NCAA Tourney; Finally Getting It Right

Pick of the Day – Kings @ Hawks

Sacramento Kings @ Atlanta

Hawks (+3.5)

Monday, March 19th – 7:00 PM ET

While I never feel safe betting on the Atlanta Hawks, sometimes the money is right, and you just have to take the plunge. Atlanta hosts an underachieving Sacramento Kings team in Atlanta tonight, looking to make it 5 home wins in a row. Look for Josh Smith to keep his team close with his elite athleticism.

Bottom Line: Surely, both these teams have had their struggles, but lately its been the Kings scraping the bottom of the NBA sewer. Ron Artestis busy beating and God knows what to dogs and girlfriends alike. And to make matters worse, the Kings still sucked when Ron-Ron was gone, and they have sucked even more since he came back. The Hawks on the other hand, have won 4 of their last 6 and look to make it 5 home wins in a row tonight. Any other foe in the NBA, I’d say the Hawks get too excited and blow it, but with the Kings in town, the nickel spot seems like easy cookin’.

NCAA Tourney; Finally Getting It Right The NCAA Tournament hasn’t had the huge upsets that the Big Dance usually has, but there’s a very good reason for that. Finally, after years and years of expecting smaller conferences to suck it up come Tourney Time, the NCAA Tourney Committee finally pulled their heads out from their collective butts and started seeding teams based one how well they play basketball instead of how well they’re known by the public. Sure, there’s been some mistakes in seeding, but overall, this is the best seeding job I’ve seen. Teams like Butler & Southern Illinois finally got their high seeds, while big conference junkies like Arizona, Purdue, Georgia Tech, Villanova, etc. received bottom half seeds, right where they belonged. If anything, college basketball has learned from Team USA’s struggles in Olympic competition. A team full of the best players in the world just can’t take home the gold anymore. First, they’ll have to learn to play as a team. In college hoops, all the grandest talent funnels into the Pac 10, ACC, Big 10, SEC, but that doesn’t mean all the best teams reside in Big Conference Programs. Basketball is a team sport, and if 7 guys can put fourth the effort and believe in a system, they always have a chance to beat the best talent in the world. That’s something that makes College Hoops great; the best players don’t always beat the best teams. For once, Nice job tourney committee. By the way, I still has 11 of the 16 NCAA Teams left in my bracket. Not too shabby.