March Madness \o/

Whew. Georgetown gave us quite a scare there. Of course practically all their shots had to fall, right? It also didn’t help that the Huskies looked like they were practically clueless on offense. Maya Moore’s shots weren’t falling early, Tiffany Hayes wasn’t dominant, Stefanie Dolson was being pushed around by the Georgetown “posts”, and Bria Hartley was going from left to right and looked really tentative most of the time.

And then, Lorin Dixon happened. The senior sparked the run that made the Huskies recover lost ground (down 7 or something), executed key defensive plays, and hit a baseline jumper. Credit must also go to Bria Hartley who looked like she gained confidence from whatever Dixon had made happen. Maya Moore was relatively quiet except towards the end where she did important plays to ensure the win. And of course, no one would be able to discount everything that Kelly Farris did to guard the Hoyas’ leading scorer Sugar Rodgers. Farris reminds me of Mel Thomas, a kind of a do-everything scrappy player that can guard almost anyone.

Bracketology

[Philadelphia Region]
Connecticut (35-1) vs Duke (32-3)
Pick: UConn. ‘Nuff said. Although they’d have to play harder and better than their game against Georgetown. Also, depth will be an issue but I’ll gamble on the fact that the Huskies have Maya Moore and everybody else doesn’t.

[Dayton Region]
Tennessee (34-2) vs Notre Dame (29-7)
Pick: Tennessee, just because it is going to be fun watching UConn meet the Vols in the Final Four, well, granted that the Huskies escape Duke.

[Dallas Region]
Baylor (34-2) vs Texas A&M (30-5)
Pick: Baylor. Griner, duh. Haha, kidding. I haven’t paid attention to this region except that Griner’s there and they grabbed the #1 rank from UConn during the regular season. It’ll be interesting how fast Stefanie Dolson would play against her if Baylor and UConn ever meets in the Finals.

[Spokane Region]
Stanford (32-2) vs Gonzaga (31-4)
Pick: Gonzaga. Just because I like Vandersloot and the fact that the Zags are the lowest ever seed (11th) to get into the Elite Eight. But aside from Vandersloot, I have no idea about the capabilities of the other Zags and how they would match up with the bigs of Stanford. Interesting to note here, also, is if Pohlen of Stanford finally wakes up from her shooting draught, I think Zags will find it very difficult to win.

[Final Four Picks]
UConn vs Tennessee → UConn
Baylor vs Gonzaga → Baylor

***

Thank goodness for March Madness. This certainly takes my mind off the aftershocks and the radiation scare.