East Region: Second Weekend Review

Cornell was the cinderella after the first weekend and it had the chance to knock off Kentucky for an incredible upset of all upsets. The Juicy Fruit Big Red came out and grabbed a 10-2 lead or something like that, but then Kentucky ended the game on a 60-35 run to put an end to the Ivy Leaguer's run. It was nice while it lasted, but Cornell is losing a lot of seniors and they may not be competitive for a few more years. The best thing about surprise teams like that is all of the background stories of the players. The tall guy that looked like an 8' tall Daniel Craig was recruited by no one out of high school, then ended up being a beast of all beasts.

Who does he think he is wearing #1 as a center, Amare Stoudemire? No, better.

Let me just say that I have no idea what really happened in the W. Virginia/Washington game, but I could take a guess. Washington led at halftime 29-27, but then the Mountaineers realized that they were bigger and better team than the Huskies. W. Virginia outrebounded Washington 41-25, but also outturnovered (sp?) them 23-21. I caught the end of this game and holy shit, it was just bad pass after steal after foul after step out of bounds; just plain ugly basketball. After W. Virginia walked off the court with a 13-point win, I did not think they stood a chance against Kentucky.

From left: Some guy, Who cares, J. Wall, D. Cousins

Looking at the final score of this Elite 8 matchup, you would not catch the gist of the game whatsoever. If I told you that W. Virginia did not make a two point basket in the first half, would you believe that they were actually ahead? Well they were, 28-26, by way of eight threes and four foul shots even though Kentucky was outrebounding the Mountaineers 29-13. However, the Wildcats missed all eight of their threes in the first half, missed the next twelve and finished 4-32 (13%) from long range for the game.

Not kidding.

Well Kentucky shot 23-67 overall, so that means they shot 19-35 (54%) from inside the arc, but shooting 16-29 (55%) from the free throw line does not help your cause. The Wildcats basically fouled for the last three minutes and forced the Mountaineers to make foul shots, which they did well enough, going 23-34 (68%) for the game. Kentucky finally made some threes at the end and got it within maybe five at one point, but the deficit they dug early on was too much to overcome. I was just thinking that if Kentucky even shot 7-32 from three, which still sucks, they would have been right in this game; the Wildcats were the superior team, but not on this night.

Cue: More depressing Kentucky post-game pictures.

On the other hand, W. Virginia shot 10-23 (44%) from three point range, but just 20-52 overall from the floor. This means the Mountaineers were just 10-29 (34%) shooting twos. But with all of the fouling Kentucky did in the final three minutes, which really took 25 minutes, foul shots upped W. Virginia's score to 73 points. Joe Mazzulla had a career high 17 points, DeMarcus Cousins was a non-factor in the second half, and John Wall fouled out with a few minutes remaining to cement the Mountaineers' trip to Indy with Sweet Home Alabama (or whatever) in the background.

Alright man, you are actually kind of good...