Championship Saturday

I love this day. Teams, bids, great matchups. Just finished watching a pair of great finishes in the UNC-Va. Tech and Wisconsin-Michigan State games. I still don't understand how Wisconsin wins basketball games, but they appear to be good enough at it that I'll give them the benefit of the doubt...

Meanwhile, another excellently played game in the Pac-10 ends up with a Stanford victory.

Stanford 75, Washington State 68

It's remarkable to note that this was actually something of a blowout. Washington State did not ever appear to have an answer for the Lopez twins. Their bigs got in foul trouble and were totally ineffective offensively, and Stanford rebounded missed shots seemingly at will on the offensive end. Brook Lopez was simply a force of nature, with 30 points. Even he couldn't seem to believe how much he was scoring.

Washington State was able to stay in the game on the scoreboard mostly with unconscious three-point shooting. While I grant you that a bunch of the ones that went in were open looks, a bunch of them weren't, either (notably the shot on which Daven Harmeling picked up a four-point play). Kyle Weaver did everything he could, including making a number of threes himself (his scoring tends to come around the rim, not on outside shots). But Washington State simply lacked the skill and height to hang with Stanford in this one. I wish them well in the tournament-- they're such a fun team to watch, with their great offensive ball movement, passion for the game and veteran players. They're one of the smartest teams in all of college ball. But Stanford is pretty smart too, and they have a lottery pick. It makes a difference.

It'll be interesting to see how this afternoon's final goes. UCLA is missing Mbah a Moute, which is going to mean a lot of time for relatively crude bigs Lorenzo Mata-Real and Alfred Aboya. Still, I can't see Stanford having a great chance of winning. It's essentially a road game, the team has to be tired with 3 games in 2 1/2 days, and their defense is really dependent on high-energy ball pressure, while the offense is going to need crisp execution to avoid turnovers. In a sloppy game, UCLA has every advantage, and conference tournament finals-- thanks to the ridiculously compressed schedules-- are almost always sloppy games.

It's been a fun year in the Pac-10; let's hope the final game is equally fun-- and that it's not really the final game. UCLA-Stanford IV in the national semis? Not likely, but stranger things have happened.