After a first weekend lacking the upsets and thrilling games we’ve become accustomed to, the regional semifinals started off with some great games last night. The primary games here were probably the two best - the games in San Antonio.

In San Jose, the Kansas-Southern Illinois game was apparently very good as well. We got to see a fair amount of it at the beginning, and they switched over late to show the end. I was really hoping Southern Illinois could pull it out, but it didn’t quite happen.

The late game was not a blowout, either. I didn’t really see any of it, so I can’t speak much about it, but watching the score change at the top of the screen indicated it was relatively close all the way through, with UCLA winning by 9 in the end.

Many people were picking Texas A&M to the Final Four since they were playing in San Antonio. I thought Memphis was extremely fortunate. The final minute included a missed layup by Acie Law and then a phantom foul that gave Memphis the winning free throws. Yes, he brushed his chest with his arm, but there was no advantage there, the shot was not affected and was not going in anyway. Usually in end game situations, they don’t make a call like that. Unfortunately for A&M, they did last night. It didn’t cost them the game - Law’s miss may have done that - but it was still a pretty weak call.

The late game began with Tennessee on fire, hitting 3’s from all over. They ended up hitting 16 for the game, I believe. Late in the first half, they were up by 20 until Ohio State scored on the final play of the half. It appeared that Tennessee was well on it’s way to the upset.

At this point, I went to bed. Not because I thought it was over - I assumed OSU would play better in the second half, Tennessee might cool off a little and the gap would be closed. Granted, I didn’t know if they’d be able to pull out the win. But still, I set the DVR to record the rest. I was too tired and not feeling well, so I called it a night.

And what a night it turned out to be. I turned on the game this morning while getting ready for work, and started skipping through the opening minutes. The gap was closing. It was down to 14, then 11, a finally 6 points. I then started watching it and with around 8 minutes to go, I believe, Ohio State was all the way back - the score was tied. I watched the rest, right down to the final play when Oden swatted Tennessee’s final shot out of bounds at the buzzer. Ohio State pulled out another one that they probably should have lost.

Some say they’re a team of destiny. They’re actually looking a little like Connecticut last year. Nevertheless, they play on.

I’ve already seen some Tennessee fans complaining about fouls and free throws. Basically, that OSU took 35 free throws to Tennessee’s 18 free throws. Okay, it’s very simple - when you shoot half of your field goals from behind the 3-point line (62 FG taken, 31 were 3FG), you’re just not going to get fouled as often on the offensive end, so you’re going to shoot less free throws. Oh, and if you shoot better than 47% from the line (8 of 17), you win the game anyway. So these complaints are pretty weak.

All in all, last night’s games were pretty good, and very good by this year’s standards thus far. All the high seeds won, which is somewhat rare. Hopefully, tonight’s games won’t disappoint, either, and there will be a few more very good games.