The Will and the way.

After the first weekend of March Madness, I have to say that the player who has impressed me the most is Arizona's Derrick Williams.

Williams' block helped Arizona survive the 1st round

In a 4 day span where upsets were the order of the day, no player was more clutch for his team than Williams.  In a closely contested game against Memphis, he came up with the game saving block at the buzzer, preventing a potential first round upset.

As if that wasn't enough, he still had some magic saved as his late 3-point play helped the Wildcats get past Texas in the second round.  Arizona now moves on play Duke in Anaheim, CA - Pac 10 country - and you can expect Wildcat fans to pack the stands.

Williams, the reigning Player of the Year in the Pac 10, along with Solomon Hill, Lamont Jones and company, led Arizona to it's first regular season conference title since 2005.  They might have won the conference tournament too, but Isaiah Thomas and Washington had other ideas. 

The last time Arizona was seen in the NCAA tournament, the were on the receiving end of a 39 point drubbing by Louisville in the Sweet 16.  This is of course a much different team now.  I wouldn't be surprised if Arizona pulls an upset over Duke (Kyrie Irving or not) this week.  They have the size, speed and shoot very well from the perimeter.  The key of course, will be to keep the game close, otherwise Duke might as well run away with it.

That being said, I would love to see just how many more game winning plays Williams can pull out of his sleeves.

Big East or Big Missed?

At the start of March Madness, the Big East received a record 11 bids to the tournament; the most of any conference.  This enhanced its reputation as the best conference in collegiate basketball.

However after the first weekend of tournament play, only two teams remain; Connecticut (who went 9-9 in conference play during the regular season) and Marquette (who also had a similar record in the regular season).  They were both seeded 3rd and 11th respectively.

Among those missing in action are Pitt, the regular season champ, who got served by Butler in a strange series of events during the closing moments of the game.  I didn't watch a minute of the game, but I saw highlights of the last moments and it told me all I needed to know.  Also out are Notre Dame, who finished second in the regular season and also have the current Big East Player of the Year (Ben Hansbrough).  Louisville, one of the better defensive teams in the country got hit in the first round by Morehead State (since they are both Kentucky schools, and we all know that basketball is religion in that state, I'll let this one slide).

Hansbrough and the Irish ran into a staunch Seminoles' D

When you field that many teams in a tournament, you know that they were going to run into each other at some point.  Cincinnati was bounced by UConn, while Syracuse was sent packing by Marquette.  Somewhere, Dwayne Wade, Travis Diener and Steve Novak are smiling uncontrollably.  For those who remember, Wade along with Diener and Novak led Marquette (a member of Conference USA at the time) to the Final Four back in 2003.  They held off Pittsburgh (a 2-seed) before destroying top-seeded Kentucky in the Midwest regional finals (ruining my bracket); only to suffer a mauling at the hands of Kansas in the Final Four.

Following the weekend's events, there have been disses flying, dubbing the conference "The Big Least" and "overrated".  I'm not going to get into all of that.  In previous articles, I have hailed the Big East as the best conference, so don't expect me to change my tone and start bashing on them.  I do know that it's a brutal slate of games and come tournament time, these teams are all worn out and just ripe for an upset.

Since 1999 when UConn took the title, only 5 teams have made it to the Final Four; Syracuse (2003), UConn (2004, 2009), Georgetown (2007), Villanova (2009) and West Virginia (2010).  And like I said earlier, Marquette was a Conference-USA member when they made the Final Four in 2003, and so was Louisville (2005).  In 2009, when the conference fielded 8 teams, there was speculation that all of them could meet up in the regional finals; yet Villanova and Pittsburgh was the only conference matchup in that tournament.

Having said all that, would it be fair to label the conference as overrated, or do the teams save their best performances for that trip to the Madison Square Garden in early March?  Well, as long as they keep underperforming in the NCAA tournaments, the topic will always be up for debate.