Saturday, March 10, 2007

NC State wins again

NC State has now beaten Duke, and the ACC's number two and three seeds on three consecutive nights. They now will go for the one, two, three sweep against North Carolina.

Now, on to a couple of teams that will definitely be in the show.

Notre Dame and Georgetown equally impressed me in that matchup last night. It was truly a top five game this year, along with four others probably involving Texas.

Notre Dame showed that they can force the tempo against a truly elite team (yes, Georgetown is that good) that does not play the high-tempo offensive game. Conversely, for Georgetown, they showed that they can hang in a game when they are not controlling the tempo with what I like to call "The Princeton Offense for Major-Conference Talent". After Notre Dame had their double-digit lead early in the first half, Georgetown decided to run with them and count on the turning point in the game being halftime. That's exactly what the Hoyas ended up doing, playing more of their style in the second half.

It was also a very hard-fought game for being so high-scoring and showed that Notre Dame can play a little defense when it was needed with the Irish down seven late.

The contest, regardless of what happens tonight against Pittsburgh, affirmed my belief that Georgetown can go very deep in the tournament. For Notre Dame, it made me think that, with the right draw, that they could be a Sweet 16 or Elite 8 team.

The next set of games on this oh-so-beautiful day of hoops features a bunch of conference title game with the A10, Pac-10, MEAC, SWAC, MAC and MWC winners all to be decided in the next three hours or so.

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