The Marist women’s basketball team might have felt overmatched against LSU last Monday night, but they certainly didn’t show it. Not when they got within two points, at 29-27, at halftime. Not when shooting guard Julianne Viana was hitting three-pointers from NBA range. And not even when reigning SEC Player of the Year Sylvia Fowles used all of her 6’6” height advantage to try to take over the game down low.
True, the Marist women did eventually run out of gas, allowing a 9-0 LSU run midway through the second half to seal their fate in a 68-49 loss in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, but they never looked like they didn’t belong on the same court with those Lady Tigers. Of course, Southeastern Conference Teams have knocked Marist out of the tournament for the past three years (Georgia in 2006, Tennessee last season), but the Marist women have acquitted themselves well on the court each time. Playing in front of a huge LSU fan base in Baton Rouge, Marist didn’t back down. Short of a turnover problem – Marist had 19, mainly due to the quick hands of LSU’s backcourt – Marist looked like the big-time college basketball program it is becoming.
And their first-round game, on Saturday against DePaul, was the embodiment of how clutch this team is. Trailing 55-44 in the second half against the 10th-ranked Blue Demons, the Foxes reeled off a 32-2 run to close the game and advance to the second round. A 32-2 run? That’s some ridiculously good basketball. Viani hit four straight three-pointers during the stretch and Marist held DePaul to only one basket during the final 7:24 of the game. Any team that posts a 19-point win in the NCAA Tournament must be doing something right – something the Marist women certainly don’t need me to tell them – but they deserve every honor they get for their historic season. Congratulations, ladies.
On the men’s side, the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament is in the books, and in the absence of any true shockers (10 of the top 12 seeds are still alive as of press time, and one of the losers, No. 2-seeded Duke, was not a real title contender coming into the tourney), here’s my take on the top upsets so far.
• Davidson over Georgetown, second round. Davidson pulled off the shocker of the tournament so far, taking down a Georgetown team that had serious Final Four aspirations in a pressure-cooker of a game that saw the Wildcats come back from a 17-point second-half deficit to pull out a 74-70 win. Sophomore guard Stephen Curry scored 25 of his 30 points in the second half (giving him 70 through the first two games of the tournament), a remarkable achievement against the country’s stingiest defense (Georgetown allowed only 57 points per game in the regular season). With the win, the Wildcats extended their winning streak to 24 games, and even with a Sweet 16 matchup against Wisconsin looming, they look like one of the most dangerous teams in the tournament.
• Siena over Vanderbilt, first round. The Saints did the MAAC proud in knocking off No. 4 seed Vanderbilt 83-62, and the final score didn’t really reflect Siena’s dominance – the Albany school led start to finish and dominated the Commodores behind the shooting of Kenny Hasbrouck, who scored 30 points, and Tay Fisher, who drilled six three-pointers on his way to 19 points. They joined a string of other upsets in the Midwest Region, including Davidson and Villanova, who bumped off Clemson, 75-69. Siena is best known for its upset of No. 3-seed Stanford in 1989, but this one ranked right up there in terms of performance – the Saints actually drove Vandy right off the floor.
• San Diego over Connecticut, first round. Considering Connecticut’s tournament pedigree, this was a shocking first-round upset, but to anyone who’s watched the Huskies this year, it was clear that they were an inconsistent and flawed basketball team. Still, that shouldn’t take anything away from the Toreros, who played a great game despite giving up the size advantage at all five positions on the floor and watching their top two scorers – Gyno Pomare and Brandon Johnson – foul out in overtime. San Diego’s luck ran out in a second-round loss to Western Kentucky, a Cinderella itself after shocking No. 5-seed Drake in OT, but the win over Connecticut was one of the most thrilling games of the first round.
But even with those notable upsets, we still haven’t seen one of the favored heavyweights – UNC, ULCA, Memphis, Kansas or Texas, among others – go down, which matches the pre-tournament prediction by many sportswriters that this year’s tournament was relatively top-heavy. By the time you read this column, several of the Sweet 16 games will have been played, but expect most of those big names to keep hanging around. My pre-tournament title pick, UCLA, is still alive, but they’ve been much more impressive on defense than on offense so far. Is that enough to make me change my pick? Not yet, although UNC has been very impressive, looking easily like the most talented and athletic team in the field.
And of the remaining Cinderellas, West Virginia has the best chance (matched against No. 3-seed Xavier in the round of 16) of staying alive. Western Kentucky will give UCLA a game, but I expect the Bruins to prevail, and Villanova’s run will end with a loss to Kansas in the Midwest Regional. For the rest of my brackets, I like UNC to come out of the East, Wisconsin to survive Davidson and Kansas and emerge from the Midwest, Stanford to top Memphis in the South and UCLA to get past Xavier in the West. I set my brackets based on defense, and haven’t been disappointed yet. I’m not copping to gambling in this column, but there may be a few steak dinners riding on the answer.
In any event, enjoy the rest of the tournament, the opening weekend of the baseball season and the beginning of spring. Life, at least in the sports world, is good.