UNC, UCLA move on

Thoughts whilst watching the Great 8 games Saturday night:

UCLA/Xavier

- Wow, both Xavier and UCLA are absolutely great defensive teams. Their fundamentals are tremendous. Double teams, step outs on screens, rotations, getting back to your man - both teams are near flawless. After having Wisconsin's defensive prowess shoved down our Big Ten throats year after year by the announcers, I think both these teams are better. The Badgers are still good, as long as they aren't playing Stephen Curry, but UCLA and X are great.

- That being said, neither one of these teams can shoot here in the first half. Granted, it's tough to get easy shots against these two teams, but even when they are open, nothing is going down, and I can't remember seeing so many shots hit nothing but backboard, by both teams. It's like watching a Gopher scrimmage or something.

- Billy Raftery has made it pretty clear he's a big UCLA guy. He talks about Love and Collison like Madden talks about Urlacher and Favre. It's got to be uncomfortable for Vern Lundquist, having to sit there while Raftery gets a little chubby going every few minutes. Dude, gross.

- UCLA up 33-24 at half. I don't think Xavier is being outplayed that badly, they're just not hitting anything from the outside. Half of their points are off layups and dunks, which they're getting with more ease than UCLA so far. If they can start hitting shots, keep UCLA off the O boards, and find a way to control Love, they can still take this. Of course, easier said than done. UCLA is a 1 seed for a reason. CJ Anderson needs to stop being a woman too, he should be able to score on Shipp all day.

- Winona State won the D-II basketball title. Again. That's like 3 straight years they've been really, really good. I think it's time to make them D-I. If they had been D-I the last few years, I'd probably have been driving down there to watch them instead of having to watch the Gophers.

- UCLA decides to be the UCLA that kicked ass most of the year, and runs out with a 15-4 run to start the second half to go up 20 and turn this into a game that fits in with last nights games - a total blowout. Oof. Was really not expecting this.

- Man, Xavier showing some energy, outhustling UCLA, getting good shots, and nothing going down at all. The difference in the game today has been UCLA making open shots and Xavier missing everything.

- Truly did not expect this kind of whooping, as UCLA heads back to the final four with a 76-57 destruction. Wow. This is the UCLA team that lead me to pick them to win the whole thing.

LOUISVILLE/NORTH CAROLINA

- Rick Pitino has made the Elite 8 in 8 out of the 13 NCAA tournaments he's coached in. That is fairly ridiculous. I really hope he doesn't take the Indiana job (rumored).

- Seriously. Have you ever seen Tyler Hansbrough with his mouth closed? I'll answer for you. No, you haven't.

- Louisville is actually pretty good at not allowing offensive rebounds, but Carolina is killing them, even with Hansbrough on the bench. Combine that with the fact that Carolina is pretty much getting to the rim whenever they want, and they're really lucky to only be down 3.

- As a Louisville fan, let me just say this is disgusting. Cardinals playing zero defense, and even if they manage to make the Heels miss they give up second chances. The press is leading to nothing but easy Heels' baskets, and Pitino is making a huge mistake leaving it on. And on offense, it's basically nothing but 1-on-1 basketball. Horrible.

- When Hansbrough mans up on the perimeter against Earl Clark or Terence Williams, why the eff don't those guys just drive on him? Makes zero sense. Zero.

- Here's something I wrote earlier today, "Louisville likes to press, but they don't turn cause a lot of turnovers and the Heels don't commit many, particularly Lawson who only has 2 TOs in the entire tournament. If the press doesn't create turnovers, it will create easy opportunities for UNC, and make the game more uptempo." HEY PITINO IT'S NOT WORKING CALL THE DAMN THING OFF ALREADY YOU STUPID DAGO WOP.

- Hey, Earl Clark just got the ball at the top of the key with Hansbrough on him, and blew right passed him for an easy layup. Will ya look at that.

- Carolina leads 44-32 at half, and they're kicking the piss out of Louisville. There's been all of one good game this whole set of games so far. I'm counting on you, tomorrow. Please don't let Kansas blow the crap out of Davidson. I'm not really seeing anyway the Memphis/Texas game is a blowout, so maybe we'll at least have that one.

- Louisville looking a little better, cutting it to four. I'm not impressed.

- So the Cardinals tie it up, and then follow up with: Hansbrough layup, Louisville travel, UNC miss, Louisville travel, Hansbrough wide open jumper, Louisville missed front end of 1-and-1. This is how games get away from teams, even after a great run. Just being stupid.

- I've decided I truly, truly hate Hansbrough and UNC in general, and I've always hated Roy Williams. I can't believe I'm going to have to root for Kansas.

- Ah well. Louisville is only losing Padgett and Palacios, and they have a good class coming in. They'll be back.