A Few National Notes For Selection Sunday

There’s no question that this season has been challenging and at times has verged on impossible. So it’s nice to know that March still brings March-like amazement and we’ve seen a bunch so far.

Start with the Notre-Dame Wake Forest game, then the Georgia Tech run to the ACC Championship, and from there move on to Oregon State, Rick Pitino and Patrick Ewing.

We saw Oregon State coach Wayne Tinkle come through Cameron a few years ago when he was at Montana and he made a real impression. We realized we were seeing a really good coach.

He moved on to Oregon State, a challenging job. Ralph Miller did well there but since he’s retired, no one has had a winning record, including Tinkle.

Well, he just coached his team to the PAC-12 title, so congratulations to Coach Tinkle and the Beavers. Well done.

Rick Pitino has had a bizarre return to college basketball, nearly as bizarre as his exit. Iona, a school with a fraction of the resources of Louisville, has gone 7-2 since a major Covid pause cost the Gaels eight games.

And now, after defeating Fairfield Pitino has them in the NCAA Tournament. It’s a pretty remarkable accomplishment. We can talk a lot about his Louisville scandals and poor judgement or whatever you’d like, but only a fool would think Pitino can’t coach a team. We’d hate to see Iona in he first round because he has some points to make and you know his team is going to be relentless. Can’t wait to see who they’re paired with Sunday. We have a sneaky feeling that they just might, coincidentally you know, be in Louisville’s bracket.

And finally, Georgetown: what have the Hoyas been eating this week, and do you need a prescription? Good Googledy goo!

Pat Ewing’s Hoyas beat the crap out of Marquette, then shocked Villanova, took out Seton Hall by eight and on Sunday absolutely annihilated Creighton.

How bad was it?

Look at ESPN’s Gamecast.

The score was tied 18-18 with 6:00 to go and the half-time score was 36-18. And the Hoyas never let up, winning 73-48, which means Georgetown outscored Creighton 55-30 after the 18-18 tie.

Remember that last season, Georgetown had a wave of transfers and major questions.

Two other things to keep in mind about this game. First, Ewing was pretty angry about having to identify himself in Madison Square Garden, a place where his jersey hangs now. It doesn’t explain the whole brilliant tourney run, but would it have fired up his team vs. Creighton?

Maybe so.

We’ll be curious to see if Georgetown can maintain this level of play in Indianapolis, but even if they can’t, it was one of the great Big East runs of all time.