2012 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship: Semifinals

I find myself otherwise engaged tonight as does TheMomCat.  I’ve asked BobbyK to check in from time to time, please be nice to him and make your own fun.

My predictions so you can point and hoot are Louisville over Kentucky and Ohio State over Kansas.  I like Louisville because of their Big East connections, Ohio State I don’t like at all but I like Kansas less.

Joe Nocera wrote a piece that everyone is talking about-

Orwell and March Madness

By JOE NOCERA, The New York Times

Published: March 30, 2012

Athletes are “student-athletes,” a phrase coined by Walter Byers, the man who turned the N.C.A.A. into a modern powerhouse, because he feared that some states might try to classify football and basketball players as employees. College sports follows “the collegiate model,” a term coined in 2006 by one of Byers’ successors, Myles Brand. Realizing that amateurism was becoming outmoded, he needed a new concept that would allow athletic departments to continue exploiting athletes while denying that is what they were doing.

The essence of “the collegiate model” is that college athletes are students first, and that college athletics is secondary to academics. One can then ignore the fact that during this three-week tournament, the N.C.A.A. will reap around $800 million, while the players who make that possible will get nothing. They’re students, after all.



Calipari, complained Emmert, was “throwing away the collegiate model.” But, he’s not, because in the big-money sports of football and men’s basketball, the collegiate model is a fiction. Rather, Calipari is dispensing with the hypocrisy that everyone else goes along with, including our basketball-mad president, who allows himself to be interviewed while filling out his March Madness brackets, but can’t bring himself to utter a word on behalf of the athletes that college sports so ruthlessly exploits.

Regional Final Results-

Result Seed Team Record Seed Team Record Region
70-77 1 Syracuse 32-2 2 *Ohio State 28-7 East
72-68 4 *Louisville 27-9 7 Florida 23-10 West
82-70 1 *Kentucky 36-2 3 Baylor 30-8 South
67-80 1 North Carolina 32-6 2 *Kansas 31-6 Mid West

Tonight’s Action-

Time Seed Team Record Region Seed Team Record Region
6 pm 1 Kentucky 36-2 South 4 Louisville 27-9 West
8:30 2 Ohio State 28-7 East 2 Kansas 31-6 Mid West

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  1. 14 minutes left

  2. game tied. 13.5 minutes left

  3. ends 8.5 minute stretch without basket.

  4. time out kansas

  5. 49 – 43 8:21 to play

  6. 49 – 48 7 minutes to play.

  7. 5 minute mark. 55 – 51 Ohio

  8. Kansas at the foul line with a chance to go ahead. 55-54

  9. Ohio at the line. Hits two. Back ahead.

  10. Kansas up 3 1:05 to play

  11. fouls strategy in play

  12. kansas to shoot 2

  13. 64-61 kansas 8.3 left.

    Kansas stole inbound pass. loses it out of bounds.

  14. 2.9 seconds

  15. Game over.

  16. Well that was exciting!

    (documenting the experience and all)

    heh.

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