1st Round Games...

[FLW Buckeye]

Tough, tough loss by Penn St.

3 games complete on day 1 and Louisville becomes the 1st #4 to bite the big one...

[Screw_Michigan]

Second rd is not until Saturday unless you are an NCAA lackey.

[FLW Buckeye]

Second rd is not until Saturday unless you are an NCAA lackey.

Where's the "Who gives a Fuck" troll when you need him...

[Screw_Michigan]

It's not the second round, tool, and it never has been. Why should it now? Because the NCAA told us? Go fuck yourself.

[Shoalzie]

Just call it the round of 64...

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

Second rd is not until Saturday unless you are an NCAA lackey.

Yeah. First set of games are "play in." This is the 1st round, ball sniffers.

[Shine]

Had to use/abuse my mod powers and correct the thread title. As soon as the "first four" games are mandatory selections in a bracket contest I'll call start calling the Thursday/Friday games 2nd round. Until then...

As for Thursday thoughts:

- not shocked that Morehead won. I really liked them coming into the tourney and was gonna look for them to pull the upset but thought Louisville was too strong. Mild surprise but not a shock by any means.

- "the power of Izzo" had me pick Sparty to win at least 1 but I knew a typical deep run was out of the question. This squad was just off from the get go and never found its stride.

- AMAZING start to the tourney. Butler at the buzzer, Morehead late, Temple late, Kentucky late. Great start to the action.

- Putrid wrap up to day 1. Mostly blowouts in the final session and only UCLA playing with two hands around their neck late made for any intrigue.

- Only Sweet 16 team I lost was Louisville and that's one the majority would have lost as well.

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

All around pretty shitty day for me. Lost an Elite 8 team in Vandy, another in St. John's, a S16 in MSU, and a few other first round games. Then my team gets shit hammered by UCLA, although they did make a furious comeback which was fun to watch. Down 23 with 8 to go and had a chance to win it. Ugh. But at least I'm not AP.

- AMAZING start to the tourney. Butler at the buzzer, Morehead late, Temple late, Kentucky late. Great start to the action.

Agree, which is why I don't understand people bitching about the pairings before the games are even played. Who cares about pairings, as long as the games are exciting?

[Shoalzie]

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/tournamen ... id=6228346

Irving returning for Duke definitely changes things...his health was the x-factor of the tournament. They did quite well without him and now you add a dynamic ball-handling point guard that can score to a tournament-tested team...I'm scared shitless at what the Devils will do to Michigan if they win this afternoon.

[Terry in Crapchester]

Lost an Elite 8 team in St. John's and a Sweet 16 team in Louisville. Not great, but not as bad as Mgo, either.

Agree with Shine. The afternoon games had great endings, the evening ones, not so much.

[Shoalzie]

Lost an Elite 8 team in St. John's and a Sweet 16 team in Louisville. Not great, but not as bad as Mgo, either.

Agree with Shine. The afternoon games had great endings, the evening ones, not so much.

I too had Louisville in the Sweet 16...thankfully I revised my brackets from beforehand and decided to go with Florida getting to the Elite 8 over St. John's.

Other than the late Sparty run, the last 4 games of the night were awful...and awful for the bracket.


Seriously considering just cutting out to watch Michigan-Tennessee but so many are leaving the office early that I might just hang around and stream that bitch here.

[King Crimson]

i was going against St. John's early.

Vandy and Louisville getting the early bounce looks great for Kansas.

[Shoalzie]

Me likey this second half for Big Blue...

[M Club]

Me likey this second half for Big Blue...

can't wait for grant hill's "uncle tom" pep talk before sunday's game. nolan smith is going to drop 50.

[FLW Buckeye]

Tenn looks like reheated shit smothered in shit gravy...

Hard to believe the this is the same team that beat Texas.

[Shoalzie]

With the talk of Pearl's future being in doubt and with his team beaten by 30 in a first round game...how does he not get pink slip?

Bring on Duke!

[MuchoBulls]

With the talk of Pearl's future being in doubt and with his team beaten by 30 in a first round game...how does he not get pink slip?

Judging by the second half that Tennessee had I'd say he got fired at halftime.

[MuchoBulls]

Beating Villanova hasn't been that difficult lately. Even we beat them.

[Terry in Crapchester]

One thing I was thinking about is that occasionally a team seeded between 5 and 12 lucks out and gets sent to the closest pod site. One would think that could constitute a significant advantage in first-round action. This year, those teams were:

Xavier (#6) vs. Marquette in Cleveland
Old Dominion (#9) vs. Butler in Washington, DC
Tennessee (#9) vs. Michigan in Charlotte
Georgia (#10) vs. Washington in Charlotte
Gonzaga (#11) vs. St. John's in Denver
Memphis (#12) vs. Arizona in Tulsa

All of these teams were sent to the closest pod site. All of them had travel advantages over their first round opponent, and in some cases, those advantages were substantial. Strangely, though, these teams went a combined 1-5 in the first round. Obviously this isn't big enough to constitute a fair representative sample, but it would be interesting to see what the first-round records are of similarly-situated teams since pod sites began.

[Shine]

Thoughts from Round 1, Day 2...

- I had picked Michigan to beat Tennessee so that wasn't a shock, but holy hell I never would have guessed a 30 point ass whooping!!

- The late game play, or lack thereof, by Texas came through yet again.

- Really mild day compared to Day 1 as I wouldn't call any outcomes upsets, and the only real surprise was how easily some teams were dispatched.



Overall Round 1 (and beyond) thoughts...

- The Big 10 represented nicely with a 5-2 overall mark with: one of the losses being a toss-up game, no favored seed losses and two 8/9 beatdowns.

- The stats will show the Pac 10 is 3-1 but to me they're 3-0. USC didn't play their way in.

- Things are falling Duke's way again. You need some luck to win this thing and they're getting it. In the S16 they'll face two teams that are undisciplined and can't close a game out. Those teams don't beat Duke very often. Then in the E8 they'll either face a 1 man team in UCon or another undisciplined team in SDST. Not to mention they're getting Irving back. Starting to worry more about a repeat.

- The Big East is already taking some lumps for being overrated (unfair) and things won't get any better since they're guaranteed two 2nd round losses due to canibalization.

- Really looking forward to the Washington/UNC game.

[King Crimson]

- Things are falling Duke's way again. You need some luck to win this thing and they're getting it.

Kansas may be in this camp as well. with Vandy and Louisville (4 and 5 seeds) out, if they can get past Illinois then they've got a pretty nice path. nothing is given in the tournament, but given the choice of playing your way through a 16, 8/9, and then 12/13 instead of a 4/5 in the 2nd weekend....that's about as good as it gets. Purdue and ND are teams that could take down a #1 though.

[Terry in Crapchester]

- The Big East is already taking some lumps for being overrated (unfair) and things won't get any better since they're guaranteed two 2nd round losses due to canibalization.

The Big East went 7-4 in the first round and three of those four losses were in the range of games that could be considered tossups, or fairly close thereto (two losses in the 6-11 games and one loss in an 8-9 game). They did win a game as a lower seed, in pretty convincing fashion.

I was somewhat shocked that the Selection Committee had not one, but two, potential all-Big East matchups in the Round of 32. I suppose that was inevitable given the seeds (Big East had two 3 seeds, three 6 seeds and an 11 seed). Perhaps some revision of the seeds should have taken place.