It’s Been an Exciting March, but Enough With the Upsets

Stop the madness, will you, March?

Upsets are the stuff of the NCAA tournament, but too many of them can get to be, well, a little upsetting.

Already, the Pacific and Mountain time zones have only one team left to root for--thank you, Gonzaga--since the Pacific 10 Conference packed it in.

Already, we know there will be no rematch between Duke and Cincinnati, the only team to beat the Blue Devils this season.

Not that you’re likely to hear any of the zeroed-in Blue Devils express their disappointment about not getting a chance for payback against the Bearcats.

“A Final Four banner does not have the words, ‘They played Cincinnati,’ or, ‘They didn’t play Cincinnati,’ ” Blue Devil forward Shane Battier said. “A Final Four banner is a Final Four banner. If we can get one, it doesn’t matter who we play. Little Sisters of the Poor? Great.”

It’s true that Gonzaga’s Zags, Miami’s Wally World and Steve Alford’s Southwest Missouri State team are terrific stories. Fresh faces and solid teams, thriving on stability while the revolving door to the pros spins at other schools.

Three-fourths of last year’s Final Four--North Carolina, Stanford and Utah--has been shown the door.

The only teams that have won an NCAA title in the 1990s still in the field are Duke and Kentucky, with two apiece.

Let’s just hope we get another Kentucky-Duke clash in the Final Four--it would probably require a Kentucky upset of Michigan State--or a title game between Duke and Connecticut to make the whole thing seem legitimate.

Even a St. John’s-Duke final would be acceptable, since St. John’s stretched Duke to overtime before losing in January in Duke’s toughest victory.

Still, behind what seems like brackets turned upside-down by 19 upsets in the first 48 games, there is some sanity.

All four top-seeded teams--Duke, Connecticut, Michigan State and Auburn--are alive.

In the South Regional, the top four teams all progressed according to form: No. 1 Auburn, No. 2 Maryland, No. 3 St. John’s and No. 4 Ohio State.

Thank Kentucky and Kansas for the best game of the tournament so far.

But overall, it’s the Year of the No. 10 Seeds.

After two rounds, they’re 7-1.

“It’s been a crazy year,” Battier said. “A really crazy year. It’s exciting for college basketball when teams that don’t get as much press come out and play the so-called powers and beat them.”

Here’s to Detroit Mercy, Weber State and Creighton, one-game wonders who buried UCLA and its 11 national championships, North Carolina and its three, Louisville and its two.

Here’s to Gonzaga, Miami and Southwest Missouri State.

It’s been exciting, but enough is enough.

“It doesn’t scare us,” Battier said. “The teams that have lost might have overlooked their opponents.”

The Blue Devils insist they won’t.

DUKE’S DOMINANCE

Consider this string of numbers: 46, 31, 26, 27, 32, 20, 37, 15, 23, 41, 41.

Those are Duke’s winning margins in its last 11 games since an eight-point victory over Georgia Tech on Feb. 6.

That’s an average margin of 30.8 points, with all but one victory by 20 or more.

Why is Duke so relentless?

Look no further than last year.

“We took a lot away from the Kentucky game last year when we didn’t deliver the knockout punch,” Battier said. “We’ve made a point to really stomp on a team’s heart.”

Duke was up by 17 with less than 10 minutes left in the South Regional final, apparently on its way to the Final Four.

But Kentucky stormed back, 86-84, and went on to win the national championship.

By the way, the Blue Devils’ back-to-back 41-point victories in the first two rounds marked the first time in NCAA tournament history a team has had consecutive 40-point victories.

Just in case the question arises this weekend: The record for largest winning margin in a regional semifinal or final is 49 points, set by UCLA in 1967 in a 109-60 victory over Wyoming.

HEARTBREAK HISTORY

There is a crew of coaches in the Sweet 16 trying to reach the Final Four for the first time.

But three in particular have never made it, despite long, distinguished careers--Temple’s John Chaney, Purdue’s Gene Keady and Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun. (Too bad for Chaney and Keady they’re in Duke’s quarter of the draw.)

Chaney has made it to three regional finals but lost to Duke in 1988, North Carolina in 1991 and Michigan in 1993.

Keady made it to the final eight in 1994 before losing to Duke.

Calhoun almost got there in 1990, but Christian Laettner’s famous game-winning shot at the end of overtime meant Duke--there’s that school again--made it instead. Connecticut lost to UCLA in the final eight in 1995 and to North Carolina last season.

ONE LAST CONFERENCE CALL

The Pac-10’s four teams in the Sweet 16 the last two years didn’t prove the league was the nation’s best, as some contended.

And the Pac-10’s 1-4 record this season shouldn’t be an indictment of what was a very strong league.

There are those who will point to the youth of UCLA and Arizona, or the injury trouble of UCLA and Stanford, but the answer is that each game was its own event.

The Big Ten has four teams in the Sweet 16 this season and was considered the deepest league in the country most of the season.

But the Southeastern Conference has three, and over most of the season, didn’t look close to the strongest league in the country, for whatever it’s worth.

“Things in the tournament have very little to do with strength of conference,” Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski said. “I think it’s all about matchups and how well you’re playing.”

QUICK SHOTS

The St. John’s-Maryland game Thursday looks like the best of the Sweet 16 matchups. Although gauging the value of comparative scores is an unreliable science, St. John’s took Duke to overtime before losing by four, and Maryland lost to Duke by 18 twice. However, Stanford beat St. John’s by two and lost to Maryland by the same margin.

For sheer suspense, the best game is Florida-Gonzaga, since one will be a very unlikely member of the final eight. . . . The hottest coaching commodities are Rick Majerus, who might consider Notre Dame but probably wouldn’t jump to San Diego State and said at an NCAA tournament news conference he is unlikely to leave Utah; Southwest Missouri State’s Alford, expected to land at Iowa shortly; almost any current or former Duke assistant, from Quin Snyder to Delaware’s Mike Brey; and Gonzaga’s Dan Monson.

The likelihood of Bill Guthridge serving out his five-year contract as Dean Smith’s replacement at North Carolina seemed to fade with the Tar Heels’ first-round loss in his second season, but the consensus is that his future is up to him. . . . The national player of the year should be Duke sophomore Elton Brand, but the best future NBA players on the team may be freshman swingman Corey Maggette, who comes off the bench, and sophomore point guard William Avery.

Highest future NBA lottery pick not getting any mention for player of the year: Rhode Island’s Lamar Odom, who has not announced if he will return for another season. . . . Their stock is rising: Miami’s Wally Szczerbiak, Duke’s Avery, Maryland’s Terence Morris, Oklahoma’s Eduardo Najera.