The Point Spread Column

By: Bob Johnson   Date: March 19, 2006

The last two days haven't been pretty. Hopefully we have bottomed-out on losses and can get a new streak going soon. The tournament has already seen some big upsets. Friday the Big Ten Champ Iowa went down to Northwestern State and Big 12 Champ Kansas was beaten wire to wire by Bradley. Tom Izzo is one of the top NCAA Tourney coaches and his Michigan State team lost by 10 points to George Mason. This was the same George Mason that lost to Hofstra 3 times. They were beaten in the semifinals of the Colonial conference tourney for the 3rd time this season by Hofstra. Yet, they are playing in the Big Dance and Hostra is in the NIT. It was NC Wilmington that won that tourney and they took George Washington to overtime. So, as Bobby Knight so aptly put it on his show "Knight School", parity has come to college basketball. How about Albany College leading # 1 seed Connecticut by 12 points in the second half? UConn had to have a major rally and some last second line-up changes by Coach Jim Calhoun to win that game. Due to the short numbers on Iowa and Michigan State, I sensed possible upsets there. So, being smart I thought I would stick with more sure plays like Kansas laying a fair price over Bradley and North Carolina and Texas playing inferior opponents. That was bad thinking. Although, I must say that I am surprised by the results.

Yesterday, Montana had everything going for them including the crowd. Boston College had been through a tough double overtime game with Pacific and they had a tough time because they had to fly across country after a grueling battle with Duke. Unfortunately for us, nobody for Montana could match-up with BC's Craig Smith and that was all she wrote for the Grizzlies. Alabama did what I though they would do. Alabama finished with a 30-21 rebounding advantage. Ronald Steele netted 21 points for the 10th-seeded Crimson Tide which had just seven scholarship players in uniform. Jermareo Davidson and Richard Hendrix each finished with 12 in defeat. All three of those players will return next year for the Tide. Alabama was an underrated team all and UCLA's 8 game spread skein finally came to an end. Texas A&M closed out on an 8-0 spread run as a dog. I was really surprised that they were almost able to defeat LSU. A&M was playing in their first NCAA tourney game since 1977. It took a long three to beat A&M and LSU didn't cover. The Aggies under coach Billy Gillespie will continue to be a force to be reckoned with as most of their players should return. LSU is an excellent team and should give Duke all they can handle. Indiana actually scored 3 more baskets than Gonzaga but the big difference came at the free throw line, as Indiana was 2-of-6, while Gonzaga converted on 32 of 41 attempts! Indiana had 15 more fouls called on them and also were assessed two technicals. Gonzaga's Morrison and the Hoosier's Wilmont each got hit with technicals in the second half, though it was another technical, 22 seconds later on Indiana center Marco Killingsworth, that completely changed the game. The technical, right after a personal foul, gave Killingsworth four fouls and put him on the bench. This was devatating to Indiana's already depleted front court. Just the fact that Indiana got only 6 free throw attempts is abnormal, but that Gonzaga got 32 in comparison is a travesty. That is a huge disparity of 26 more shots at the charity stripe! Now, you tell me if that is disproportionate for any basketball game. A game should not be that lopsided based on referee's calls