Sweet 16 Preview

• The ACC is 8-1 in the tourney; the SEC is 4-5.

• 13 of the top 16 seeded teams are still alive in the tournament. The only top seeds to lose in the first round? The SEC's Kentucky and Auburn. [Editor's Note: the SEC was not the top conference this season after all.]

• The third underachieving team among the top 16 seeds? Baylor, which lost in the second round.

• Thursday's contest between UConn and San Diego State is a replay of last year's Final Four game.

• UConn's freshman Stephon Castle overtook Reed Shepard as the highest rated NBA prospect in college basketball (second overall only to France's Alex Sarr).

• Illinois vs Iowa State is a clash of elite offense vs elite defense, respectively. The numbers bear it out. The updated KenPom rankings have these two teams in the top spots. What about the inverse? Illinois' adjusted defense ranks 92. Iowa State's adjusted offense ranks 49. The numbers say advantage Iowa State. My eyes say bet Illinois. [Editor's Note: Trust the stats.]

• The West regional boasts three of the highest scoring offenses in the country: Alabama, Arizona and UNC.

• Two of those high powered offenses play one another in the late game Thursday: Bama and UNC.

• Iowa's Pat McCaffery entered the transfer portal. The Iowa coach is Fran McCaffery, his father. Awkward.

• The NCAA opened the transfer portal in the middle of the tournament?! Who thought that was a good idea?

• No true buzzer-beaters so far, but we did have four overtime games (including the Creighton-Oregon double-OT thriller) through the first two rounds. There were no overtimes in the first weekend last year.

• New Louisville coach, Pat Kelsey (see below), has been a head coach for a dozen years. His teams have never won a NCAA tournament game. [Editor's Note: This post is facts so I'll keep my snarky comments to myself.]

Not Rick Pitino. His son, New Mexico coach Richard Pitino. Who failed at Minnesota and has gone 61-41 in three seasons with the Lobos with no tourney victories (in one appearance). Incredibly, some in the Louisville fan base are talking themselves into this. Seriously. Would any coach with that record and a different last name be in the running for a top-10 college coaching job? That's a rhetorical question, obviously.

It's been a wild few days in the Derby City. To recap, their top candidate Scott Drew turned them down and stayed at Baylor. Their second choice, Florida Atlantic's Dusty May turned them down and went to Michigan (which is a top-10 job...in football). Somewhat embarassing, but par for the course. Then things went off the rails. Word started spreading that Indiana State's Josh Schertz might be up next. [Would he bring Cream Abdul Jabbar with him? That would be fun!]

The long-time radio color analyst for Louisville games is Bob Valvano, brother of Jim. Valvano called an Indiana State game in the NIT and spoke with Coach Schertz, who is friends with Dusty May, afterward. Valvano then reported that, according to Schertz, the reason Dusty May turned down the job was because he received death threats from disgruntled Cards fans. Holy shit! That's news!

Except it wasn't. 

What Schertz actually said was this: "If the Louisville fans weren’t excited about Dusty May, then they sure as heck wouldn’t be excited about me. I’d be a dead man walking." That's a long way from death threats and, also, he was laughing when he said it. 

All of this hit the press and, predictably, blew up. Valvano, clearly unfamiliar with popular culture the concept of accuracy in reporting, stated: “It was such an inconsequential part of the conversation. If I said it, he didn’t stop me. If he said it, I didn’t stop him. 'Cause neither of us thought it was that big a deal. . .but it’s got a life of its own now.” Glad you cleared that up, Bob.

Update: Louisville hired College of Charleston coach and Cincinnati native Pat Kelsey. Decent hire but not what I would call a slam dunk. He'll be respectable, certainly better than Kenny Payne (who is beloved at Kentucky, but was a disaster at Louisville, his alma mater).

The Kentucky staff is headed for a major shake up. Our defense was atrocious this season. Kenny is a defensive and big man specialist (and a hell of an assistant). We'd be happy to welcome Kenny back to his true home. And then watch as little brother's head explodes.

The Pitinos got me to thinking about family ties in sports and I realize that I missed an aspect of the Stetson game, a 39-point blowout that I watched approximately none of. But I did a deep dive on their mascot! If I tuned into the Stetson-UConn contest I would have made note of the fact that their star, junior Jalen Blackmon, comes from a hoops family. One brother, James, averaged over 16 a game at Indiana University and another, Vijay, is currently a walk-on for the Hoosiers. Their father, James Sr., is famous for being a classmate of mine in Intro Ecology at the University of Kentucky in 1985. This just in: James Blackmon, Sr also won an Indiana state championship at powerhouse Marion high school (Zach Randolph also went there), finished second to Steve Alford for Indiana Mr Basketball and was named McDonald's All-America in 1983. Blackmon Sr was in a great backcourt at UK along with Rex Chapman and Ed Davender.

It was a bit of a surprise when James Blackmon and his teammate Richard "Master Blaster" Madison showed up for ecology that first day. Ecology was not a cupcake class. For example, we had to learn the difference between dN/dt=B-X+I and dS/dt=D-X+I (population abundance vs species diversity, of course). James and the Master Blaster myseriously disappeared right before the drop deadline.

I'm not implying that those guys aren't smart. I'm not sure who thought the both of them taking that class in the middle of the season was a good idea. Turns out, James Blackmon has a pretty impressive brain. He never played a game in the NBA and went into coaching. He led Bishop Luers High to back-to-back Indiana state titles in 2008 and 2009. He accepted the head coaching job at Marion, his alma mater, but the hiring was criticized by two school board members. So, Blackmon resigned and returned to Bishop Luers. In 2013, Marion offered him the job again. He accepted. This time the school board kept their opinions to themselves. Blackmon took Marion to the state title in 2016.

[Editor's Note: This trip down memory lane was obviously meant for UK fans of a certain age. I'm surprised I remember anything from college. Back to the Notes.]

What were the odds I would tell a 40-year old UK story before addressing the Calipari saga (opening Draft Kings app....400-1!)?

I am the rare Kentucky and New England Patriots fan. I've had quite a century, sports-wise. 20 years of dominance for the Pats and a solid decade for the Cats. Both of which came to abrupt ends five years ago. For different reasons, but the coach being stubborn definitely factored in.

The Pats moved on from Belichick, obviously. I joked with Isaac, fellow Pats fan living in Philly, that Belichick was likely to trade our third overall pick for four third rounders, deferred cash and a special compensatory pick. And I really wasn't kidding. Both coaches also had staffs filled with too many cronies. The near future of the Pats organization relies on getting this draft right (read, we need a QB), which Belichick hasn't in a while. At UK, AD Mitch Barnhart decided to stick with his man. Word is that other program changes are coming. We'll see. Next season should be interesting.

Update: The backlash has started (the response to the rather tepid Tweet below has been brutal).