Three Man Weave: NCAA Men’s Basketball Southwest Region Preview

Time to review what we learned from the Southwest Region so far in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and what to look forward to this weekend.

Music to listen to: Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas

-If you’re looking for your next head coach, take a visit to Richmond, Va.  Tremendous moment for the basketball community of Richmond as both Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth are in the Sweet 16 at the same time and in the same region.  Unofficially,  this has to be the first time this has to have happened for the same city in a long, long time.

This is just another example that if you have the right coaching and recruit the right players for your system and coach them up, you can make a run in the tournament.

Richmond and VCU have been top mid-major programs for the past five or six years so their emergence this year shouldn’t be surprising.

-Purdue finally missed Robbie Hummel at the wrong time.  The Boilermakers had an excellent year and found a way to have a good regular season but its difficult to lose your potential All-America player at the start of the year and it caught up to Purdue in its lost to Florida State.

-Vanderbilt’s loss shows me that I can’t trust them to perform well in the NCAA Tournament again.  I’ve sworn off taking Gonzaga ever again in the Tournament because of too many disappointments and Vanderbilt has joined the list.

The sad part as a Commodore fan is that I actually picked Richmond to win the contest becasue I knew exactly what would happen.

As stated above, I have respect for Richmond but Vanderbilt was never in that contest and the main reason is that the Commodores’ best players come up short in the biggest games, and yes, I’m looking right at you Jeffrey Taylor.

-Louisville has also made the list.

Was I the only one who was confused to see Rick Pitino on TV the day after the Cardinals lost to Morehead State doing commentary on CBS?  Way to move on from the loss Slick Rick.  We shouldn’t be surprised because he  never turns down an offer that means more money in his pocket or face time on TV.

I’m sorry, no respecting coach makes plans to be on TV like that if he expects his team to do well in the tourney.

If Louisville didn’t make the tournament and Pitino did commentary, that’s fine.  However, to get on the first plane to New York after your team lost that contest to Morehead State would hurt me if I was a Louisville fan.

-There’s also room on my list for Georgetown…

-Notre Dame overachieved all season and lost to a Florida State squad that was honestly better than the Irish.

On to the matchups:

Kansas vs. Richmond:  The Jayhawks look like they’ve gotten their act together at the right time.

I would like to take the Spiders and enjoy watching Kevin Anderson play but they drew a bad matchup.

Winner: Kansas

VCU vs. Florida State:  Lost in the shadow of Kansas and the city of Richmond has been the Seminoles.

Florida State has arguably the best defense in the nation and showed it off against Notre Dame.

However the question for the Seminoles is if they can score enough points to keep up with the frantic pace that the Rams like to play.

Winner: VCU

Region Winner:  Kansas