— Xavier 85, Texas 80
Longhorns led by 10 with 12:31 left to play.
Xavier shot 12-25 on the arc.
Xavier had home crowd edge, with game in Ohio.
Musketeers advance to play Illinois next.
— Mt St Mary’s 83, American 72
Mt St Mary’s shot 70% inside the arc.
Mountaineers led 48-38 at halftime.
American was 13-35 on the arc, 14-22 inside arc.
Mt St Mary’s advances to play Duke Friday.
— Famous birthdays, March 20th:
Hal Linden, 95
Pat Riley, 80
Rick Langford, 73
Steve McCatty, 71
Amy Aquino, 69
Spike Lee, 68
Holly Hunter, 67
Mookie Blaylock, 58
Jose Tena, 24
Taj Bradley, 24
— I’m in a fantasy baseball league, a dynasty league, so you keep your players from year to year, if you want to. This is the 21st year of our league.
Been watching lot of YouTube shows about fantasy baseball; in one mock draft, out of the first 43 players drafted, only one of them was on my team. I’m like, good grief my team isn’t going to have a good year. The geniuses on this show hate my players.
Lot of those geniuses tend to overvalue younger players, and guys who had great years last year. We’ll see what happens; my team is usually pretty good, more wins than losses, would be nice to the championship one of these years. We’ll see what happens.
— 6am games baseball from Japan are a BAD IDEA; what about out in Las Vegas— what poor bastards have to work in the sportsbook at 2am-3am, taking bets on these games? Casinos are open 24/7, but sportsbooks aren’t, unless something is going on.
Obviously MLB somehow made a boatload of $$$ on those two games, or else they wouldn’t do it, but market the sport better in this country.
— When the NBA expands in the next few years, they need to put a team back in Seattle. NBA screwed Seattle when they pulled the SuperSonics out of there in 2008; the city supported the team very well, they just wouldn’t build a new arena that wasn’t needed.
17 years later, Seattle has a new arena; they have an NHL team now, and hopefully soon, the NBA will be back there. Las Vegas would probably get the other expansion team.
— The ball/strike instant replay challenge system continues to be interesting to follow; they’ve done it in AAA the last three years. It’ll probably become a major league rule next year.
Last year, there were an average of 3.9 pitches/game challenged, with 51% of the calls being overturned by instant replay.
Quick look at the first round of the NIT:
— Chattanooga 109, Middle Tennessee 103, 3OT
93-possession game; kid on MTSU scored 31 points and he didn’t start.
Both teams shot over 64% inside the arc; fun game to watch.
— Dayton 86, FAU 79
Dayton’s arena hosts the play-in games for the NCAA’s, so they can’t host NIT games.
Dayton shot 65.4% inside arc, scored 1.26 points/possession.
5-10 G Bennett scored 30 points, had one assist; his job was to shoot.
— UAB 69, St Joe’s 65
Blazers outscored St Joe’s 13-4 over the last 4:12 of this game.
UAB was 21-54 inside the arc, 4-14 on arc; unusual in this day and age.
— How do you handicap NIT games? I don’t; everyone is disappointed to be there, impossible to tell who is still motivated to play ball. After you see these first round games, you can evaluate and make decisions, but first round games, 48-72 hours after the NCAA brackets come out?
No thank you.
— Jacksonville State 81, Georgia Tech 64
Take this game; how does a team from Conference USA go to an ACC gym and crush their hosts? Gamecocks never trailed, shot 15-30 on the arc, won easily. Go figure.
— Arkansas State 103, Saint Louis 78
Red Wolves scored 1.36 points/possession against a team whose eFG% defense was still in the top 100, even after this debacle. Arkansas State had a week since they lost in Sun Belt tourney, Billkens had three days. Maybe that is something to keep track of.
— Cal-Irvine 82, Northern Colorado 72
Northern Colorado led this game by 9 early in second half.
Few years ago, I met Irvine coach Russell Turner at an AAU tournament in Las Vegas; he’s a good guy and a very good coach. Last three years, Anteaters are 76-28; would be fun to see them make a run and get to the NIT Final Four. Irvine has the #16 eFG% defense in country.
— Favorites went 11-5 ATS in the first round of the NIT
