Its tourney time!

one of the man things I've missed about talking with you fine fine people over the last few weeks is I didn't have a chance to chat up College Basketball. I didn't get a chance to tell you that I think UNC is overrated, or watch for Louisville to make a strong push late, or even that Pitt might be the best team in all the land.

to be fair, I also didn't get a chance to tell you that the Irish would push late to make a bid at the dance, and that Kentucky would win the SEC. So you take the good with the bad.

This is one of the more fun weeks of the sports year, as its the start of the big dance (duhhh). 90% of America don't watch College Basketball till this week, and I've giving that 5 percent of the remaining 10 percent are college kids who go to their schools basketball games. So over the next few days you will be poking around the Internet, looking for some info on how to pick a good bracket. You'll hit up ESPN, but everybody does that so its no fun news. You'll try your fav blogs, looking for help, but what do we know? My mom's basement doesn't even have cable! So you'll do what you normally do, and that's this.

Random Things Dudes do to pick their brackets:

Rule 1. Always pick a 5 seed to get upset, this ALWAYS Happens.
Rule 2. Remember the Darling teams of last year and the year before, they have to be good this year too, right? (George Mason, Gonzaga, the team that curry kid played for)

Rule 3. Do some research, find one low seed that you can learn something about, and then pick them to make the sweet 16, and tell everybody how you saw this coming/how it didn't work. "I thought that if (insert team) could hit some threes, and (insert best player on team) could stay out of foul trouble, they could really do it." even if they lose, you like kinda smart.

Rule 4. Outside of the one team that you picked above, have the rest of the sweet 16 be favorites or just really mild upsets. 5's over 4's and so on. You'll get at least 8 or 9 of the 16 teams that way.

Rule 5. If you don't know anything about the teams, pick the cooler name, so if your right, you can brag. "Fuck yea, I had Xavier in the final 4!"

So there is a little help for you non basketball people, who still enjoy the tourney. Follows those rules and you won't look like a jack ass come April.

Breaking down A bracket

My brain is on sports overload right now. It happens every year at this point. NBA is pushing into the strech run, Baseball is about to start, the NFL draft is around the corner, and the NCAA tourney has me watching 12 hours of college basketball for 4 straight days.

Every year I try and get a Bracket pool going for a little bit of money(monolopy of course, becasue gambling is against the law here in Texas.) Sometimes the players are many, and sometimes they are few, but its always a good time. I send out brackets to everybody in the address book vie email, knowing that some people don't even care about sports. I got this bracket back somtime saterday, from my buddy N8 (his name not mine, and he is in his mid 20's not 12.) It looks like this.



Click here for a bigger pic.

Lets just break this down a little bit.

First off, you know he is a Soccer fan, having Manchester win it all.

In a move to make Brown happy, the Indian Cricket Team is better than both The Green Bay Packers, and Fidel Castro, but not the Govenator.

Hitler was a 1 seed that got upset in the sencond round.

Texas(the state I beleive) bested Bradd Pitt, Steve McQueen, and JFK (well, Dallas really bested JFK)

The Univ of North Carolina had a hard road to the final 4, with hard matches against The Dali Lama, Jessica Alba(must be the pregger thing), the State of Tennessee, and Darth Vader.

In what would have to be the most one sided match from the aspect of trailer park support, Dale Ernhardt got past Bin Laden in the round of 16, only to loose to the predator.

Upsets in my mind were as follows.

John Wayne Gacy over the 92 Cowboys.

Gonzaga over Ghandi

and

Tennessee over both Godzilla and King Kong.

Good time waste, good concept. way to go N8(nate), it was gr8(great). TTYL(talk to ya later), you bdb (big douce bag).

Bracket Time Baby!

For most readers of this site, I kinda know how you do it. You wake up in the morning, get ready for work, go to work, log on to a computer, remind yourself you can't look at porn because your at work, so you drag your happy ass to your other fav sites like ESPN or Deadspin. When you have read everything you can possibly read over there, and the boss still hasn't come in to check on your "work," then you might say, "Hey I wonder what the Big and the Brown are up to today?"

You come on over to the site, find that we a few new posts, you read them, all the while you are saying to yourself, "man these guys have no clue what they are talking about."

First off I must say we are not talking, but Typing(poorly), ass hat.

Second, here if your chance to do something about it. If you, the sexy reader, think you know about basketball than either me(probably) or my hetro-sexual life mate Brown, bring it on.

ESPN every year has a Bracket Challenge. All you need to do is sign up, when it brings you to the "Join a Group or create one" screen, you search The Big and The Brown. If you can't figger it out, hit us up with an email.

What do you get if you win? Well, the number 1 guy/girl who gets the most right at the end of the Tourney wins a free post to rub it in our faces. Thats right, you too can have nobody read your sports thoughts on our website! Or you can take the time to say how much we suck! Or even better yet, how thankfull you are that we let you read what we think!

Who knows, you could be the next Blogadore, Nayfa, or even the Next Kennith Noisewater!

Remember, the Group Name is the Big and the Brown, or send me your email at thebigandthebrown@yahoo.com and I will invite you. Enjoy Bitches!

Bracket Big

Tonight we have another slate of College Basketball games that are worth checking out. We are inching closer and closer to the greatness that is the NCAA tourney, and these four teams are going to be pretty big players, including, insert a big smile from my Catholic ass, Notre Dame.

Game one

6:00 PM No. 17 Notre Dame at No. 18 Louisville ESPN

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Notre Dame is 21-5, 11-3 in the Big East, and kind of a surprise this season. They were thought to be bubble team at the start of the year, but have played their way into a top 4 seed over the past months. Wins over Pitt, MARQ, and KSU give them some validity, but they still need to prove they can hang with the big boys. A win over Louisville tonight could help. The Irish are led by Sophomore Luke Harangody, a 6-8 forward who nets 20 pts and 10 rebs a game.

Louisville is 2nd in the Big East at 12-3, 22-6 overall, half a game back from Georgtown, who they play next Saturday. They come into tonight's game winning 7 straight. They have 4 players averaging over 10 points a game;Terrence Williams David Padgett Jerry Smith and Earl Clark. The Cardinals are coming off a nice win over Pitt where they shot the ball at a 58% rate, and chipped in 6-14 threes and 32 bench points.

Match up to watch.

Terrence Williams f Louisville vs Rob Kurz F ND.

Kurz has been in double figures in each of the last 3 games from the Irish, but its his D that will have to be good to keep Williams off his 12 point, 8 rebounds, and 4 assists a game average.

Game 2

8:00 PM No. 15 Michigan State at No. 9 Wisconsin ESPN2

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There are 4 teams that matter in the Big Ten, and these are 2 of them. Michigan State is 2 and half games back from the 3 way tie atop the Big Ten standings at 10-4, 22-5 overall. Ahead of them are Indiana, Purdue, and the team they play tonight, Wisconsin. Where these four teams will be seeded in the dance will mostly depend on the conference tourney, but a MSU really needs a win tonight to get some momentum back after going 3-3 in there last 6. Raymar Morgan is their leading points guy, but this team goes how its senior guard Drew Neitzel goes. In the 4 Big Ten losses, only the Indiana blowout did he score over 10 points.

With a win tonight, Wisconsin is 2 winnable games(Penn St, @Northwestern) away from at least a share of the regular season Big Ten championship. Their 12-2 record is tied for tops of the Bin Ten, with Indiana and Purdue. This teams only losses so far this year are to Duke, Marquette, and twice to Purdue, and they have beaten the likes of Texas, and Indiana, twice. Sometimes they look good, sometimes they look like their record is misleading. The three headed monster of Brian Butch, Trevon Hughes, and Marcus Landry lead the team in points with over 10 a piece.

Matchup to watch. Drew Neitzel MSU vs. Trevon Hughes Wisc.

Hughes is a small guard just like Neitzel, and it will be his responsibility to stay in front and disrupt the streaky Neitzel.

Introducing, Bracket Big!

We here at the big and the brown have many faces, many "talents," and many loves. Bloging has become a hobby to the both of us. We don't do it for money, or fame, but just to entertain, and talk sports and the like.

College basketball is like picking up a girl at a party. Its fun, its exciting, you never know what your going to get, yet you know it probably won't last very long. I have watched about 3 college basketball games so far this season. That's it, just 3. I'm no expert, I read the websits, follows who's hot, watch the highlights, but that's about it.



I do, like most sports fan's, love march madness however. I will glue myself in front of the TV for 4 straight days the first 2 rounds of the tourney. I will make claims like "i think that 12 seed has a chance," and "the nba is drooling over this guy right now."

As an attempt to get everybody ready for the big dance, I will periodical let you know about some good games, good teams, and players to watch on a given night, so you can too can look smarter than you are when talking brackets with your buddies at work. Enjoy.

Tonight, we have 3 teams, maybe 4 that will be big players come march. So watch ESPN tonight, or at least read the box score in the morning.

Game 1. 6:00. Ohio State at No. 12 Indiana ESPN.
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We have all heard about that dumb ass Kelvin Sampson, but if the N C double Ass Holes let the Hoosiers play in the dance, then they are a great 3-5 seed that could take it too the house. They are led by Freshmen guard Eric Gordon, who draft "experts" have going in the top 10 next year if he comes out. 21.5 points per game from the off guard in college is crazy. He's a bit small at 6-4, and tends to get swallowed up by bigger guys, but if he gets hot this team can roll anybody.

When Gordon isn't there, Senor forward D.J. White is. 17 points and over 10 rebounds a game from the 6-9 forward give Indiana a great inside outside game, that is vital for a long march run.

Ohio State on the other hand, is 17-10, 8-6 in the Big Ten and squarly on the bubble. Losing 4 out of there last 6 may have them on the outside looking in. Counting tonight they have 4 games left need to win at least 3 to have a chance before the conference tourney.

What to watch: Kosta Koufos F/C OSU vs. D.J. White F Ind. If the freshmen Koufos can keep White off the boards, OSU has a chance.

Game 2. 8:00 PM ESPN No. 1 Tennessee at No. 14 Vanderbilt
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This game will be a great one to find out how good Tennessee really is. They beat Memphis 3 days ago to take the number 1 spot, and now they have in state rival Vanderbilt on the road.

Vandy is looking at somewhere between a 3-5 slot in the tourney, with a shot at the 2 slot if they win out. Vandy only has 4 "l's" to go with their 23 wins, but all were in conference, 3 of them were blow outs, and all on the road, including getting beat by Tenn by 20 earlier in the year. Shan Foster, Sr, G/F is the primary scorer for the Commodores at 19 a clip. The team goes pretty much how he goes, in their 3 blowout losses he has 14, 7, and 14 points.

Tennessee is 25-2, with the 2 losses coming from Kentucky, and a blowout early season loss to Texas. This team can play any style of play, as proved last Saturday when they beat previously unbeaten Memphis 66-62. There were times in that game that Tennessee had to run with Memphis and time when they slowed it down to control the clock. They are led by the three headed monster of Guard Chris Lofton, Guard JaJuan Smith, and Forward Tyler Smith. They all average over 13 points a game, the two guards a Senors, and Tyler Smith is a soph.

Match up to watch. A.J. Ogilvy Freshman, Vandy vs. Wayne Chism Soph. Tenn.

Chism went for 18 points and 18 rebounds last time these guys met, out playing the bigger Australian true Center.

Watch these games, tell me what you think. So far I'm not sure that Tenn is capable of going all the way, even after the Memphis win, but let me know.