CBB Tournament's Update

Friday March 12 6:40 AM

The madness of March continued last night and it might end up really costing different teams a NCAA berth. Kent State was the best team in the MAC this season and having seen them play, certainly was a team capable of beating a higher seeded team with their talent level. The Golden Flashes evidently thought they were ticketed for the MAC finals and were torpedoed by arguably the best backcourt in the MAC presently from Ohio U. The Bobcats duo of Armon Bassett (38 points) and D.J. Cooper built a 40-24 halftime time, survived Kent State comeback that got them to four points and cruised to 81-64 win as five-point underdogs.

If Kent State would have gotten to the conference finals and lost, it would hard to ignore them, however it has been since 1999 that the tournament committee has taken two teams from this league.

The Pac-10 is having its worst season in some time and all the publicity has been negative. Arizona State finished second in the conference, but most still felt they needed to win one more game to assure themselves of a bid. If you haven’t seen the Sun Devils play, their personnel can generously be described as limited, but coach Herb Sendek got more than what could have been expected, which also points towards the weakness of the league.

Right from the opening tip it was obvious Stanford had come to play and Arizona State had not. The Cardinal flew to 15-point lead with just under 12 minutes left in the game and won 70-61 as 7.5-point underdogs. That might have killed the Sun Devils tournament chances and the Pac-10 better hope Washington wins this tourney otherwise California might get the only bid.

One last thing on the Pacific 10. What this conference is going through might not be all that unusual in the future. Chances are UCLA, Arizona and USC will all improve in the next couple of years, yet this league is falling behind in recruiting, doesn’t have the “cool factor” and their tournament is joke attendance wise. Last night’s quarterfinals could not have had more than 3,000 people at the Staples Center, more resembling a SWAC contest than that of a major conference. In L.A. you could draw more than 3,000 people if word on the street was Kim Kardashian was going to jello-wrestle at Venice Beach.

It was not a good day to be on the favorites in the Big East and ACC on Thursday. In the Big Apple, Da'Sean Butler’s straight away, banked-in three-pointer at the buzzer helped one favorite make it to semis in the Big East, as third seeded West Virginia was among the four faves that failed to cover.

Only North Carolina’s ineptness in the final 10 minutes prevented all four underdogs from winning outright in the ACC’s opening day. Georgia Tech won 62-58 over the Tar Heels and either covered by a half point or was push depending on when they were purchased.

In Reno, NV, where sports betting is 100 percent legal, the favored teams from the WAC were 100 percent good, as the higher seeds all covered, and collectively beat the number by over 11 points on average, very chalky.

Overall, underdogs were 24-17 ATS on the day following teams that normally have lines on their contests, with 14 outright upsets.

You might rethink that future’s bet on Syracuse in case you missed it, no team has ever won the NCAA Tournament after losing first game in conference tourney.