Basketball, Basketball, Basketball!

Kansas started the tournament run against America East's Boston U (Kansas City Star photo)

The college basketball post season is in full swing and the NCAA March Madness thing is down to 32 teams before play started today. As usual, there were bracket busting upsets, mostly in the match ups between the 11-12-13 seed and the 4-5-6 seed. To wit:

Xavier (6) lost to Marquette (11)

Vanderbilt (5) lost to Richmond (12)

Louisville (4) lost to Morehead State (13)

Georgetown (6) lost to Virgina Commonwealth (11)

Texas A&M (7) lost to Florida State (10)

St. John's (6) lost to Gonzaga (11)

UNLV (8) lost to Illinois (9)

In addition Arizona (5) and Kentucky (4) just escaped the upset bug--Kentucky with a last second hoop against Ivy League school Princeton. (Darn, that's too bad...and it might have woke them up too. Today they had no problem with West Virgina [5])

Locally, Missouri, seeded 11, lost to Cincinnati. The Tigers continued to shoot poorly and they could not stop the Bearcats on defense at all. Any time Mizzou got a little run on, Cincinnati would just breeze through the Tigers' half court defense and score pretty easily. The team needs to be bigger, and perhaps just a little tougher next year to progress in the tournament.

Kansas State's game--and seed (5)--scared me. That 5-12 match seems especially susceptible to upsets. Kansas State prevailed over a game Utah State team. Jacob Pullen had a nice game leading the Wildcats but many contributed to a good firm win. Next up for K State is Wisconsin tonight at about 7:40 pm our time.

Kansas (1) started slow and tight, but in the second half got their act together and pulled away from America East rep Boston University (tabbed with the dreaded 16 seed). The Terriers showed well for the conference of the UVM Catamounts giving Kansas everything they wanted until just wearing out in the second half. Next up for the Jayhawks: Illinois (9) who won their 8-9 match handily over UNLV.

Speaking of Vermont, the Catamounts played in the NIT. Seeded No 7, they drew No. 2 Cleveland State. Playing without Evan Fjeld, UVM gave the Vikings all they could handle, but ended up losing 60-63. UVM ended the year with Fjeld's injury stealing precious momentum and wins. It might have been the Cats giving the Jayhawks a tough time instead of BU.

Plenty left to watch--sorry for all you who filled out brackets. Take heart though--your chances of winning were pretty slim to begin with as this article points out.

UVM played tough against Cleveland State without vital cog Fjeld. (photo: Cleveland Plain Dealer)