Love and Basketball

Jason Love, that is. He's a 6'10" center for Xavier, and in my opinion, the key to tonight's Xavier/UCLA Regional Final game. His role will be to try and provide quality minutes to slow down his UCLA namesake, Kevin Love and K. Love's awful beard. J. Love is capable of doing it and I expect him to come out with a high level of intensity, however he is foul prone so he needs to keep his aggression controlled because I fully expect K. Love to get any and all calls when there is physical play down low.

I think this one is going to be interesting. Xavier has shown a resilience that belies a veteran senior and junior-laden team, overcoming a big deficit against Georgia, showing poise against Purdue and never panicking against W. Virginia after losing a big lead and falling behind by 6 in overtime. UCLA, other than its 16/1 first round matchup, has shown alarming lapses in play. Its defense has been extraordinary in 5 of its 6 halves though and this is the key to the game, Xavier's offensive execution against UCLA's stifling defense. As I wrote a couple of days ago, Xavier has very balanced scoring and they will need contributions from a lot of players to overcome the Bruins.

My pick? Xavier does it, 65-60.

As for UNC/Louisville, this game can and will end one of two ways: a UNC win 100-80 or a game that comes down to the last shot for Louisville. If Louisville's press doesn't cause the kind of turnovers that Clemson was mostly successful with in their games against UNC, the Heels will win and win big. If they can get the cheap turnovers and capitalize on them, it will be interesting. My one guarantee for this game is that Padgett, Caracter and Palacios for UL will combine for at least 13 fouls. I expect the national POY to get to the line about 10-12 times in this one.

The pick, as much as I don't like to do it, is UNC. I will still root for UL though.