The Elite Eight is over, it’s now down to the Final Four in both the men’s and women’s NCAA Division I basketball playoffs.
More than 350 Division I college teams in both men’s
and women’s leagues, play in the United States. Sixty-eight of those teams reach
March Madness, and the team that wins six games in a row becomes champions.
The teams that won and lost in the Sweet 16 and the
Elite Eight have experienced the equitized ecstasy of victory or the gnawing pain
of defeat.
The highlight of Wednesday night’s match-up between
the UCLA Bruins and the Michigan Wolverines was UCLA’s Johnny Juzang, pictured on top. Juzang literally carried his team in the first ten to fifteen minutes of the game. Juzang
scored 14 of the Bruins first 16 points and finished with 28. No other player
on the Bruins scored more the 14 points.
The 11th seeded Bruins upset the number one
seeded Wolverines, 49-51, and now the Bruins face the mighty Gonzaga Bulldogs on
Saturday. The Spokane, Washington Bulldogs are the odds-on favorite to win this
year’s title. The 30-0 Bulldogs have pulverized their opponents this year. The
Zags are riding a 27-game winning streak with double digit wins and have not
been behind in a game since before the Sweet 16.
The Bruins are the only Final Four team in the men’s
bracket that has won a championship, when the team won the title in 1995.
I’m looking forward to watching Johnny Juzang play on Saturday
and would love to see him go the Golden State Warriors.
I also watched the Stanford Cardinal women against the
Louisville Cardinals. Louisville dominated the first half of Wednesday nights
game, and then, Stanford conquered the Cardinals in the second half, doing exactly what some ESPN commentators
said would happen. The 29-2, Stanford team buried three throws, took the ball
to the paint and played tenacious defense in the second half, to win the game,
78-63. Stanford trailed Louisville at halftime, 38-26.
Senior Dana Evans weeps in defeat, which ends her college basketball career.
Watching Stanford come back in the second half was
impressive basketball, but also disappointing for myself. I was pulling for the
underdog Louisville Cardinals and Dana Evans, the highlight of the women’s tournament
for me. Evans did her part in scoring 24 points, but the well-rounded number
one seeded Stanford team displayed why their ranked number one this year.
Evans buries a basket
Stanford enjoying the ecstasy of victory
On Friday, the Stanford women play South Carolina, and
the Arizona women face Connecticut. On Saturday, in the men’s Final Four, UCLA matches
up against the Zags, and Houston goes against Baylor.
Mark Izzy Schurr
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