites, with 15-1 and 12-4 against the spread record.

In the opening round, the Over did slightly better with 18-15 mark, which was followed up by dominating 12-4 Over record on the weekend.

All top three seeds advanced to next round with 18-0 record and were 10-7-1 ATS.

The at-large teams, who in many cases were going to be in the tournament, just didn’t have the automatic bid, were 18-6 and 14-10 ATS when not matched against a team with the same credentials.

All teams that won the regular season title and not playing a team that did the same were 7-8 and 8-7 ATS.

After being a strong play in the second round, No.10 seeds were 0-3 SU and ATS.

Observations:

The Michigan State and USC contest was like watching an Elite Eight contest, based on the skill of the players and intensity.

Duke might be done, since their days of being a dominant team in this event are over, unless they find a big man, like the Christian Laettner and Cherokee Parks days. I’ve heard the reason Coach K can’t land a top big man is all of the coaches were guards and today’s players want to make move to get to NBA and want coaches who can develop their skills.

I wonder what St. Mary’s was thinking watching Arizona advance.

Watching Pac-10 player of the year James Hardin, brought to mind, Where’s Waldo?

Not sure what CBS needs to do, but their analyst line-up is no longer compelling. Everyone likes different aspects and Bill Raftery and Bob Wenzel make strong observations and will speculate along with having charm. Mike Giminski, Jim Spanarkle, Len Elmore and Dan Bonner are all competent, you just never learn anything.

Jay Bilas is the best of all the newer analysts over the last couple of years; however his unbelievably frequent use of the term “ball screen” is past the point of being over done.

While many people didn’t like Billy Packer for any number of his faults, he had a keen eye of observation and was able to pick out nuisances of what was happening on the floor. Clark Kellogg has been garden variety for a lead announcer and resembles one of his often quirky phrases. “Like a screen-saver, lots of activity, just not much gets done.”