Who To Root For | Butler v UConn

During the Butler-VCU game, I felt conflicted. As an ODU student, should I root for one of the school's biggest rivals or the incredibly likable squad who knocked out the Monarchs with less than a second on the clock? After many days of deliberation, I ended up going with the Rams, figuring the rivalry could be put on hold for the betterment of the CAA and the great state of Virginia. Now, with the Rams back in Richmond, it's time to go back to the drawing board and find out who to root for. For the categories and the breakdown, make the jump..

Kemba Devours Calipari

The Cinderellas took care of each other, and the favorites took care of themselves; so the only thing left to ask is: HOW DO YOU SAY GO BUTLER, WHEN ALL YOU CAN TASTE ARE YOUR OWN SCALES?

Thinking about Breakfast: Butler Upsets Pitt

Some despise these kinds of games, and they have a right to--it doesn't seem fair that we put kids under such a microscope, at such a young age, when so much comes down to attrition, fouls, and grit, that in the NCAA Tournament one of the best games of the year can devolve into a foul shooting contest. And while I do enjoy the NBA's postseason more than the NCAA Tournament, I can't go as far as Bethlehem Shoals and say that "whatever this is it isn't basketball." A clock is a clock, whether it is digital or mechanical and you still have to tell time by it. And even in an age when life is lived at a faster pace than ever before, it often transforms into the frozen stare downs of first world powers and third world dictators. This is life. This is basketball. Pace has nothing to do with it. And despite our calls for everyone to just get along, world peace, and the rapture of scintillating beauty, ugliness and violence clot in our veins and reduce us to primal beasts marking our territories, like dogs, and yesterday, while watching Pitt and Butler, it was clear that no matter what Shoals says there are winners and losers in college basketball.




SIDENOTE: While I disagree with two statements Shoals made about the Tournament compared to the NBA, his larger premise about the former being a broken narrative and the latter being one consistent narrative is something I'm going to have to think about further, because I think it's more complicated than one is this and the other is that. Shoals believes that the NCAA Tournament relies on anarchy and chaos and that those who love it--love it for its unpredictability. However, doesn't the predictability of the NBA rob its narrative of a true exposition? And doesn't each Playoff series turn into a separate vignette or a labor of Hercules? I don't know. Just pondering. Eating some breakfast before moving on to the next, big thing.

Breakfast with Berndon:A Final Farewell

In this edition of "BBE" Berndon gives us his preliminary top 25 for next year, the players whose stock rose and fell, and recaps the biggest games of championship weekend.

Every Storyline Under the Sun: A Duke-Butler National Championship Primer

I'm ecstatic. Much like the forthcoming feature film Clash of the Titans, Duke has escaped the rancid belly of its Cronus-like forebearers to become a National Championship contender. All the weight of the Duke's tournament history has lorded over this current team for 3 years, looming like a shadow cast by Zeus's storm clouds. Coach K has released the Kraken (aka Brian Zoubek) in each game with supreme results. The utter dismantling of a rugged West Virginia team on Saturday was but one more step towards the final goal of returning Duke to the ranks of the Elite Programs, the Olympians of the college basketball world.

LCB Hoops Picks: NCAA Championship Game

With the NCAA tournament down to the last two, we do our best to give you the winner before it happens. So make the jump to get our views on how the tournament has played out and our picks for the biggest college hoops game of the year.