Musings from the first weekend of the NCAA tournament

Guards matter

I have always said that in college basketball it's all about your guards and that in the NBA it's all about your big guys. It's not true of every team, but you can make the case that the guards are carrying the day for teams that can make a deep run. Of course the best examples are Jimmer and Kemba, but keep an eye on a team like Ohio State. For all the talk about Jared Sullinger, their play on the perimeter might be the reason they win it all. Duke is another example; if my theory holds, their run will be driven by the duo of Nolan Smith and Kyrie Irving. Let's be honest - it seriously supports my argument if Duke makes a run with the band of stiffs they parade out to the post positions. As Paul Pabst from the Dan Patrick Show put it: Plumlee in Latin is "has five fouls to give."

I plan on returning to this theory when the NBA playoffs come around. The Lakers will win another championship because nobody can box out their bigs, and the Bulls win will the East not because of Derrick Rose but because of Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah.

Attention players: STOP FALLING DOWN

A charge should actually be a really rare call. Refs are too excited to call it, and players are way too excited to run to a spot and be the hero who draws the call. How many times this weekend did a player try to draw a charge, flop down like a fool, and then allow the other team to have an easy offensive put-back because there was no call and they were lying on the ground?

For some reason players think that if they keep the top part of their body totally rigid, the refs won't notice that they slid or leaned into the contact. Of course the reason might be that the refs don't notice far too often. Refs: quit being so desperate to make a dramatic charge call. Players: stop falling down and challenge the shot. Please.

The Final Four will be a lot of chalk

For all the talk this year about how the field is wide open, and it has been, the Final Four will be Kansas, BYU, Duke, and Ohio State. Ohio State and Kansas are the most well rounded teams left, and Duke and BYU will ride the best guards in the tourney not named Kemba Walker. BYU is hardly an upset team in the Final Four as a #3 seed and having the best player in the country. That's chalk.