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SEASON 5

Recent Game Recaps

Epilogue, The Ninth: Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Memories

So We Meet Again

Rte. 139 - End of the Line

Hanging On

A Championship in Pictures

This Time of Year

Dotson Leads Ducks to the Sweet Sixteen

Grizzlies Overwhelmed by Orangemen

Empire

Challenge 11: Final Four Memories

By George, UConn is Dead

Butler and Us

Donning the Black and Gold

Challenge 10: Tourney Memories

The Madness of the Horizon League

The Rare Ivy League Conference Tournament

MAC Madness

Anything Can Happen in the MAAC

Challenge 9: Shock The Neighborhood

A Youthful Surprise

From Worst to First

Peers and Seers

Second Round: Saturday's Game
March 21, 2009 6:22 pm ET by Kyle Whelliston

[12] Western Kentucky vs. [4] Gonzaga - 8:10 pm ET
South Region - Portland, OR
Athletic Budgets (2008): WKU: $19,957,908 GONZ: $11,009,859

Gonzaga beat the MAC champions from Akron by 13 points, but it's a DVD that I plan on giving to anybody who thinks that scoring margin, adjusted or otherwise, matters for anything. There was a late Zag run, whoopee. We prefer the metric that measure average scoring margin within the game (used extensively in Basketball State's rating system) and that was Akron +2.6. The twin lessons from that game are that a.) Gonzaga doesn't look good against teams that play hard and scrappy, and b.) don't blink when you're playing this team because it has ass-torching capability when the court is open.

Western Kentucky has plenty of big bodies that they can throw at the Zags (like Jeremy Evans and D.J. Magley), and it's crucial that they create mass chaos down low. The Hilltoppers are also well-positioned to exploit Gonzaga's Achilles' heel, which just so happens to be shaped just like a heel! The arc is the place to get them -- Akron hit 10 3's, if you'll recall. This will give Orlando Mendez-Valdez, a man who had little input into the 2008 Sweet 16 run (11 points in three games, a total he matched against Illinois on Thursday a chance to become a national name (yes, a very long and hyphenated one too). The Sun Belt POY has hit 94 3's in 230 attempts for 40.9 percent. And do not give up an extended run to this hot-shooting team -- if Akron hadn't yielded that 13-0 late spurt, this would be a Zip-Top affair instead of a Zag-Top one.

Upsetability: Medium-high.