An Unnecessarily Exhaustive Guide To The 2010/11 NCAA Tournament, Part 1: Southwestern Region

March 15th, 2011

There is no better event in the American sports calendar than the NCAA Tournament. None. Zilch. Zero. And it’s not even especially close. All the games running concurrently, and the one game knockout format, make for captivating evenings of hours and hours of entertainment. This is particularly true of the first round, where action jumps from game to game, and Greg Gumbel struggles to keep up with all the information he’s getting in his ear. It’s like the FA Cup, except it’s better. Much, much better. And I like the FA Cup. Since this post is long enough already, the intro ends here, and there follows a preview (often in the form of a recap) of all 68 of the teams taking part in this, the 2011 NCAA Tournament. In this post: the 17 teams in the Southwest region. Use the following links to skip to relevant parts. Akron – Boston University – Florida State – Georgetown – Illinois – Louisville – Kansas – Morehead State – Notre Dame – Purdue – Richmond – St Peter’s – Texas A&M – UNLV – USC – Vanderbilt – VCU Brett McKnight pulling a silly face. Akron They might be relative minnows, but Akron boast some size. 7’0 centre Zeke Marshall is rail thin and fouls on pretty much every possession, but he’s sufficiently mobile to block 2.5 shots per game, and can finish around the basket. The Zips’ best player, Nikola Cvetinovic, is a 6’8 forward leading them in scoring and rebounding, but also an aggressive and fundamental defender on the interior. Reserve forward Brett McKnight is build like a tank, and backup centre Mike Bardo is, if nothing else, big. To go with that, Akron offer a good amount of shooting, particularly from specialists Brian McLanahan and Steve McNees, and the […]