Chapter Twenty-Nine: March Madness Begins]
H· S· D) On the evening of March 17, the NCAA's famous "March Madness" officially kicked off. In their opening game, Mohide State University in the Midwest defeated Alabama State 58-43 to make them the No. 16 seed in the Midwest and the 65 tournament teams were reduced to 64.
In 1985, the NCAA began to adopt the round of 64 tournament model, in 2001, when the NCAA organizing committee discussed and decided to add one team to the round of 64 to become the round of 65, of course, its main purpose is also to warm up the "Crazy March", as well as increase the bargaining chips for signing broadcast contracts, and in the future, it wants to expand to 96 teams to fight against the increasingly hot NBA, but unfortunately under the resistance of all parties, it has not been formed.
Moreover, in the early stage, it was a confrontation between relatively weak universities, with a low dark horse rate and poor excitement, which was equivalent to foreshadowing.
Two days later, the first round of the real "Round of 64" will be held, and the schedule will be divided into two days, with 16 matches per day and 32 universities facing each other. Huang's only USC tournament will be held on the 20th of the second day, and the first two rounds of the Sweet 16 will be played in eight different cities.
The city of Milwaukee is located in the southeastern state of Wisconsin, on the west shore of Lake Michigan, and is the largest city and economic center of Wisconsin. The city covers an area of 96 square miles and has a population of about 600,000. The city of Milwaukee has a mild climate and comfortable life in all seasons, and is known as "a beautiful place by the lake." It is one of the eight cities where the NCAA Championship will be held, and it is also the city where the first two rounds of USC will be held in the future. (if you win)
On the morning of March 18, USC team members arrived in Milwaukee by plane.
As soon as he got off the plane, Huang Weiwei couldn't help but pull the down jacket on his body, wanting to feel warmer. In his previous life, Huang lived in the south for a long time, and after crossing over, he also lived in Los Angeles, which is a relatively warm city.
Temperatures in Los Angeles are around 10 degrees in March, while in Milwaukee it is only 3 degrees, so it's even more sub-zero at night, and it's still raining lightly, making it even more clammy and cold.
Fortunately, USC's logistics are very good, not only have the players been informed to prepare warm clothes, but the bus that came to greet them was also waiting in the parking lot, and the players got on the bus as soon as they left the airport.
After arriving at the hotel booked by the university, Huang Weiwei got the room card and went to the room with his friend DeRozan (a bit evil!). The team members are all two-person rooms.
After a noon break, the USC team members have relieved the fatigue of flying, and in the afternoon they will go to inspect the game venue, and as for the training or something, they will start tomorrow, and then they will borrow a high school arena in Milwaukee.
The game took place at Bradley Center, the home of the Milwaukee Bucks, an old arena built in 1988 with 18,600 standard seats. After entering the stadium, Huang Weiwei experienced the vicissitudes of life, it was really a big grade.
But after all, compared to Los Angeles, Milwaukee is only a small city, and the home team, the Bucks, is not the kind of ball market that is very hot, and it is normal to lack maintenance funds, but even this should be there.
The Trojans who have seen the field have no chance to go out, and Coach Floyd has ordered the players to rest well and adjust to the jet lag (what the hell is jet lag in a country). Tomorrow in addition to training, the Trojans will face the winner of No. 11 seed Dayton University and No. 6 seed West Virginia University in the next round.
On the 19th, the Trojans had a simple training session at a high school in Milwaukee, mainly for simple shooting and tactics. After all, it's already before the game, and it's too late to do any intensive training, and high-intensity training is very easy to cause injuries to players, and it's really not worth it if you get injured at this time.
On the afternoon of the 19th, Huang and his coach braved the light rain to take a bus and went to watch the game between Dayton University and West Virginia University, and the result was unexpected and expected.
No. 11 seed Dayton defeated West Virginia to reach the second round for the first time since 1990. West Virginia are in the round for the first time since 1992, and they have reached the round of 16 in each of their previous four years. Dayton's freshman forward Chris Wright had an eye-catching performance, scoring a career-high 27 points and 10 rebounds. "March Madness" can happen to anything, and the dark horses on the following grams are always on the radar.
On the evening of the 20th, at the Bradley Center, the Trojans will kick off their "March Madness" tonight. Before the game, coach Floyd did not emphasize any special tactics, just let the players play normally, after all, as long as the opponent plays normally, the strength of the opponent will not pose any threat to the strength of the Trojans.
The Trojans' starting line-up is still the same, with Huang Weiwei, DeRozan, Christian, Gibson, Jerome.
At the start of the first half, the Trojans took the lead. Jerome jumped the ball to win, Huang only easily broke through the opponent's defense with the ball, a feint shook the opponent's inside, a ground pass to the inside Gibson, and an open dunk scored two points first.
Next, Huang Weiwei turned on his personal mode, first North Dakota State University missed the offensive shot, Huang Weiwei held the ball and advanced quickly, and the emergency stop hit a chasing three-pointer at the three-point line with half an empty position, and then used physical pressure to forcibly steal the opposing guard, and directly went to an unguarded layup, scoring five points in a row.
Directly put North Dakota State University to the suspension, but unfortunately the timeout did not save them from the fate of defeat. Because Huang Wei began to do the work of a traditional playmaker in the next game, assisting DeRozan and Gibson to score one after another.
At this point, the Trojans were in control of the situation on the field, and North Dakota State University did not even have a chance to resist. For teams like North Dakota State University, which don't have a tight barrel-like defense and don't have a devastating offense, the Trojans are actually the favorite.
Because it was difficult for them to limit the Trojans' offense, and they couldn't fight against each other. can only be like meat on a chopping board, let Huang Wei cut as much as they want.
The results were not unexpected, with North Dakota University 74-94 Southern California. Huang only they easily won by 20 points, if it wasn't for the second half of the second half of the second half of the Southern California with a full bench lineup, the point difference may be even greater, but in order to preserve the physical strength of the players and properly exercise the substitute players, and the point difference is enough, head coach Floyd still decisively replaced the full bench, Huang only got 10 points, 16 assists standard data.
When USC replaced the full bench, the University of North Dakota also wanted to counterattack, but the tragedy is that they didn't have the life of counterattack, and the result was doomed.
After the end of the game, Huang only and they boarded the bus back to the hotel, at this time Milwaukee is still quite cold, maybe the heavens are lamenting the victory of USC, before Huang only they finished the game The rain has stopped for a few days, but there are still some water stains on the ground.