Sweet 16, BREAK IT DOWN!

First off, I know, new header, I have finally changed the name of the page to "Sterling Sports". I think I can, seeingsthough I am the last survivor of the site that was started more than a year ago. Now onto the Degenerate Break it Down of the Sweet 16.

MIDWEST

1. Louisville v. 12. Arizona

Louisville should run away with this one. Arizona was one of the hottest teams coming out of the first two rounds of the tournament, but look for Rick Pitino's Cardinals to bounce back after a couple tough games. In the tournament the old adage is very true, what doesn't kill (or eliminate you) makes you stronger(makes you stronger, (I guess I only had to change the beginning of the saying). Louisville is one of those deep teams, when you can bring a guy like Edgar Sosa off the bench, you're without a deep team. Arizona's starting 5 have been producing incredibly effectively, except the kryptonite for a team like this is taking on a team with a deep bench. Take into account the coaching mismatch and Louisville should roll by about 16 points.

3. Kansas v. 2. Michigan St.

This is going to be a terrific match up. Sherron Collins (who Tom Izzo called this afternoon on the Jim Rome show, the best point guard in the country.) matches up with the very skilled Spartan back court. These are two veteran teams that have had tournament success and two of the top coaches in the country. This is going to be a very good match up, I see Kansas winning it though. On the latest edition of the BS Report, J.A. Adande and Bill Simmons talked about how teams who win a championship go a round further than they probably should the next season. I had Kansas losing last weekend to West Virginia, so if I do believe somebody who picked BC to go to the Elite 8 just to jinx them, then that's what I will do.

Kansas pulls this one out by 5 in what is going to be a terrific game.

WEST

1. UCONNv. 5. Purdue

This game could be better than I thought and after the revelations and the yahoo.com piece about recruiting violations at UCONN, they could be in for a rough weekend. The only thing that could save them is the fact that I believe most of the UCONN players are there via recruiting violations. This won't distract this team because I don't think they care about anything beyond what goes on between the lines.

UCONN will roll in this one, by 16, but will stumble in the Elite 8 against either Memphis or Missouri.

3. Missouri v. 2. Memphis

This is going to be an incredibly athletic game, up and down and if they are each hitting their shots this could be the highest scoring game of the tournament. These are two teams that could turn this into a track meet. This is also a huge game in one of my bracket pools with my buddy Tom. He has Missouri in the Final Four and I have them in the Elite 8 so this is a showdown game in this tournament and so far I have lost many of our showdown games. It would also be nice if Carolina were to lose to Oklahoma like I have picked, but that's another column.

EAST

1. PITT v. 4. Xavier

Xavier pulled away from Wisconsin in the last round and PITT had a real battle with Oklahoma State (See Louisville). PITT survived and really played very well in that game. Oklahoma State could not have played any better in that game and people looked at it as a sign of weakness for PITT, when really they showed what they were made of that they could take the best shot from an extremely athletic team. Xavier is a similar style to Oklahoma State but not as talented. PITT should roll in this one and into the Final Four.

2. Duke v. 3 Villanova

I can't possibly be objective in this game. The Dukies had to battle Texas and Villanova eliminated UCLA very easily across town from their own campus. This is a very good match up, Doug Gottlieb said that it was the best match up of the Sweet 16, and it might be. There will be very little post play in this one, very little inside game and there will be plenty of tremendous guard play and plenty of 3's will be jacked up. I'll be watching this one in Shoeless Joe's in Fort Myers, had I known that the Sweet 16 was going to be in Boston, I would have been at this one in the Garden.

SOUTH

1. UNC v. 4. Gonzaga

Here's another game that it will be hard for me to be objective about. I do think that it's possible that this could be an upset in the making. Gonzaga on paper matches up pretty well with North Carolina, except that suddenly Ed Davis is playing very well for Carolina and Ty Lawson looked fantastic against LSU. Pargo and Heytvelt will have their work cut out for them now, so I think UNC will pull this one out by about 12.

3. Syracuse v. 2. Oklahoma

Oklahoma has had a couple of real battles in this tournament that might not be like the other top teams that had this same affliction, (Louisville and PITT, by the way, these three teams are all in my Final Four, how good do I feel?) This is going to be a tough match up, can Blake Griffin take this game over? Yes, will he? That is the question that will dictate who wins this game.

Oklahoma wins by 6.

Off to Fort Myers, check back next Tuesday for my annual Grading the Sox column.

Sterling Pingree

It was the best of times.....

It was the worst of times.

That pretty much wraps up my bracket right now. My Final Four is intact, 7 of my 8 Elite 8 teams are still alive and I got 13 of 16 teams in the Sweet 16. I'm trailing my Buddy Tom by 5 games. The Dukies are still alive, so I'm hanging in there. My performance hasn't been great, almost every game that I picked and got wrong I quickly second guessed. After being very successful bracketwise the last 3 years I knew that I was in for trouble this year, also because this is just a wide open year in my opinion. My past performances indicate that I might still be in for a solid finish. My past performances indicate that my later round picks are better than my early picks and while peoples picks are going down in flames and mine are surviving I keep picking the bones that are the Final Four games.

From this past extended weekend of games, there are teams that looked great in one of their two games (Duke, Oklahoma, Michigan State, Louisville, PITT and North Carolina) and then there is the only team that really looked good in both (UCONN). How is this going to transfer to the round of 16? It's hard to tell, the next 3 days are an amazing thing, some teams that looked like they might get knocked out in the second round(Duke, Louisiville, Pitt and Missouri) could very easily come back hot on Thursday.

I will be back this week with game by game predictions, before I head to Fort Myers for the end of Red Sox and Twins Spring Training on Thursday.

Coming next week, my annual Grading the Sox column from Fort Myers.

Sterling Pingree

Bouncing back

It's just a day of good news and bad news for me so far in the big dance.

I went on a run and got all four mid afternoon games correct and right now Washington is going to make it number 5 in a row after my inauspicious start.

The bad news is that my buddy Tom is somehow 7 for 7 right now.

Oh how I hate BYU right now. The games tonight are gonna be big, but I'm feeling pretty strong about my picks. Hoping my Western Kentucky upset pick comes through, I feel good about it, Illinois is banged up and Western Kentucky BEAT LOUSIVILLE this year.

GO DUKIES!!!

Sterling Pingree

Things are bad......

Tourney is underway and of course I'm decked out in my oversized Duke hoodie and Jordan shorts. That's the good news, the bad news is that I only have one game right so far and even that game I wish I had gotten wrong (Memphis). My buddy Tom is busting my chops, even though I've beaten him consistently in bracket pools throughout our college career. Each year we make a bet and the loser has to buy Chinese food for the winner. Nothing tastes better than free Chinese food that you earned because of your bracket supremacy, I have it once a year.
Things are starting bad, but I can backup the two bad picks that I made.
1. I took BYU over Texas A&M, yes it was a dumb pick, but when picking my bracket I always look for trends and things that I could see happening that could be a storyline in the tournament. I really like Utah State to pull off the upset and Arizona screws me over every year whether I pick them or not, so I chose "or not" this year. So I was going with a whole "Stormin' Mormon" thing and I guess it's just not working out. Though I still love Utah State.
2. I am in Pat Neshek's bracket pool this year. Thinking that it might be good karma to pick his Alma mater in the first round, I took the Butler Bulldogs. Plus I really liked their inside game and as it turns out, that was the bright spot of their game today. They came as advertised and LSU came together, they were a team that was trending downward at the end of the season, things just didn't match up.
I had a bad feeling going into this year's tournament, I've had a couple spectacular years in a row, picking the national championship right each of the last three years. This could be the year I get brought back down to earth.
More updates throughout the day, I might be going out tonight though, and my Dukies play Binghamton at 9:40pm tonight. I might have to blow off some friends to watch the Duke score at the top of the screen. For the only time this year, its the one time I hope the Duke game isn't on tv, because if it is, that means that it's close. I don't want close, I want blow out and 30 from Gerald Henderson Jr,

Updates coming.

Sterling Pingree

A Classic? Yes! The Best? No!

First off, there is no chance that this column is about racing, Nascar or any type of racing whatsoever. So if you started reading this because you thought it was about racing, then keep reading and you'll learn something useful.

Last night we may have witnessed one of the most entertaining college basketball games of all time. I will not call it the greatest college basketball game of all time, that still goes to Kentucky vs Duke when Laettner hit the game winner. (Yes, I am a Duke fan, no, I'm not being a homer.) It didn't have the buzzer beaters, it didn't have great shots, or incredible plays. The biggest highlight of the game was the Devendorf buzzer beater that wasn't, and then Paul Harris missing two point blank lay ups before finally laying the ball in while getting fouled pretty much putting the game away in the 6th overtime. The game will absolutely live on in the memory of college basketball fans. The only problem was that it wasn't in the Big Dance, it was in the Big East tournament. If last night's game was on CBS on a Sunday afternoon or Saturday afternoon, then this would become a game that is mentioned in the same breath as any big time NCAA tournament game that's ever been played. Part of the romance of the game was because it was watched by fans of the two teams, and then hardcore college basketball fans, that is what will hold it back. My Mom remembers huge games, she even remembers watching Laettner hitting the game winner against Kentucky and things like that. She would probably remember something about last night's game if it didn't start before she went to bed. If it started at 1pm on Saturday while I'm watching the game, it would be that marathon game.

The other reason that the game will be remembered but wasn't the greatest was just the level of play. The overtimes were great but if you take them away the game is just another good, solid college basketball game. But when you add in the 6 overtimes the level of play went down so far. It's like when a baseball game goes 20 innings and each team has a reliever in that neither team wants in there, but you just know that it's going to end soon. There were players coming into the game last night that hardly played a minute all season and they were playing major minutes (if you're Syracuse) that could decide their fate.

The game did show one thing, it did show that UCONN does have heart. Which is something that I thought they were completely lacking. When asked the other day who I thought would win the tournament, I said right now I like Pitt, but Oklahoma would probably be my pick. (Blake Griffin healthy? Those losses for Oklahoma came when he was out with a concussion. Yes they lost yesterday, but apparently nobody wants to win their conference tournament's, so they can get extra rest for the NCAA tournament.) I was then asked why I didn't think that UCONN could win it all? My response was, when they get down they quit. They are no where near the same team when they get behind as they are when they have the lead the entire game and can dominate. They're a team that can put a team away when they know that they're better than them. But we saw it when they played against Pitt that when a team battles them and physically pushes them around they back off. Last night showed a little more of what they are made of, though they led the for the entirety of overtime and then lost the lead int he 6th overtime and eventually the game. So maybe they do have heart, but perhaps my new flack on them is that they can't put a team away? Yeah, that works for me. I don't like UCONN and that one sounds good.

Sterling Pingree