Passing thoughts…

I’ve been watching alot of basketball lately, which is weird because I usually don’t leave the channel on a b-ball game unless it’s late in the NBA playoffs or if it’s a 2nd or 3rd round NCAA tourney game. It’s just that ever since the madness that was the NBA trading deadline, I’ve actually been fairly interested in the NBA. I haven’t followed the NBA since Jordan was in his prime, let alone actually looking forward to watching a game. But things seem to be changing in the NBA. The focus is less on the thugs and more on the truly talented individuals, who actually are good people for a change.

Houston just finished a 22-0 run through the middle of the season. That qualifies as the 2nd longest winning streak in NBA history, and they don’t even have an all-star player (they did for the first 14 or so wins, but then Yao went down with an injury and they just kept winning). Their roster is made of guys that play hard for the full 48 minutes every night, and always look for the open man, instead of how to get their shot on Sports Center. Boston finally found the right mix to end the streak, but it says alot for a team to put it together for 22 straight.

My thoughts on the NCAA tourney after the jump.

This is the only part of the college basketball season that matters, and most of America spends hours that they should be working, filling out brackets hoping to correctly guess the winner. I correctly guessed the final game last year (including the winner) for the first time in my life, and here’s my shot at this year.

Round of 32 winners (there won’t be much narration as I really haven’t seen too many of these teams play)

North Carolina over Indiana
Washington State over Notre Dame
Louisville over Oklahoma
Tennessee over South Alabama
Kansas over Kent State
Clemson over Vanderbilt
USC over Wisconsin
Georgetown over Gonzaga
Memphis over Mississippi State
Michigan State over Pittsburgh
Stanford over Marquette
Texas over Miami (Fla.)
UCLA over BYU
Connecticut over Drake
Xavier over Purdue
West Virginia over Duke

The Final Four

North Carolina over Tennessee
Georgetown over Clemson
Memphis over Texas
UCLA over Xavier

Championship
North Carolina over UCLA

There ya have it. Now go fill out your brackets and let me know how you end up doing!