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. I was looking forward to this opening game of the second round of the 2000 NCAA Tournament, a rematch of the 1996 title game during which Kentucky defeated Syracuse. The Orangemen would exact some revenge on the Wildcats during this second round game, which was actually nip and tuck the whole way. I really liked this Syracuse team with Jason Hart, Etan Thomas and former Illinois player Ryan Blackwell. As for Kentucky, the Wildcats boasted Jamaal Magloire and Tayshaun Prince. Honestly, I don't remember much about this game except that it was pretty close and that I was kind of distracted during it. I believe I was trying to knock out some research I had for an upcoming ELA term paper about William Shakespeare. I figured I might as well try to get some work done early in the day with only one tournament game on at the time. After skipping school on Thursday and being off on Friday, I remember being slammed with homework this weekend, which was going to be a hard proposition with so much basketball to watch. For some damn reason, I always seemed to have big papers to write around March Madness throughout high school, with my senior year no exception during the 2000 NCAA Tournament. 

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. It's safe to say the first slate of games for the 2000 NCAA Tournament were not the most appealing. One thing that always frustrated me about living in Chicago at the time was that the local CBS affiliate would always put on Big Ten teams during the NCAA Tournament. Case in point, the Purdue Boilermakers, a team that I had seen enough of during the regular season. Remember that this time period was before every game was broadcast on its own station; thus, I wanted to see teams I hadn't seen all season long. I don't remember much about this Dayton-Purdue game, though I can assume it was close and probably boring. I just wasn't a big fan of this Purdue team with Brian Cardinal, a very gritty player who had a long NBA career. Of course, Purdue would get all the way to the Elite Eight, losing to Wisconsin during a slog fest. I warned you that the 2000 NCAA Tournament was pretty bad so I hope I am not coming off as negative. Unfortunately, none of these early games was a lot to write home about. :(