Sweet Sixteen

Can Stephen Curry and Davidson keep winning? Can any team slow down North Carolina? Writer John Feinstein, a regular contributor to The Washington Post, was online Friday, March 28, at 11 a.m. ET to take your questions about the NCAA men's college basketball tournament.

A transcript follows.

Feinstein is a former sports and political reporter for The Washington Post. He has worked at Sports Illustrated and at the National Sports Daily, commentated for National Public Radio and Sporting News Radio and has written columns for AOL and Golf Magazine. Feinstein has also contributed to the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of a number of bestselling books, including, "Caddy For Life," "A Season on the Brink," "A Good Walk Spoiled," "A Civil War," "The Last Amateurs," "A Season Inside," "The Punch," "Hard Courts," "Forever's Team," "First Coming," "Winter Games," "A March to Madness," "Play Ball" and "Open." His next book, "Living on the Black," will be released May 1.

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Louisville: Louisville appears to be deep and talented. What do you think are their chances to get to the Final Four?

John Feinstein: Louisville is deep and talented, but I would be surprised if they can control North Carolina for an entire 40 minutes off of what I saw last night. It doesn't help them at all that they will be playing what will basically be a road game. But they certainly have a shot.

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Bethesda, Md.: John,

Always great to read your pieces in The Post.

What kills me as I watch the tourney is the number of players from D.C. Metro area who by-passed Maryland and went out of area to play. I read that one of the talented freshman at Syracuse (after their NIT game) was saying he wanted to come to Maryland but it didn't happen. Same for some other blue-chippers. Georgetown is now landing a steady stream of local kids, but not so at Maryland. Do you hear any concerns at College Park to shake up recruiting? Thanks

John Feinstein: There are always concerns when an elite team doesn't make the tournament three years out of four. And the first thing people point at, correctly, is recruiting. I didn't take what the Syracuse kid said that seriously, because his real complaint was that Gary Williams didn't kiss his butt enough when he visited, which is fairly common among these guys. Having said that, there is no question that Maryland needs to do a better job of keeping at least some of the local kids home. One other thing to note -- Georgetown's key recruit from next year is from New Orleans.

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Montgomery Village, Md.: Mr Feinstein

Thank you so much for your insights on not just sports , but other elements of our lives. I remember seeing you speak to a very small group of basketball parents in our community many years ago. You were insightful and patient with us even though you probably could have better spent the evening with your family.

Speaking of patient -- will the Badgers be sufficiently patient in their defense against Curry, much as they were in stopping Beasley and Neitzel ?

Thanks

John Feinstein: Wisconsin plays great defense, and I have no doubt that with five days to prepare, Bo Ryan will send waves of players at Stephen Curry. Having said that, I thought Georgetown did a pretty good job on him for most of the game; he made some amazing plays down the stretch. For me, the key for Wisconsin is to shut down Wisconsin's other players, particularly Jason Richardson, the point guard, who I think is very underrated.

Thanks for the nice comment about my talk and my patience. My friends and family would be shocked to hear that word used in connection with me.

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Go Bruins: Let's establish right up front that I'm a UCLA fan and grad. But let's also establish that the collapse they had last night was atrocious. Ok, yes, Kevin Love is the man, Collison is a rocket and Keefe came up big when they needed him. But why do they dig themselves these huge holes? Why can't they just play two good halves?

John Feinstein: Years ago, Dean Smith made the point, after Carolina won a close game, that "the other team gives scholarships too." Sometimes you have to give credit to the opponent. West Kent. is a gutty team that hung in there after the first half and deserves credit. I also think it's hard for kids with a 21-point halftime lead, no matter what their coaches tell them, to stay motivated. Remember the mantra of the NCAA tournament: Survive and advance. The score doesn't matter.

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Charlottesville, Va. (formerly Ward Circle): I know Jeff Jones's hands are somewhat tied by the Patriot League's academic requirements, but will American's showing last weekend help get him in some homes he might have been shut out of before?

John Feinstein: Good point. I think it will. I think everything that went on the last few weeks will help AU. The enthusiasm people saw on national TV after they won championship game and their performance against Tenn. Bruce Pearl told me last night that he's still waking up thinking about how close a call that game actually was.

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WVU's Joe Alexander: Every March, one basketball player makes NBA millions in one weekend. When my friend and I went to the 1995 opening two rounds in Baltimore, an unheralded University of Alabama sophomore named Antonio McDyess played two games that impressed the entire crowd. My friend said, "We just saw a young man become an instant millionaire."

I think Davidson's Stephen Curry is too slight to play in the NBA. My nominee for player who has exploded in the tournament is West Virginia's Joe Alexander. What do you think?

John Feinstein: First, I disagree about Curry. Players are players. How much did Isiah Thomas weigh? But I do agree about Alexander, who flew under the radar most of the year, even though he had a great season. I don't think there's any doubt that if he comes out, he made himself a lot of money these last few weeks.

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Herndon, Va.: Mr. F: I enjoyed your column today on the "invincible" Tarheels. My bracket now looks decent, since I have the 4 No. 1 seeds going to the Final Four. Do you think any of the lower seeds has a decent shot at making it to at least the semi-finals?

John Feinstein: Yes, I always do. Maybe that's because hope springs eternal. I will be surprised if Memphis is in San Antonio. Not shocked, but surprised. I think they could lose to Michigan State tonight, but more likely to the Texas/Stanford winner. And I hope, because Rick Barnes is an old friend, the winner of that game is Texas.

The other three No. 1s look pretty good, but as I wrote this morning, teams can go from looking unbeatable to beaten in 48 hours in this event.

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Falls Church: With Roy Williams now having a recruiting advantage where he has three key performers from California along w/the usual Carolina talent from NY and the South, can Duke possibly compete w/the lax admission standards of Carolina basketball?

John Feinstein: Roy's recruiting has nothing to do with admissions standards. Mike can get any player he wants into Duke as long as they meet Prop. 48 standards. Repeat: Anyone. Roy's recruiting advantage has to do with Roy and his staff doing a better job the last few years than Mike and his staff. There's an old saying in sports -- don't whine, get better.

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Fairfax, Va.: Providence has asked for permission to interview Jim Larranaga. Given that he's an alum, how interested do you think he is in the job, and what are the pros and cons of being the head man there?

John Feinstein: Good question. I think Jim has to listen, because it is his alma mater and it is the Big East. The decision he has to make is, at the age of 58, does he want to go through a difficult rebuilding, at a place where it has never been more difficult to win, because of the size and depth of the Big East. He has a great job at GMU, he can stay there for life, he makes good money, lives in a beautiful house that's a 10 minute drive from his office. Does he give that up to take on a difficult challenge, but one where he may believe he could potentially reach a height he's not likely to get to again at George Mason.

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Washington, D.C.: Kevin Love appears to be a bright spot for UCLA. he is an amazingly bright basketball player and has a few moves for a big man. can you solve this debate in my office. Is Kevin Love really 6-10. he looks like a wide body 6-7 or 6-8. we like the kid, but debate his future if he is 6-10 or 6-7. thanks

John Feinstein: Always tough to know how tall a kid is unless you've stood next to him, which I haven't. But my question is, does it really matter? He can flat-out play. I still remember when Michael Jordan came out of college, the never-wrong Pat Riley told me that the Portland Trailblazers had done the right thing in taking Sam Bowie ahead of him because "Bowie is a legitimate 7-1, and Jordan is only 6-4, even though he's listed at 6-6." How did that work out?

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Mt. Lebanon, Pa.: The Xavier-West Virginia matchup last night was the best game I've watched since Stanford vs. Marquette. Chills and thrills into OT.

Thank goodness for the Big East to bring tough teams to the dance, though in both of these cases, the BE team lost. But they don't go down easy.

Well, Pittsburgh went down easy but we live here with teams who sometimes go big; sometimes they stay home. No one can figure it out. It must be something in the water.

What's your quick and dirty prognosis for the remaining BE teams: Louisville who won convincingly last night and NOVA who goes to work tonight?

Thanks much. Go Big East

John Feinstein: I wish I had seen Xavier-WV instead of the two dog games I saw in Charlotte last night. I think Villanova has the old puncher's chance against Kansas if their guards make every shot they take. Of course, we all remember a game in the NCAA tournament, in which Nova did make every shot it took. (Okay, only 9-10 in the 2nd half against Georgetown.)

Louisville has an uphill battle against Carolina. It might be that Villanova and Louisville are playing the best two teams in the tournament in their next games.

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Capitol Hill: I want to be an NCAA referee. Do I have to get a UCLA tattoo, or it sufficient if I just wear a UCLA sweater to the interview?

John Feinstein: Ha! Ten days ago I wrote that Duke-UCLA would meet in the round of 8, so that fans would agree that both teams were getting all the calls. Good teams do sometimes get the benefit of the doubt from refs. They're human. They expect, subconsciously, players from those teams to make plays they might not expect from players on other teams. And yes, they can be intimidated by coaches. But the team that deserves to win wins, almost all the time.

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Washington, D.C.: Good afternoon John and thanks for doing this chat. I've got Michigan State knocking off Memphis, Stanford beating Texas, then Stanford beating MSU to come out of that region. Chances of that happening?

John Feinstein: It could happen. I think that's the most wide-open of the four regions. It's the only one I think any of the four teams could come out. While your scenario is not as likely as some others, it's possible. If any of those teams win tonight, I won't be shocked. It's the regional most worth watching. (I'm at the one least worth watching, at least so far.)

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Washington, D.C.: As a longtime follower of Georgetown basketball and the school in general, I read your column following the Hoyas loss to Davidson with interest. In the article, you mention that the Administration at the University decided to move to the Capitol Centre and then Verizon Center instead of building an on-campus arena, and were "motivated by big bucks." That statement seems to indicate that a conscious choice was made to not construct an on-campus arena. Was an on-campus arena ever realistically in the cards? How do you know the choice to move was motivated by money? Among the many, many obstacles, it seems to me that the neighborhood would never agree to an on-campus arena. Please expand/explain.

John Feinstein: Sure -- there was great discussion at Georgetown in the '80s about whether to build an on-campus arena with about 8,000 seats, instead of a rec center. The decision was made, I believe, to try and have their cake and eat it too. The decision to go to the Cap Centre was made when Patrick Ewing arrived, not a coincidence, and the school made no bones that it wasn't a coincidence.

I have no doubt Georgetown could have its own arena if it chose to, and I'm a big believe that all college basketball games should be played on campus. And, it's worth noting that it wasn't the Georgetown players and coaches who complained, it was certain apologists.

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Chalk Talk: Forgive my hoops ignorance. Last night WVU came down from an 18-point deficit when the switched to a matchup zone. How exactly does a matchup zone differ from a standard zone?

Thanks for educating a lost soul.

John Feinstein: A match-up zone is 1/2 man-to-man, 1/2 zone. You don't purely cover areas of the court. Generally speaking, you are assigned to one player, but you switch more often than you might playing pure man-to-man. Interestingly, in many man-to-man defenses, for example the kind made famous by Bob Knight, there is so much help that it has as many zone principles in it as a match-up zone.

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Arlington, Va.: John, as usual, your columns and reporting in The Post has been excellent. What do Rick Barnes and his Texas team need to do to beat Sanford this evening? Thanks!

John Feinstein: I think tempo is key in this game. If Texas can get it in the 70s or 80s, that will benefit Rick's team. They don't want a walk-it-up game in the 60s, the way most of the Pac-10 is playing these days, and they better do a better job guarding the three-point line at the end of the game then they did against Miami.

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Washington, D.C.: How can the NCAA permit CBS to televise these games when they do such a pathetic job? Last nights televising of the same game on three channels (analog 9, digital 9.1 and 9.2) is the ultimate in ineptness. Give the contract to a broadcaster that can handle multiple games (ESPN or NBC) not the one who just bids the most money.

John Feinstein: First, I don't know about analogs, that's out of my league. Secondly, no matter who has the contract, they're going to limit the number of games you get for free, so you're forced to buy games from DirecTV from that package Bob Knight's been pitching. I think overall, though I have complaints with starting times and timeouts that are too long, CBS does a very good job. Third, from here to the end of time, you can be certain that anyone selling TV rights is going to sell to the highest bidder.

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Taneytown, Md.: Is Love the difference maker for UCLA this time around? Kid is a beast...

John Feinstein: He is a beast. And he is also a clutch shooter. He made two really tough shots down the stretch against Texas A&M when no one else wanted to shoot the ball. I certainly think he makes them a better team than in the last two years, when they got blown out in the final four by Florida. I don't expect anyone to blow them out for two reasons -- Love's presence, and because Florida is in the NIT (would have been fun to see Love match up with Noah.)

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Washington, D.C.: What does the ACC have to say for itself. I am an ACC loyalist, but now I see the conference is overrated. I actually stood by supporting Maryland and Va Tech as getting hosed by not getting in the tournament. Now, I see the toughness and athleticism of the Big East and Big 12 as superior. UNC is in a class of its own, but Maryland got drubbed by an undermanned Syracuse. Do you think ACC coaches are taking note? The players on these other teams don't seem like typical ACC players but I think the conference needs to step up.

John Feinstein: I agree with virtually everything you say. If you go back two weeks, I wrote a column from the ACC tournament saying the league has gone downhill since it expanded in the name of football. Think about this -- if NC doesn't win tomorrow night, it will be the first time since 1961 that the ACC has gone three straight years without a final four team. Think about this -- in the last two years, the only ACC team to even make the Sweet 16 has been North Carolina. Heck, Virginia Tech and Virginia couldn't even win home games the other night in the NIT and CBI. You bet the coaches have noticed, and they're not happy, nor should they be. I think that the league has been hurt by expansion, by the president's complete sell-out for football, and because there's been a recruiting gap the last few years.

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Seattle: I used to know the dean of admission at Davidson, and she always emphasized "admission, not admissions" in her title because she said there was only one way into Davidson and all students, athlete or not, came through that door. There is no special admit for athletes. "If I showed you the high school transcripts and test scores of two dozen random students here, you wouldn't be able to pick out the athletes." That seems to have been glossed over in some of the coverage. These kids truly are students first. Someone once commented about how quiet is was on a plane return trip once, because virtually every kid had his head in a book or homework up on a laptop studying. That's part of what is so amazing about these kids. They manage to combine both so well.

John Feinstein: Davidson is a great school. And it is easily the best story in the tournament. All credit to those kids and their coaches. Having said that, any time I hear an admission or admissions director claim there are no exceptions made for athletes, I laugh. Exceptions are made for athletes at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Amherst, Wesleyan, Duke, Stanford, and yes, Davidson. As long they are academically qualified to attend the school and bring something special to it, I have no problem with that.

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Arlington, Va.: Do you foresee the University of Virginia ever becoming a consistent NCAA tournament team? The Terry Holland/Ralph Sampson days are clearly over however I'd settle for the Jeff Jones days at this point. Why has this program declined despite an abundance of Virginia hoops talent?

John Feinstein: Good question. Jeff did go to the tournament five times in his first seven years, without Ralph Sampson. Pete Gillen, who I've always thought was a good coach and a good guy, just didn't work out. I've thought it's much too soon to judge Dave Leiato, his second year was very good, his third year not so good. I agree though with your basic premise -- Virginia has too much tradition and plays in too good a league, and now in too good a gym, to not succeed on a more consistent basis. Two trips to the NCAA tournament in 11 seasons is unacceptable.

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Washington, D.C.: In order to win my office pool, I need Kansas to not make it to the final four (thanks Georgetown). Do I have a prayer?

John Feinstein: You have a prayer, but I'm certainly glad I didn't invest in your pool. Again, remember what makes this tournament unique -- one and out. Anybody can lose. Kansas should get to the Final Four, but assuming they play in the regional final, that will be a big hurdle mentally for both Bill Self and his players, since they've never gotten through that game or that round.

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Bracketology: I had Villanova advancing to the Sweet 16. I am brilliant.

I had Tennessee going to the title game. I am a doofus.

I am having a blast this month. I am a college hoops fan.

John Feinstein: The last sentence is all that matters. What makes picking brackets fun is feeling great when you get one right, and knowing you're a doofus when you get one wrong. The last time I helped anyone with a bracket was 1989, when I told my wife there was no way Indiana would lose to Seton Hall in the round of 16. Seton Hall won by 20, and she would have won the entire pool if I kept my big mouth shut. So now I do.

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NW, DC: So what's the solution in the ACC? Is it academic standards, style or what. I remember some kid that Maryland could not take went on to Villanova or some other Big East school that was no academic slouch. It just seems that the ACC style of play is not tough enough and too structured with specialist like Duke, and not full court play with 94 feet of athletic play.

John Feinstein: I think it all gets back to recruiting. College athletics are like real estate -- it's recruiting recruiting recruiting instead of location location location. I think that perhaps some of the very successful coaches in the league, Roy Williams being the obvious exception at the moment, have a) made some mistakes, as everyone does and b) maybe not gotten after it as well as they need to. It's not style of play, it's quality of players.

I also think it's cyclical. The ACC will be back.

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Shrewsbury, Mass.: Which seniors that don't have NBA potential do you think might have great coaching potential?

And can you tell this from how they play or is it a wakeup moment down the road after they've left college?

I nominate Ronald Ramon, Pittsburgh.

Thanks.

John Feinstein: I'm not sure you can tell from how they play, though history shows that guards tend to make better coaches as they're in charge out there, just like catchers make good managers because they are in charge during a baseball. there are obvious exceptions to that John Thompson the Elder being one, Lefty Driesel being another.

The way I figure out if someone might be a good coach is by talking to them. You can look in their eyes while talking to them and tell they are meant to coach. A good example, I can think of, is Jeff Jones. I can remember him at UVA, being convinced he would follow his father into coaching, even though his father told him not to coach.

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Washington, D.C.: Louisville vs. UNC match up

Do you think Louisville will use its press against UNC? Do you think they will double team Hansbrough the way WSU did? Hansbrough had a tough time scoring in the first have of that game.

John Feinstein: I think Rick Pitino will always try to press. I don't think you can change your personality for one game. Louisville has to play uptempo; that's of course dangerous against North Carolina. I do think they will at times double Hansbrough, but if Carolina starts nailing 3s, they'll have to rethink that. I think the key to stopping Carolina is keeping Ty Lawson out of the lane, which is much easier said than done.

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Kansas City: I know, I know the better team may have won but what do the NCAA people say about showing UCLA fouling A&M on the last shot? Stuff happens?

John Feinstein: Yeah. Stuff happens. One play doesn't decide a game. there's an old saying among coaches, when they hear their team was one play away from winning -- there were 20 chances during the game to make that play.

Don't misunderstand, I hate to see a play missed during the end of the game, I always do. If it's any consolation at all, if a ref does blow a call like that, he will not advance because of it. Last year, John Cahill did not go to the final four because he swallowed his whistle so badly on the obvious flagrant foul by Greg Oden at the end of the Ohio State-Xavier game.

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Oakton, Va.: As far as running a clean, respectable program, which teams left are the "good guys"? Which are the "bad guys"?

John Feinstein: Broad question -- certainly Carolina has always been one of the class programs in college basketball. Texas, Stanford, Michigan State, Villanova -- it's mostly good guys. Louisville, in the old days, was famous for it's Camden Connection under Denny Crum. Xavier is a class program. There's really nobody left to be honest I would actively root against, a la a team owned by Dan Snyder. Now there's a bad guy.

Thanks, and lets hope we get more good games tonight then we did last night.

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