[NU Sports] Big Ten basketball ...

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

... also known as "sports"

... not that I don't enjoy a good political or legal discussion every now and then, but it IS March.

Any response to the brackets and our league? Quick thoughts ...

- Penn State was robbed. A 10-6 mark, wins at MSU and twice over Illinois. 22 overall wins. Yet Arizona and Wisky get in ahead of them?

- To go along with that, the folks in Happy Valley must REALLY be hating the University of Iowa this year. (Welcome to the club :) ).

- Purdue also got shafted. Make a tourney run through a top-tier league and get a FIVE seed while Syracuse gets a THREE??? I thought the Boilers were a 3/4 for sure, maybe 4 if the brackets were finalized before the end of the tourney.

- MSU vs. OSU in the Midwest final? It's certainly a LOADED bracket for the supposed top-seed Louisville (while Carolina and Duke typically get their cushy brackets and head start with two in Greensboro ... do they play in Greensboro every FRICKIN' YEAR ... but I digress :) ) and the Cards get a raw deal with playing OSU in Dayton in round two and possibly MSU in Indy in the Elite Eight. Not to mention KANSAS in that bracket and WAKE as a #4 seed?!?!?!

- On that line, anyone have tickets for the Midwest Regional? WOW! And the west out here in Phoenix won't be too bad either.

Overall, we're underseeded in most places (as opposed to our bowl games) and I like our chances of making some noise. Minny, Michigan, Purdue and Illinois could all overachieve on their seeding ... even Wisky could pull an upset by frustrating FSU like **WE** did (just had to get that in there again!). I think only MSU seems in danger of underperforming on its seed from the Big Ten with Kansas as a tough obstacle.

Nice to see a lot of teams we beat or were right there at the end with in the field and knowing how close we came ... now let's hope for a good NIT run to set up next year as THE YEAR we break through!!!

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

PS - And with the tourney here, GO BIG TEN!

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STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!!