Big West Tournament; Day One

Day One of the Big West Tournament is in the books, folks. In Game 1, Irvine beat LBSU 77-63. In Game 2, Riverside took out Cal Poly.

Tomorrow, CSUF will take on Irvine in the early game at 6:00 p.m. Pacific will take on Riverside at 8:30 p.m.

The Gauchos play Friday at 5:30 p.m. against the lowest remaining seed. The seedings of the teams playing tomorrow is below.

#3 CSUF
#4 Pacific
#5 Irvine
#7 Riverside

For those of you wondering, UCSB swept Fullerton and Riverside in conference play. The Gauchos got swept by Irvine and split the series with Pacific (UCSB won the away game). As a result, most people probably don't want to see the Anteaters on Friday and I don't blame them. However, one truism that I believe is true (uhh...is that a truism?) is that it is very difficult to beat a team three times in one season. In high school I saw it happen in two different Section Championships with the same teams in two consecutive years. The Section winner was swept in the regular season by the Section loser, so read into that what you may. Also, the Super Bowl Champion, NY Giants? They lost to the Dallas Cowboys twice in the regular season before beating them in Dallas during the playoffs. What does that mean? I don't know, but I suspect that the losing team has two tapes to see what they did wrong and then they can learn not to do anything bad they did in either game.

Honestly, TGM is rooting for a Riverside victory tomorrow, but that isn't likely. Why? Pacific has beaten them twice this year. I forgot to caveat my three times rule. It only applies to good teams, which I assume UCSB is. Riverside is not. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing for the Gauchos to face the Anteaters. At this point, it's balls to the wall baby. You're the number one seed for a reason and you need to play like it.

In fact, the team I'm most scared about playing is Pacific. I don't know why, but those Tigers scare me.

So folks, pick your poison. There's only three teams we can possibly face, UCI, UCR and Pacific. Pick who you like us to beat and root for them in tomorrows quarterfinals.

Also, I'm working on an excel spreadsheet to release tomorrow or early Friday morning on the Gauchos season. So check back early and often starting tomorrow, I promise it's going to contain some good information that you might actually find useful, unlike the rest of this blog.