NCAA Men's Second and Third Rounds in Pittsburgh

Since we moved to Birmingham in 2007, we have attended the 2008 NCAA Men's Semifinals and Finals in Detroit, the 2010 NCAA Men's First and Second Rounds in Providence, and the 2010 Semifinals and Finals in St. Louis.  We also watched the games downtown Detroit when the Final Four was in town in 2009 with Michigan State in the group of four.  To keep our streak alive, this year, we made the 4.5 hour drive over to Pittsburgh to attend what is now the Second and Third Rounds of the Men's NCAA Tournament at the Consol Energy Center (home of the Pittsburgh Penguins).  The bracket this year just looks a little odd with the addition of four more teams for the play-in spots at the 12, 14, and 16 seeds.

Our first game of the day saw a match-up between Kansas State and Southern Miss.  This game certainly looked a little ugly in the first half with K-State barely edging out a lead, but they held it together for some tough plays to close out the second half with 70-64 victory.

The second game of the day was Syracuse and UNC-Asheville.  Without center Fab Melo, Syracuse was caught off guard by a tough UNC-Asheville team that led the first half 34-30 looking to pull the first-ever tournament #16 over #1 seed upset.  During the second half, Syracuse bounced back with the help of couple of controversial calls including a lane violation that led to Syracuse making two free-throws they would not have had otherwise.  Then, on another play, the ball went out of bounds off a Syracuse player; however, it was called Syracuse ball.  Later, they made two free-throws.  Syracuse ended up winning 72-65 as the crowd just kept booing the referees.

During the dinner break, we out walked the crowd to Strip District where we ate at Roland's.  The second half the day included games between West Virginia and Gonzaga.  It really wasn't close there, and we were happy to see West Virginia go down 54-77.  The only real highlight there was learning that David Stockton, the son of Hall of Fame guard and Gonzaga alum John Stockton, played on Gonzaga.  We spent some time searching for him in the crowd!  I found him on Saturday (see below).  Meanwhile, for the last game of the evening, we tried to keep ourselves awake for Ohio State against Loyola Maryland.  We had to give Loyola Maryland credit for the most rambunctious fans; however, they did have all day to prepare for the night in the dance.  With Ohio State clobbering them 78-59, Coach made the call for exit once we ended up leaving once R.J. Williams received his fifth foul with roughly 6 minutes left in the game.  No upsets for us this year.

While we were near Consol Energy Center, we ended up taking a look at the in-progress demolition of the Civic Arena (or Mellon Arena, former home of the Pittsburgh Penguins).  Found this interesting article comparing Pittsburgh and Detroit and the tale of their two abandoned sporting facilities.  For Detroit, it was the Silverdome in Pontiac.

Plus we were able to get up close to the new Mario Lemieux, Le Magnifique statue in front of Consol.

For Saturday's Third Round games, the day kicked off with Kansas State against Syracuse.  Despite the constant boo'ing from the crowd against Syracuse, they managed to easily fend off K-State with a second half surge that ended in 75-59 victory for the Orange.  Nothing controversial there.

During the second game between Gonzaga and Ohio State, I spent much of time finding John Stockton and Greg Paulus.  Good times.  This game was much more exciting than the first one as Zags kept it close in the first half, and then slipped in the last seconds of the second half as they made a 3-pointer to put them within 4, but couldn't score after that.  And of course, the Buckeyes made their free throws to win 73-66.

Overall, no upsets for our entire set of Second and Third round games, but we certainly had fun cheering the teams on.  Maybe next year, we'll finally get to see Northwestern in the big dance although I'm not holding my breath on that one.

More photos from our trip to Pittsburgh in my photo album.