March Madness Begins...

March Madness officially began today with the tip-off from Buffalo, N.Y. when the 13 seed Davidson Wildcats took on 4 seed Maryland. I was especially tied to this game because I unlike many others predicted a Davidson upset. They have seen a number of top 25 teams during the season and had fared pretty well. They had also lost a lot of starters from the year before and were led by freshman guard Stephen Curry. Curry was impressive today scoring 30 points and putting Davidson ahead a number of times during the game. They were so much smaller than Maryland physically, with there biggest player on the floor standing at 6 feet 8 inches compared to much taller Terps. Their size showed as the Wildcats could only manage to keep in the game throwing up three pointers all day, which worked well in the first half but fell through in the second. Stephen Curry (son of former NBA player and Virginia Tech standout Del Curry) hit 5 three pointers which looks good if you don't know he attempted 14 of them. F William Archambault came off the bench to knock down 3 three pointers, but Davidson could only manage to hit 34.3% from the field. Maryland played more conservatively and found themselves down a number of times in the course of the game as a result. At halftime, the Terps clung to a 44-43 lead, lost it early in the second half but continued to play their game and outscored Davidson 38-27 down the stretch to win their first round match 82-70. Maryland's regulars played well, Ekene Ibekwe scored 11 points and pulled down 10 boards, D.J. Strawberry scored 12 and Senior guard Mike Jones led the team with 17 points. The player of the game for Maryland was definitely junior Bambale Osby (transfer from New Mexico) who came off the bench, when Ibekwe got into foul trouble, played 21 minutes and scored 11 points and 6 rebounds.

A couple of my upset picks have already fallen today with Davidson falling to Maryland and Texas Tech losing to a tough Boston College team. I also have Oral Roberts knocking off Washington State (up 28-26 at halftime) and Virginia Commonwealth beating Duke later today. Tomorrow, I have Winthrop over Notre Dame, Texas A&M C.C. over Wisconsin, North Texas over Memphis and Long Beach St. beating Tennessee. The only game i'm not to sold on is my pick against Wisconsin. Just watch the game because, TACC is a great shooting team, so hopefully that will be enough to catch the Badgers off guard. I don't think they will win, but i think they definitely have a shot if they stay focused.