It wouldn't have taken a lot different happening for Pittsburgh to have become the first-ever 1 seed to lose to a 16 seed during its East Regional game with East Tennessee State this afternoon in Dayton.
That 72-62 final is the most deceptive score in the tournament so far. If ETSU had done a better job at the free-throw line and been just a bit more prudent with its shot selection, a shocker of shocker could have taken place.
Arizona State was also fairly fortunate to hold off Temple (66-57) in Miami in a game in which its All-America, James Harden, was something like 1 of 8 from the field. He -- and his teammates -- will have to play several notches better Sunday in order to knock off 3 seed Syracuse.
I kept waiting for West Virginia to catch and finally overtake Dayton during their Midwest Regional game in Minneapolis. It never happened and the 11 seed Flyers scored a mild upset (68-60) over a Mountaineers club I thought had a reasonable chance to beat Kansas in the second round Sunday. So much for reason(able) . . .
Kansas held off a pretty good North Dakota State in what might have been the best-played off the first eight games completed so far today. Ben Woodside of the Bison is the best player most general sports fans probably never heard of until today.
I hope Kansas fans are coming to the grips with the likelihood that junior guard Sherron Collins and sophomore center Cole Aldrich could be NBA Draft-bound. They looked the part of high draft choices today, although, at 5-10ish, Collins forces a few too many shots for my tastes.
Props to the Big 12, whose six entries went 6-0 in the first round . . .
Oh, well . . . time to psyche up for the likes of USC-Boston College and Arizona-Utah . . .
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