NCAA Sweet Sixteen shows college b-ball’s strength

By: Larry Fitzgerald
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder
Originally posted 03/22/2007

 All four number-one seeds still remain in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, including defending champion Florida , North Carolina , Kansas and Ohio State . All four teams are from power conferences: the Big Ten, ACC, SEC and the Big 12. The thing that stands out for me about college basketball’s strength is that there are so many 30-win teams still alive.

  Memphis (32-3), Ohio State (32-3), Kansas (32-4), Florida (31-5), North Carolina (30-6), and UNLV (30-6) — that’s six teams with 30-plus wins. Pittsburgh (29-7) is closing in on 30 and will play UCLA (28-5). Butler (29-6) will play defending champion Florida trying to get to number 30, while Southern Illinois (29-6) will try to do the same against Kansas .

  Georgetown has won 28 games and will play the only Cinderella team left, underdog Vanderbilt (22-11), while Oregon (28-7) meets the running rebels of UNLV.

 Because of the decision to add post-season tournaments before the start of the NCAA Tournament, I don’t think we will ever see another team go undefeated through an entire year again. The last team to go undefeated 32-0 and win the NCAA Tournament was Indiana back in 1976, and they did not have at that time a Big Ten post-season tournament.

 After all, these are student athletes, and to play that many games, travel, and remain healthy and perfect — I don’t think we will ever see that again. But, I marvel at the ability to win 30 or more games. With six 30-win teams still remaining this week, I believe one 30-win team will survive to take the crown at the Final Four in Atlanta on Monday, April 2.

 Fitz Notes & Quotes

 Linebacker Joey Porter left Pittsburgh to sign with Miami , and so far he has been the big winner in unrestricted free agency, signing a five-year, $32 million deal with a huge signing bonus of $20 million guaranteed. Porter is so excited about playing in Miami that he could not wait to put on the pads; he was cited by police in Las Vegas over the weekend for punching Levi Jones, an offensive tackle with the Cincinnati Bengals.

 Big lineman Leonard Davis jumped from the Arizona Cardinals to the Dallas Cowboys and reportedly received a $19 million signing bonus with the Dallas Cowboys.

 The NFL owners meet this week in Arizona , and the league may issue major changes for the upcoming season dealing with off-the-field issues and discipline, which plagued the league last year.

 Kevin McHale was recently recognized by Forbes Magazine as the top general manager in professional sports. Many people have gotten a chuckle out of that in view of the fact that the Timberwolves are headed toward missing the playoffs for the third straight year. Hello!

 McHale has failed to put enough talent around former league-MVP Kevin Garnett, wasting so many draft picks that he does not have a competitive team. He also fired Head Coach Dwane Casey when the team was 20-20 and held the number-eight playoff spot in the rugged Western Conference, replacing Casey with Randy Wittman. The team is 8-17 under Wittman as coach.

 I recently asked Phoenix Suns Coach/GM Mike D’Antoni if the Timberwolves were a playoff team. He said, “Yes! [But] they will have to get some breaks.”