by Michelle Richardson

Stanford 60 Kansas 57: I don’t know about anybody else but my bracket totally looks like crap and the Stanford Cardinal did their homework for this game and at Stanford kids usually don’t come out of college early. When Stanford went in there they were truly the underdog going against Kansas on Sunday.

The point of the advantage for Stanford are the players staying in college to the end and having the experience on the team and Kansas just had too many younger players on their team and Stanford won out on experience. Even though the Jayhawks had athletic talent they couldn’t necessarily get the job done because in college you have to play the more athletic talent game.

You really have to have knowledge of the game and college is the place where you gather that knowledge where you gather that knowledge about playing basketball. It was a very good game, you had four of the Cardinal starters in double digits and they really played well on both sides of the ball. The leading scorer for Stanford was Dwight Powell with 15 points, Chasson Randall had 13, and with ten points each Anthony Brown and Stefan Nastic.

Cardinal vs. Dayton (Thursday March 27): These two teams match up very evenly and this one is going to be a real barnburner. Both of these teams get up and down the court very well, they know how to score. Dayton is one of those teams that is not afraid. Dayton will go there and fight you tooth and nail.

They’ve done this many times before and for Dayton head coach Archie Miller who really got his young men focused and really have to get these guys ready to play. Dayton is the quintessential of giant killers don’t be surprised when they beat Ohio Stated during the season and they can beat an Ohio State because their not afraid of Ohio State.

Many of those young men who played for the Dayton Flyers probably played high school and Jr.College ball against these same gentlemen who are at Ohio State. Ohio State won’t even play the other Ohio teams in pre season. The Buckeyes won’t play Dayton, Toledo or Kent State. They don’t want to play those guys because those kids are too familar with these players.

Stanford and Dayton will be a war on Thursday for the next step in the brackets.

Kentucky 78 Wichita 76: The Shockers broke my heart I actually had Wichita going to the finals in the NCAA against Michigan State. I honestly thought Wichita State would be able to challege for the national championship and they did. Hats off to all of those young men. They really played a great basketball game against Kentucky and had a great 2013-14 season that they will never forget.

It was a very close game the high scorer for UK was Andrew Harrison with 20, Aaron Harrison with 19, and Julius Randall and James Young both finished with 13. For Wichita’s high scorers, Cleanthony Early finished with 31 and Ron Baker had 20. Fred VanFleet had only four points but he had six assists.

VanFleet was all over the place and he got into a litle foul trouble and had to be taken out of the game and that’s what took the turn for the Shockers was that they missed VanFleet. The problem with Wichita State was you only had points scored by two guys. The loss snapped a 35 game winning streak.

Michelle Richardson does commentary on the NCAA weekly for Sportstalk Radio