Tuesday, 3.6.12 Championship Week Open Thread
Do you all watch these tournament games the smaller schools play in (did you watch over the weekend)?
I personally find them interesting. I won't lie and say I can sit down and watch South Carolina St. battle Bethune-Cookman for 2 hours straight, but flipping back n' forth between ESPN, ESPN 2, and ESPN U and catching some play from these schools is entertaining for me. I feel like I'm doing my share of "scouting" for the tournament and can act like I know something about them in 2 weeks when they're actually playing.
Small side-note: Western Illinois from the Summit League is in their championship game tonight. You may remember them from Michigan's narrow defeat over them back in November. I started to do a bit of research to see which teams faced the most amount of Tournament-bound teams, but I'm not smart enough to do that in a quick fashion. The top rated RPI teams have around 10-12 it seemed, maybe 13 and higher for others I didn't look up. If WIU wins tonight, Michigan will have faced 11 (counting Northwestern). The total number of GAMES against Tourney-bound teams is another matter, maybe someone with time and interest would like to put together before Tourney time.
watch every conference tournament games. But I will watch quit a few, I like a lot of mid majors like Akron, Kent, VCU, George Mason, St. Mary's you get the point. But if I flip a game on no matter who is playing I will watch enough to get the score and see if any of them are upsets in the making to take a teams like Northwestern's spot in the Big Dance. I am pulling for Shurna and his Wild Cats to finally make the tournament.