Soft Dukies

Maybe I should give up doing a bracket next year for Lent. We're halfway to the Elite 8, let's recap tonight's action:

• LSU 62, Duke 54. LSU played great defense inside and outside. The tone of this game changed after Tyrus Thomas blocked 2 shots in the 1st half, the 2nd an attempt by none other than the Landlord himself, Shelden Williams. After that, you could see Duke get tentative offensively, scared to take the ball inside. LSU had a great gameplan defensively: make the other guys beat you. Greg Paulus: 2/8, Sean Dockery 0/4, DeMarcus Nelson 1/5, and most of those were good looks. JJ Redick wasn't allowed to breathe and he did the worst thing he could possibly do: he lost his composure. The rest of his team followed suit and that helped cost them the game. When do you see Duke give up an offensive rebound to the guy shooting a foul shot??? With 4 Dukies lined up and no one else lined up for the rebound on top of that??? LSU lost a lot of close games early in the year to tough teams, but they've learned and grown from it obviously, congrats to them.
• Memphis 80, Bradley 64. Memphis was just too good, their superstars played like superstars. Memphis was able to quicken the tempo, which made Patrick O'Bryant a nonfactor. The Tigers forced 17 turnovers, leading to easy buckets. Rodney Carney and Darius Washington both played big. Congrats to Bradley on their run, they ran into a team that may just win this thing.
• Texas 74, West Virginia 71. What a game this was. Texas was in control in the 1st half, but West Virginia kept shooting 3s and made a good percentage. It looked like Texas would get Pittsnoggled as the big man tied it up with a 3 with 5 sec. left, but Kenton Paulino won it with a 3 at the other end. Rick Barnes made a great move by not calling timeout after Pittsnoggle hit the 3, which didn't allow the defense to get set, giving them a pretty good look, a better look than they would've gotten if they had called timeout. Texas's guards played ok at best, but they outboarded WVU 42-14. 42-14?!?!?! LSU/Texas will be an interesting matchup, LSU plays great defense, Texas has great size, should be a great game.
• UCLA 73, Gonzaga 71. I'm trying to understand how Gonzaga lost this game. Gonzaga played defense in the 1st half, I couldn't believe it. They came out with a chip on their shoulder, like the Gonzaga from a few years ago when they were trying to earn people's respect. UCLA was passive on offense, dribbling the ball too much and making silly mistakes. But the curse of the big lead bit Gonzaga. They got tentative on offense and Derek Raivio played a very poor 2nd half, turning the ball over while out of control. It wasn't one guy that brought UCLA back, it was a collective effort. They all played better in the 2nd half, and took advantage of Gonzaga allowing them to stay in the game. Gonzaga outrebounded them by 10, who would've thought, but 16 turnovers, most of those coming in the 2nd half, did them in. And what was JP Batista thinking at the end of the game??? Raivio was behind him wide open. A bad decision by an experienced player.

So I split tonight, losing Duke, but getting Ws with Texas and UCLA. But I'm happy there was good basketball tonight. This thing is wide open, as we all know.

And yes, I will be struggling at work tomorrow since I'll be going on 5 hours of sleep, but it's Friday, I can do it.