The Shockers Of March Madness

It was the end of a record breaking season for Wichita State when they suffered their first and last loss of the college basketball season to Kentucky, 78-76. It was a bittersweet game. In my heart, I was rooting for the Shockers, but knowing the Kentucky Wildcats would play Louisville Cardinals in Indianapolis in the Sweet Sixteen had me licking my chops. Well, it’s coming this weekend and the Wildcats are going to meet the Cardinals in Indiana. Not only are these two Kentucky schools rivals, but Calipari and Pitino have a historical connection that dates back two decades. When Calipari was hired at the University of Massachusetts, Pitino recommended him for the job. But, since then, there has been plenty of friction between the two for various reasons. Maybe their two Type A personalities has something to do with it. Before this Indy matchup, Pitino’s No. 4 tournament seeded Cardinals, last year’s national champs, played against No. 13 seed Manhattan, coached by Pitino’s former assistant and protégé Steve Masiello. Coach Pitino did not like the way the stage was set by the NCAA Committee because Masiello was not only his assistant at Kentucky for six years, but he also played for his mentor. To make things worse, Masiello was the Knicks ball boy during one of Pitino’s stints as an NBA coach. Now it’s a whole different situation for Louisville’s coach. Not only is there a mega-rivalry between the two Kentucky schools, but the coaches have been accused of disliking one another. Excuse my sarcasm…really? In the past two years, the rivalry between them has sort of died out, but will this game rekindle the feud? Any bets? Understand that in Kentucky this is even bigger than the national championship game— for Kentuckians, I do mean bigger! I’m very familiar with how hoop crazy these basketball states like Kentucky and Indiana are. When I played at New Mexico, my coach, the late John Givens, was from Kentucky (his fellow coaches called him “Kentuck”). Later in his career, he moved on to coach the Kentucky Colonels of the now defunct ABA, so he mainly recruited about 70 percent of our team from both states. Plus my connection to my friend and former Indiana University legend, Bobby Knight, made me even more aware of the basketball craze of the two states. So, I do really understand the magnitude of how big this game is and that the arena in Indianapolis might not be large enough to house the crowd that wants to be there. I bet the NCAA could charge $2,000 a ticket and they would still pack the place, despite the cost. I can feel the tension that has been growing all week between Lexington and Louisville. Those tremors you might be feeling are not from an earthquake. They’re coming from the Bluegrass State. Kentuckians take their teams seriously. Every year there are two big high school basketball all-star games, one between the Southern part of Kentucky against the Northern part of the state and the other is nationally known as the biggest of all high school all-star basketball games, between the Indiana High School All-Stars and the Kentucky All-Stars. Practically every college coach in the country attends that game. To top it off, these two universities in Kentucky are only 76 miles apart, but they both have to travel to the middle of Indiana for the big game. The traffic on Interstate 65 will be unreal. There are some other big games that resulted from a wild first round of the tournament, which has had more than one “Shocker” that went down in defeat. It was a record for the number of low seeded teams being victorious over higher seeded opponents, and there were four overtime games on day one and another on day two— an NCAA record. The Dayton Flyers, a No. 11 seed, are in the Sweet 16 in the South’s bracket, and they upset No. 6 seed, and rival Ohio State before going on to upset No. 3 Syracuse. Stanford, a 10 seed, beat No. 7 New Mexico in the first round and then moved on to upset No. 2 Kansas to become a Sweet 16 team. One of the biggest upsets, in the first round in the Midwest bracket, was No. 14 Mercer College defeating No. 3 Duke. No one saw that one coming, but then Mercer lost to No. 11 Tennessee. Twelve seed Harvard defeated No. 5 Cincinnati, and No. 12 Steven F. Austin knocked off No. 5 VCU in the fifth overtime of the first round. If you look at some of these upsets, you’ll see that these low seeded teams had great records, and, in some cases, the determination of how they were seeded was because of the so called weakness of their league. S.F. Austin is a school from a town in Texas with the crazy name of Nacogdoches. The team had a 31-2 record and went on to lose to No. 4 UCLA in the second game. The big game of Louisville and Kentucky isn’t the only headliner this week. Michigan State will meet Virginia in the East, No. 4 against No. 1, and in the same bracket No. 7 UConn plays No. 3 Iowa State. I suspect that all these games will be close. Let’s face it. All of these games are headliners. It’s the madness of college basketball in March, but I feel that the biggest hype will come from the Pitino-Calipari matchup. I’m leaning in Rick Pitino’s favor, on that one! As some people might know, Coach Pitino has a connection to Saratoga. He has a share in some Thoroughbred horses. He and his expensive pets, they come here every year during August for the track. Saddle up and here we go!