The great thing about covering March Madness isn’t just getting to sit courtside and watch these young men live out their dreams, but also trying to keep up with everything else that is going on in the tournament.
While my staff is scattered around the country, I stayed closed to home (literally at home) in Saint Louis to cover four 2nd/3rd round games.
The day started off with Stanford and New Mexico. Stanford started out on fire and the Lobos just never caught up. Hard to dig yourself out of those early holes and they never did.
I was interested in watching Andrew Wiggins live and in person for the first time. Just looking at him, he doesn’t really wow you, but then you see him move and jump and it becomes obvious why NBA scouts drool. He has unreal athleticism, but his game is still very raw and it takes him some time to assert himself, so you wonder how that will translate into the NBA. Eastern Kentucky put up a real fight, thanks to hitting a bunch of threes, but they were just abused on the board and eventually Kansas pulled away.
Wichita St played what amounted to as a scrimmage against Cal Poly. A lot of the bench warmers got time in that game.
The Kansas State vs. Kentucky matchup was a good example what happens when you have a lot of freshman and sophomores on the floor.
Talent was immense, but very sloppy and not well played, but in the end Kentucky was able to pull it out.
Sorry no one will be winning the Billion Dollar perfect bracket, but March Madness is definitely in full swing.