Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. This set of games was disappointing in the moment, with Wisconsin frustrating LSU with its defense during a boring 61-48 victory. I especially remember eventual top NBA Draft pick Stromile Swift struggling against the Badgers. As for UCLA vs. Iowa State, this was a rematch of a classic Sweet Sixteen game from the 1997 NCAA Tournament, during which the Bruins won late on a Cameron Dollar layup. Iowa State would get revenge three years later, crushing the Bruins by 24 points and looking like a very formidable foe for #1 Michigan State a couple of days later. Little did I know that Michigan State vs. Iowa State would ultimately feel like the national championship game, not a good sign for an Elite Eight matchup. :-) 

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. I was so pumped up for this opening set of Thursday night games of the Sweet Sixteen, especially the Gonzaga game against Purdue. I remember having to run to the mall after school with a friend, who wanted to get some new shoes, hearing the amazing Supergrass song "Pumping On Your Stereo" for the first time, thinking that Gonzaga would knock off Purdue. That would not be the case as Purdue surprisingly handled the Bulldogs, ruining my dreams of Gonzaga making the 2000 NCAA Final Four. With that said, the Syracuse-Michigan State game was a classic. The Spartans had a miserable first half, getting down at halftime to a game Syracuse team in front of a stunned crowd at the Palace of Auburn Hills. As was the case during a second-round comeback against Utah, Michigan State would take control of the Syracuse game in the second half, leading to an all-timer of an Elite Eight matchup two days later! 

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games, that is, if you can see any of the games as the picture quality was abysmal on this rainy Sunday afternoon in March of 2000. This last set of games had three teams from last year's Final Four playing: Ohio State, Duke and defending national champion UCONN. Only one of those teams would be standing as Ohio State and UCONN would be eliminated rather handily by Miami (FL) and Tennessee, respectively. I don't remember much from this group of games, with the exception of the Kansas-Duke game that was shown late in the second half. The Jayhawks gave the Blue Devils a very tough game, with stud freshman all over the court. Duke boasted freshman Jay Williams, Carlos Boozer and Mike Dunleavy while Kansas had first-year players Drew Gooden, Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich. While Duke would get by the Jayhawks' freshmen, the Blue Devils would not be lucky in the Sweet Sixteen against a Florida team with its own stable of stud first-timers: Donnell Harvey, Brett Nelson, Justin Hamilton and Matt Bonner. Note: I will try to find good copies of these games from YouTube, relying on two of my favorite channels: Keith Olenik and Vitamin J. 

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. I remember catching most of the first half of this Florida and Illinois game, with the Illini's Sergio McClain making a short jumper in the lane to give the boys from Champaign a 32-25 lead late in the first half. From that point on, the Gator Boys, as Joakim Noah would later call the basketball players at Florida, would be in total control. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I had to leave at the end of the first half to go to a family party out in the suburbs. I remember listening to the second half in the car and getting frustrated as Florida seized control of this game. I then walked into my cousin's house to see Illinois down double digits with a few minutes to go, knowing that was it for the Illini. I felt less bad about this loss as the 2000 NCAA Tournament progressed, with Florida beating Duke in the Sweet Sixteen and advancing all the way to the National Title Game before losing to Michigan State.

Also in this stretch of games are a day of upsets, with #7 Tulsa knocking off #2 Cincinnati and #8 North Carolina defeating #1 Stanford. In regards to the Tulsa victory, this was hardly an upset as Cincinnati, the #1 team for most of the season, lost star Kenyon Martin to a broken leg during the first round of the Conference USA Tournament. Interestingly enough, Tulsa would lose to UNC during the Elite Eight, with Head Coach Bill Self eventually taking the Illinois job vacated early that summer by Lon Kruger, who left for the NBA to be the Head Coach of the Atlanta Hawks. Of course, Kruger took Florida, the team that knocked him out of the 2000 NCAA Tournament, to a Final Four in 1994. Ironically, Kruger's last game at Illinois was against his former school. Talk about a strange turn of events. 

Please pardon the poor picture quality at points as it was raining all day and my television reception was shoddy. With that in mind, I have found and included parts of these games from the great YouTube channel of Keith Olenik.  

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. The middle picture of Pepperdine's Tezale Archie and Oklahoma State's Doug Gottlieb encapsulates how I was feeling this morning of the NCAA Tournament, angry and on edge. A high school buddy had come over to my house at like 7:30 that morning to work on a project with me for our Government class. I believe we had to write a sample piece of legislation, which we were really struggling with. In fact, I thought our legislation was horrible, though my buddy disagreed and said "It was good enough." After grinding three hours to finish the legislation early in the morning because I had to attend a family party later that afternoon, I began watching this Pepperdine-Oklahoma State game, only to have the picture be barely visible since it was raining a lot this morning. Sadly, this day's set of games are not the best quality due to the poor reception my house used to get for CBS Channel 2 when it rained. Ultimately, I don't remember much from what I could see of this game, though I know the Cowboys won a pretty competitive contest en route to a run to the Elite Eight. Overall, this Sunday set of games is what I think turned me off on the 2000 NCAA Tournament, with higher seeds Illinois, Ohio State, UCONN and Stanford all losing rather handily in boring games that were not that exciting. 

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. Perhaps I have been a bit too negative on the 2000 NCAA Tournament, as this Gonzaga-St. John's game was a classic, with prime Gus Johnson doing a great job on the call. After being down following Arizona's loss to Wisconsin in the prior set of games, Gonzaga and St. John's provided a compelling game that took my mind off of what happened to the Wildcats. Just like the second round of the 1999 NCAA Tournament, #10 Gonzaga proved itself worthy against a #2 seed, taking care of St. John's as the Bulldogs had done against Stanford the year before. After defeating the Johnnies, Gonzaga was certainly going to the Final Four, at least in my mind, with Purdue, Wisconsin and LSU left in the region. That would not be the case though for the Bulldogs, which forever changed as a program these two tournaments thanks to the play of Matt Santangelo, Richie Frahm, Casey Calvary and many others. To this day, these 1999 and 2000 squads are my favorite Gonzaga teams of all time, a testament to when the program was an upstart as opposed to a West Coast blue blood.