NCAA Tournament Recap

Damn you Gordon Hayward! Just when you thought all that b.s. every analyst and their brother was giving us about the Hoosiers similarities in the Butler run was actually coming to fruition...backboard, iron, floor. It really would've been too good to be true. It would've warranted immediate production on Hoosiers 2, except for having Gene Hackman as head coach, it'd have Keanu Reeves playing Butler head coach Brad Stevens, and Gordon Hayward would be played by Justin Bieber. Plus the shot would've gone in and Hayward (Bieber) would've been mobbed on the floor by every woman in Lucas Oil Stadium a la the Axe (or Tag?) body spray commericals.

Instead of watching absolute chaos ensue should Hayward have made the shot, we had to suffice to watching Coach K awkwardly giving post-game interviews and Brian Zoubek wearing his New Era (I'm assuming) National Champions hat to the side of his head. Sigh. Order was restored and now we all will wake up in the morning, take a piss, and wash our hands because Duke is yet again on top of the basketball world, which means the rest of the country will return to normalcy. (Don't tell that to Republicans.)

All in all, the 2010 NCAA Tournament was incredible. If you're a fan of the little guy, then this was the tournament for you. Butler, Northern Iowa, Cornell, Murray State, St. Mary's. They all proved they can play on the big stage. Those teams give hope to teams such as Creighton. Now maybe we can make the National Championship game! Or at least the Sweet 16!!! In all honesty, if those teams can make it to the promise land, we can make it to the promise land. The entire country had Butler's back, everyone pulling for the little guy. Will Butler become a national power from now on? I don't know and neither do you, and although it's doubtful they will become one, at least they gave us a ride to remember for the rest of our lives. Kind of ironic that old Nebraska basketball head coach Barry Collier is the Bulldogs' athletic director. Nebraska suffered terribly during the Collier era, yet the Bulldog's have thrived with him as athletic director. Does Barry Collier even care? Probably not, the guy shows less emotion than your typical indie music scene newspaper columnist, but he should be proud of the job he has done for a tiny, private, Horizon League oriented university in the heart of a proud basketball state.

What were Simple Plays' top ten moments of this past NCAA Tournament, you ask? Well, for starters, I don't exactly remember everything that happened throughout the entire tournament. (Consider the fact that I had school, and I had less days off to the start of offseason workouts since our CIT loss than Jay Leno gave himself when he "retired.") You're probably going to get a half-ass, David Letterman-esque Top Ten (Who actually likes his Top Tens?) compared to a Travel Channel Top Hawaiian Beaches Top Ten, but I'll give it my best shot.

10) Former Creighton freshman stud and current Murray State stud Isaac Miles was MSU's leading scorer and dished the final assist to teammate Danero Thomas as Thomas swished an elbow jumper as time expired to upset 4-seeded Vandy in the first round.

9) Go Big Red! No, not your beloved Husker football team, but the Cornell Big Red! A Sweet 16 run by the Nerds from the North made 4.0 students everywhere awkwardly excited, and most certainly pleased Andy Bernard.

8) Jimmer Fredette. Yes, Jays fans, assuming Fredette doesn't go the NBA, you will see him in the Q next year as we play BYU in the Mountain West-Missouri Valley Challenge. All of DJ's Dugout (my hotspot for the first two rounds) was going wild for Jimmer every time he scored. He refused to pass, but who cares because he scored every time he touched it, and he looked more like a mormon Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino than a phenomenal basketball player.

7) Robert Morris almost upset 2-seeded Villanova in the first round which would have been only the fifth time in the history of the tournament that had happened. It went into overtime and of course Villanova prevailed, but that didn't prevent a friend of mine that attends Villanova to text me that, "Robert Morris is playing dirty." Yes Tom, I'm sure that's the reason it was so close.

6) Korie Lucious' buzzer beating three in the second round sent Greivis Vasquez and the Terps home and set up a Sweet 16 matchup with a familiar Valley foe.

5) Down goes Frazier! Whoops, I mean Kansas. Our fellow Missouri Valley compatriots, the Northern Iowa Panthers, knocked off the No. 1 overall seed of the tournament in the second round.

4) He floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. No, not Casey Harriman, but Ali Farokhmanesh! I apologize for the boxing references, but they seemed to fit perfectly into where I was going with numbers four and five. (I'm so clever with Northern Iowa's star player being named Ali, don't you think?) Farokhmanesh came out of nowhere in the Big Dance hitting the game-winning three against UNLV in the first round, and sinking the hearts of Jayhawk fans everywhere in the second round with a dagger three to put the Panthers up four with 30 seconds left and having the Jayhawks' national championship aspirations torn to shreds.

3) Huggy Bear is so affectionate. What a weird sight that was. As WVU star player Da'Sean Butler went down and tore his ACL in the second half of the Mountaineers' Final Four game against Duke, head coach Bob Huggins felt it necessary to console his player as if Butler was dying in the middle of the floor. He lied down practically on top of his star player and gave him some kind words (I'm assuming, but then again, we are talking about Bob Huggins here) and consoled him for a good thirty seconds before CBS even finally got uncomfortbale and decided to just show replays intead. All uncomfortability aside, it was a nice gesture from coach Huggins.

2) Hickory High, err, the Butler Bulldogs. Yes, I did just make that reference for the 987,000th time this past month. The tiny Bulldogs had an entire nation supporting them and pulling for the little guy, which was pretty cool to see. They played fundamental, great team defense, and played extremely well together. The ultimate underdog story.

1) The shot heard round the world needed an inch more arc on it, and we'd be talking about probably the greatest end to any sporting event of all-time. It wouldv'e been the most significant sports story of all time. David beats Goliath (sorry, you've heard that one a million times too) on a half-court shot as time expires? Too bad things like that don't actually happen. Maybe for another lifetime. For now, we'll have to settle with the Dookies being dubbed the best again, and now we'll have to see them and face-painted girls and Valedictorians on ESPN double the amount than we're used to. Like I said earlier, order was restored in the sports world and it makes one wonder if Coach K lives by Coach Altman's favorite mantra...Simple plays, fellas, simple plays.