CHICAGO - After 48 games in 4 days, some truths have become self-evident. The old sage John Chaney's favorite phrase is "truth to power." Well, this was "truth of power."
The top five seeds got through to the second round for just the second time since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. There were just two seed upsets in the 32 first-round games (forget 8-9 stuff) and, really, Winthrop (11) over Notre Dame (6) and VCU (11) over Duke (6) were not huge upsets.
The 18 one-bid leagues were 2-16 in the first round. Only Memphis (C-USA) and Winthrop (Big South) broke through. It was probably not a coincidence that they were the only two teams not to lose a conference game. The six two-bid leagues went 6-6. The six BCS leagues went 21-10.
By the time yesterday's games ended, 12 of the 16 teams left were from the BCS leagues. Only Butler (Horizon), UNLV (Mountain West), Southern Illinois (Missouri Valley) and Memphis beat the BCS cartel.
After two rounds, the major conferences are led by the SEC (7-2), followed by the Pac-10 (7-3), Big 12 (5-2), Big East (5-4, ACC (6-6) and Big Ten (5-5). The Big Ten was 4-1 after the first round. Reality showed up Round 2, when its teams went 1-4. Only an Ohio State miracle kept the league from having no teams in the Sweet 16 for the second consecutive year. The mighty ACC is down to champion North Carolina. The six teams that won the BCS conference tournaments are still playing
I have been asking the same question since we really began to understand the value of the three-point shot 20 years ago. Why didn't Xavier foul at the end of regulation against Ohio State?
Xavier was on the verge of an historic upset. Even though a nine-point lead with 3 minutes left was nearly gone, X had the game won. All it had to do was foul Mike Conley (a 66 percent foul shooter) when he brought the ball over midcourt with 6 seconds left in regulation, his team trailing by three points. Instead, X allowed Conley to pass the ball to the scorching Ron Lewis, who launched a three with 3.5 seconds left. It was perfect. Ohio State dominated the overtime and won comfortably.
I have been over why this makes sense so many times I am not going there again. Just consider Rick Pitino would foul in that situation. I think he is the sharpest big-school coach in America. Nobody understands the value of the shot more. Why every coach does not take a foul there, I have no idea.
