OCR Text |
Show DAILY UTAH CHRONICLE 8 Wednesday, March 27, 2013 1— THE GREAT DEBATE —1 What was the most surprising NCAA upset? Harvard status makes for great upset T he name March Madness was derived from thrilling upsets, and in this year's opening week of the NCAA Tournament, there were plenty of shocking results to drool over. Little-known 15th-seeded Florida Gulf Coast defeated the Georgetown Hoyas — a popular pick to win it all — and 9th-seeded Wichita State shocked America's sweetheart, Gonzaga. But the most exciting and surprising upset of this year's Madness was Harvard beating New Mexico just a few minutes away at EnergySolutions Arena. When you think of Harvard, you think of academics, the eight United States presidents who attended Harvard and maybe the founder of Facebook. You certainly don't think of big-time college basketball. Only two Harvard players have ever played in the NBA, while 19 Supreme Court justices call Harvard their alma mater. Before ESPN caused Linsanity to sweep the nation last spring, Jeremy Lin had trouble breaking into the NBA — largely because he played for the Crimson. If the only place he could play was in the Ivy League, how could he possibly play against the best in the world? Harvard doesn't offer athletic scholarships, and hell, President Barack Obama — a graduate of Harvard Law School — didn't even pick the Crimson to win a game in his bracket. Not only that, New FOOTBALL MICHAEL SMITH StaffWriter Mexico was expected to dominate. The Lobos are the back-to-back defending regular season and conference tournament champions of the Mountain West and were a popular pick on sports talk shows to advance to the Elite Eight and challenge Gonzaga for a spot in the Final Four. New Mexico brought its 29-6 record and a few thousand fans from Albuquerque to see them pound on the scholars, but they didn't bring the most important thing — a recipe for victory. But Harvard did. The Crimson led for the majority of the game, using their big men down low and solid outside shooting. They made eight 3-pointers, including one from Laurent Rivard with 6:21 remaining that put them up 55-53. It was a lead they would keep the rest of the way. Harvard also made 8o percent of its free throws, which secured the upset after New Mexico was forced to foul late to preserve time. The Crimson's upset was more surprising than the others from the first week of the tournament because of the way the university operates and what the team went the right combination as to provide the best protection. Because of injuries and inconsistency for much of the season, the 0-line was constantly shuffled until coaches were satisfied. Tuesday was the first practice where drills were live through this season. Because athletic scholarships aren't offered at Harvard, the talent level on the team is substantially lower than at most other programs. They don't look for basketball players who might have good grades. They look for fantastic students who happen to have a good jump shot. The Crimson had to overcome another kind of adversity as well. Before the season, Harvard's two co-captains withdrew from the school after they were caught in a cheating scandal involving 125 undergraduates and a takehome exam in their government class. Their leadership was gone, not to mention their scoring and playmaking. But head coach Tommy Amaker didn't give up on his players. He believed in them, and they made believers out of many at ESA. Those who weren't wearing Lobo red were cheering for Harvard like they would cheer on the hometown Jazz. The players know they have bright futures ahead of them — probably in economics, law and business. They're the athletes you think of on the NCAA commercials that say "most of us will go pro in something other than sports." But for that one night in Salt Lake City, they were basketball players and had the best upset by far. m.smith@chronicle.utah.edu Twitter: @smithmichael8 FGCU goes from unknowns to victors T here's a reason the NCAA Tournament is called March MATT Madness. It's the same reason why so much of our be- ELLIS loved country is consumed by it every year, why offices across the nation form StaffWriter bracket pools and why the people in those pools post That's not a knock on pictures of brackets being Harvard. I'm sure I wasn't burned or shredded via Face- the only one putting red ink book and Twitter. to tournament paper when It's because of the upthey pulled off one of the sets. You almost never see more shocking upsets we've a tournament where each seen in recent years. But No. 1 seed runs through Harvard had faced three their region and battles the other tournament teams other top contenders in the this season. Memphis beat Final Four — and we love them by 10 points, but they that. We love seeing were within one point of the Cinderella stories beating St. Mary's after unfold, even as they beating California by five fill us with despair — both of those coming on when they knock out the road. the school we picked So even though New as champion. Mexico came into the Big This year has been no difDance with a 29-6 record, ferent, with several highlythe Crimson players were seeded teams succumbing confident they could at least to the will of the unheralded put up a fight against a more but determined underdogs. established basketball team. But with so many upsets, While Harvard had made which was the most surpristwo appearances in the touring? nament before, no one had While La Salle, who upset ever heard of Florida Gulf Kansas State as a 13 seed, Coast University. In fact, the surprised us all, and Harvard school has only been around grabbed its first tournament since 1991, and this season win over Mountain West was just the second year the Conference champion New Eagles were even eligible Mexico, those performances to make the NCAA Tournaweren't the most shocking. ment. The best was when a bunch Some have suggested that of guys in blue jerseys anFGCU was under-seeded nounced to America there is and that they are better than such a thing as Florida Gulf a No. 15. That's revisionists' Coast University. history. The Eagles lost six _4411kiatik. V S. and everyone was eligible to sure guys got settled down. be hit. Miscommunication Once we got toward the was an issue early, but the of- end of practice, I felt like at fensive front quickly shored the end our line started to up their play. settle down and make some "It tends to happen when plays." you put the pads on and do b.barlow@ some live work," Johnson chronicle.utah.edu said. "You've got to make Twitter: @brandonbarlow24 times to teams outside the top 200 in RPI this year and only made it into the Dance because of their victory in the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament. So anyone who suggests that FGCU was better than their seed is either selling something or they picked Georgetown to win the championship. Speaking of which, five of the top 62 brackets in the ESPN Tournament Challenge did have Georgetown as the champion, while no one in the top ioo picked New Mexico to win it all. Unlike UNM, Georgetown played in a conference that sent eight — yes, eight — teams to the tournament, and three of them are still dancing: overall-No.1 seed Louisville, Syracuse and Marquette. The Hoyas were 4-2 against those teams during the regular season, including a victory over Louisville in their only meeting on Jan. 26. There's no doubt Harvard's victory against a very good New Mexico team was unexpected to say the least. But people have heard of Harvard, and I even know of a few people that correctly picked that game. But I have yet to meet someone who predicted that Florida Gulf Coast College — University, I mean — would take out the Hoyas that were making their 29th tournament appearance. m.ellis@chronicle.utah.edu Twitter: @mattellis utah WOMEN'S TENNIS BASEBALL SOFTBALL Utah suffers 7-0 losses against California teams Continued from page 6 Continued from page 6 Griffin Adams "It's good to win just because it's such a big rivalry," Carroll said. The Utes have now won three consecutive games and four of their last five. Utah has proven it can come through in the clutch, outscoring opponents 22-8 in the ninth inning and 3-o in extras. It was yet another instant classic rivalry game between BYU and Utah that was everything fans expected. "BYU played such great defense the whole night," said head coach Bill Kinneberg. "They held us to one run [through eight innings] because of their defense. I'm really proud of our guys to come back the way they did and tie it, then end up winning it in the loth. It was a good game for a Tuesday night, maybe a little bit too much for a Tuesday night, but hats off to them." c.mobley@ chronicle.utah.edu Twitter: @Chad Mobley only run with a triple in the sixth inning. She believes the team's offensive woes can be attributed to a lack of confidence. "We need to walk up there with confidence and just know that we're going to hit and that we can do it," Dickman said. "Everyone just needs to believe in themselves." Before the game, Hogue said she thought her team needed to score right away to win. She felt the same afterward. "We won't win [games] if we can't find a way to score early and often, and we're continuing to do the same things wrong," Hogue said. "Our team isn't making that adjustment on the field. In practice they do it well so it is something that needs to switch in their heads. They have to have the same confidence in their abilities in the games as they do in practice." In addition to the struggles on offense, the Utes' defense wasn't great on Tuesday either. All four of the Wolverines' (I7-11) runs came in two innings — the third and the sixth. Two throwing errors in the sixth resulted in those scores. Mariah Ramirez pitched 5.1 innings for Utah and allowed seven hits and two earned runs. "I don't feel we were doing everything that we could have, but you know we were giving Ho percent and we just need to make adjustments to hit the ball," Ramirez said. While Hogue was upset her team didn't show the fans their talent in the home debut, she was more disappointed the team didn't meet its own expectations. She hopes this changes in three games against Arizona this weekend. "No one today saw how good we are," Hogue said. "We hope that this weekend we can kind of show that to not just the people that come but to ourselves. We haven't seen it for a while." c.wallace@ chronicle.utah.edu Twitter@ConnorR Wallace Continued from page 6 said. "It's more fulfilling for me and pretty sure for the rest of the 0-line as well." In the previous season, the Utes had a struggle finding ERIN BURNS/The Daily Utah Chronicle Junior TJ Bennett bats in the bottom of the 10th inning against BYU on Tuesday at Spring Mobile Ballpark. Bennett also scored the Utes' first run of the game. grwiy tv?irte eie417- R4 _A•e any etzeeetilaiJ 157 S. Main Street (801) 359-0192 mckaydiamonds.com Ofinee /9-19 .ifit(eXiy STAFF WRITER The Utah women's tennis team went back to California this weekend to take on No. 13 California and No. 15 Stanford. While California might be known for its sunshine and beaches, the Utes were not having fun in the sun as they were swept 7-0 in both matches. Traveling first to Berkeley to take on California, the Utes were hoping to use last weekend's experience to be competitive this weekend. Unfortunately, it was a rough outing as they were swept in the doubles play, and only one player, Paige Miles, was able to force a third set in singles play. "There is a lot of work to do," said head coach Mat Iandolo. "It is one thing to compete at home against top level teams like this, but we just aren't able to compete on the road against these top-ranked teams." Utah played better in the following match against Stanford, but the Utes still didn't register a single point against the Cardinal. While Stanford was the better team that day, the Utes were able to take some positives from the match. With the reigning 2012 Women's Singles Champion, Nicole Gibbs, staring her down across the court, Tereza Bekerova knew she had a tough match coming up. "Going in, I knew she was the defending champ," Bekerova said. "But I felt like I could compete." Compete she did. Bekerova and Gibbs engaged in a threeset thriller that ultimately ended in a Gibbs victory. To be able to compete with girls of Gibbs' talent, though, was a victory in itself. "It felt great that I could compete with her," Bekerova stated. "It was a great match, and I played well. I think I can beat those girls and hope to be one of those girls by next year." After going through the toughest stretch of their sched- KARINA PUIKKONEN/The Daily Utah Chronicle Sophomore Tereza Bekerova during a match March 10. Bekerova and the Utes went 0-7 in both matches this past weekend against No. 13 California and No. 15 Stanford. ule, the Utes are now sitting at 7-7 in dual meets this season. Utah will be looking forward to the rest of their season, starting this weekend at home against Oregon. "Those schools [Stanford and California] are really good," Bekerova said. "We won't play anyone better than that. We are getting over these last two weekends and getting excited about the rest of the season. It will only get easier." Whether it is going up against the powerhouses of California or facing some of the easier teams on their schedule, the Utes will be using all of these matches to improve the program in hopes of reaching the NCAA championships. "You learn a lot about your team when you play against the best teams in the country," Iandolo said. "Competing favorably against those teams is the next step in this program. Hopefully we get on a roll in these next few weeks and get in good position to make the NCAA Tournament." g.adams@chronicle.utah.edu Twitter: @GriffDoug |