The Road to 358

And the final game of the night allowed me to see my 105th Division One College Basketball teams. On this occasion, I saw the Colgate Raiders take on the Wisconsin Badgers. Colgate is the 1st team that I have seen out of the Patriot League. Colgate comes into this matchup with a 23-11 record. They beat Navy in the Patriot League Tournament Champion to get the automatic bid. The Raiders were given a 14 seed by the committee. This is the same seed they were given last year and gave Arkansas a good run for it's money. Colgate has been one of the most exciting mid major programs this year. They rank top five in three point percentage this year and have won 15 straight games. Nelly Cummings has been the leading scorer for Colgate averaging 14.5 PPG. As for Wisconsin, there are a lot of unknowns coming into the game. How healthy is Johnny Davis is the most pressing question. The Badgers had an early exit in the Big Ten Tournament as they lost to seven seed Michigan State. As we all know ...

The third day of the game allowed me to see my 104th Division One College Basketball teams. On this occasion, I saw the LSU Tigers take on the Iowa State Cyclones. LSU is the 3rd team that I have seen out of the Big East. The Tigers finished the regular season with a 22-11 record. They were given a six seed by NCAA committee. The biggest headline surrounding LSU is the firing of head coach Will Wade. Not many times does a tourney team fire it's head coach. The firing is due to five Level I NCAA violations that have yet to have been announced. In the meantime, Kevin Nickelberry will be the interim coach. This is not the first time that LSU has played in the NCAA Tournament without it's head coach. In 2019, they also played int the NCAA Tournament without their head coach. That year they made it to the Sweet 16 as a three seed. The leading scorer for LSU this year has been Tari Eason, the Cincinnati transfer is averaging 16.9 PPG.  Iowa State comes into this matchup with a 20-12 ...

The second game of the day featured my 102th and 103rd Division One College Basketball teams. On this occasion, I saw the Texas Longhorns take on the Virginia Tech Hokies. Texas is the 5th team that I have seen out of the Big 12. Virginia Tech is the 6th team that I have seen out the ACC. This is the matchup I am looking forward to the most. Texas has a tendency to really crap the bed in early round tournament games. The Longhorns comes into this matchup with a 21-11 record and were given a six seed by the NCAA Committee. The Longhorns have been very consistent this year. They had very high expectations this year and have failed to meet them under new head coach Chris Beard. The leading scorer for the Longhorns has Timmy Allen, he is averaging 12.3 PPG. Virginia Tech is one of the hottest teams coming into the NCAA Tournament. The Hokies were 23-12 during the regular season and were awarded a 11 seed. At one point in the year Virginia Tech was 10-10. What a turnaround they have had. Th...

As part of the First Round of the NCAA Tournament I saw my 101st Division One College Basketball teams. On this occasion, I saw the Yale Bulldogs take on the Purdue Boilermakers. Yale is the 1st team that I have seen out of the Ivy League. Yale comes into this matchup with a 19-11 record. They beat Princeton in the Ivy League Tournament Champion to get the at large birth. Azar Swain has been the leading scorer for Yale averaging 19.2 PPG.  Purdue comes into this matchup with a 27-7 record on the year. The lost in the Big 10 Championship to Iowa. It was a surprise to many to not see Purdue in Indianapolis. Truthfully, I would have much rather seen Tennessee as it would have been a new team for me. Jaden Ivey has been the leading scorer for Purdue, averaging 17.4 PPG. Ivey is expected to be a lottery pick in the 2022 NBA Draft. I expect Yale to struggle with the size of Purdue.  Going to be brutal honest, this game was the worst of the day. Yale hung around for maybe 7-8 minutes...

On Saturday March 5th, 2022, I saw my 100th Division One College Basketball teams. On this occasion, I saw the St John's Red Storm take on the Marquette Golden Eagles. St John's is the 11th team and final team that I have seen out of the Big East. The Red Storm comes into this matchup with a 16-13 record and have been 8-10 in the Big East. They most recently played Xavier on Wednesday March 2nd. They won  the matchup against Xavier by a score of 81-66. Julian Champagnie has been the leading scorer for St John's averaging 19.0 PPG.  Marquette comes into this matchup with a 18-11 record on the year. They come into the final game of the regular season with a 10-8 conference record. The Golden Eagles most recently played at DePaul on Wednesday February 2nd, a matchup that they lost by a score of 91-80. Justin Lewis has been the leading scorer for Marquette, averaging 16.8 PPG.  Always great to watch some late season conference basketball. This game did not disappoint. It of c...