Two for two

The Monk again can tout himself as he picked both national semifinal games yesterday. Georgetown was flummoxed by OSU's zone and semi-zone -- the 2-3 that OSU showed and the semi-zone where the OSU forwards played soft on the Georgetown forwards, put Oden down low to prevent cutters or play against Hibbert as necessary and Georgetown barely ran a successful back cut all game. The Monk thinks that Jeff Green needs to take more than five shots in a game that his team trails throughout.

The second game was a mess. After nearly seven minutes in the first half, Florida had ZERO field goals, but UCLA only had a 6-2 lead. The Bruins scored 32 points in the first 30 minutes and by that point, the rest of the game was just extended garbage time. Few players have scored a higher quantum of meaningless points than Arron Afflalo did last night.

So the game that should have been at the start of the Tourney will be the final tomorrow night, OSU-Florida. A neutral court rematch of Florida's 86-60 whipping of the Buckeyes from December, when Oden was not in game shape and the Buckeye team had not jelled. Should be interesting.

In another note, if you want to watch futility you can view Tuesday's women's title game. Rutgers is basically knocking women's hoops back to the stone ages with suffocating defense that makes the '94 Knicks look like an exciting run-and-gun team. Earlier tonight the Lady Knights whupped LSU 59-35. Combine that with their previous win, and they've allowed 80 points in the past two games. Glad I didn't watch.