Wow South Florida With The Upset

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Is it good or bad that Villanova lost to South Florida? They squandered a 16 point halftime lead in the second half. That tells me that they were worn down, which I suspected they would be with Stokes and Fisher being hurt lately and not in top shape. That said, Villanova is clearly a better team, which is why they had a 16 point lead at halftime. The problem is they would have had even more tired legs in tomorrow's game. Likely matching up two even teams with one being worn down and the other fresher than probably any team in the Big East. South Florida wasn't the 15th place team out of 16 teams for nothing. They aren't a very good team, or very deep, so they had lots of players playing a lot of minutes which should give UC an advantage.

The problem is any team can get hot. Especially when they have a stud 3 point shooter. This would be considered a bad loss as well and if UC gets upset that will likely affect their seeding big time. They could drop from a 6th seed to a 8th, 9th, or even 10th seed. You never know with the tournament committee. Really though I'm glad they won, I think UC will take care of business as they know what's at stake. Hopefully they can get up big fairly early and keep key players rested. That is not necessary though as the Bearcats routinely play 9 players double digit minutes with little drop off coming off the bench. That should have them fresher than anyone in this conference and this tournament is set up for them to make a big run if they can get past their first two games. With the depth they play with they have a distinct advantage over about everyone, except for Pittsburgh who they wouldn't meet until the Finals.

If they do get by South Florida, Notre Dame, who is on fire, is waiting for them. Notre Dame has the double bye as well so no advantage over them which is why I said they need to get past their first two games. There are two things about Notre Dame though. They are most dominant at home and not so much on the road. Well Madison Square Garden isn't Notre Dame's home court. The other thing is they live by the three. The saying goes, "if you live by the three, you die by the three." So an off shooting night could cause Notre Dame to be in trouble and that could very well happen with them coming off the double bye. Sitting around waiting to play could give them an off shooting night, lets hope so! Anyway look out for the next article which will be a UC vs South Florida preview. I didn't get to watch the second half of tonight's game, so you can imagine I was shocked that South Florida is the opponent. When I left my house they were down by sixteen!