Can you smell it?

about 2 months ago

Take a deep breath. That's right, breath it in and savor the taste and smell. Can you feel it? That's tournament time. It's right around the corner and just like that batch of cookies you can smell baking on a Sunday morning, the anticipation is two parts excruciating and euphoric.

You can't wait for it to be here, but you know how amazing it is going to be once it is.

College basketball has less than two weeks before we see the America East conference start the quarter finals for their conference tournament. Meanwhile, teams are doing everything they can to get themselves set for those tournaments and hopefully what lies beyond them.

I was flipping through the channels last night and I noticed that the Wisconsin women's basketball team was playing Maryland in a rare televised game. I really enjoy watching Wisconsin play because even though they aren't as explosive as Iowa or Ohio State, #12 Tessa Grady went just graduated last year from the school that my nieces attend(ed). For many years I got to watch Tessa play at the high school level, so it is awesome to watch her play at the university level (for a Big 10 team no less!).

As a freshman who didn't get much national recognition, she has been doing quite well I think. She has played at least 1 minute in every game this season and although her shooting percentage probably isn't where she would like it to be, I think she has been doing great. I know my opinion doesn't matter, but I think she needs to work on how quickly she gets into foul trouble, and she has 21 turnovers on the season. That's not great for the limited time she has been playing.

The important thing to remember is that she is only a freshman and with the level of coaching she is going to get at Wisconsin, she is only going to get better. I look forward to seeing her grow with the program.

With basketball season over for my niece, I am going to be turning my focus on them towards softball. It's going to be a bit before the high school team has their first game, but her older sister is getting ready to leave tomorrow morning for a week long trip with Tiffin University to Florida. It's their Spring Break, but they will be hitting the softball field pretty much every day in a marathon of games.

You best believe I will be posting updates!

In men's basketball, we had six top 25 games on Tuesday. BYU had the biggest stunner of the day taking down #7 Kansas 76 to 68. I have to admit, I am not sad to see that. There was a lot of hype around Kansas at the beginning of the season after they picked up Dickenson from the transfer portal. I think in preseason rankings they were #1. I'm not a Hunter Dickenson fan, so seeing them get humbled a bit is just fine with me.

I should also mention that Fresno State took #22 Utah State into overtime, but ultimately fell short 77 to 72.

Wednesday night gave us 10 games in the top twenty five. Believe it or not, not a single one of the games was an upset. #4 Tennessee did have a tough game against #11 Auburn, but they were able to secure the win 92 to 84.

Last night we had three games in the top 25. Once again, none of them were upsets, but USC gave #19 Washington state a run for their money only losing by 3 points 75 to 72.

Tonight we have two games in ranked play and then on Saturday nearly everyone is in action with sixteen games. Then just one game on Sunday.

If you had to watch anything this weekend, I'd keep your eye on #4 Tennessee at #14 Alabama, I think there could be an upset there. I also think #15 Baylor could take down #7 Kansas. Don't sleep on #12 Creighton taking down #5 Marquette either.

Unfortunately, I don't think the Spartans have a chance against Purdue at Purdue. If they could pull of a miracle though, it might be season changing for them!