March Madness: Day 2

Day 2 brought way more thrills and upsets than Day 1, which was good for people who picked all of those games right. That wasn't me. I missed Siena, Utah (I had a feeling that would happen), Wake Forest (Cleveland St on 4/5 brackets except the one that counted), Utah St, Portland St, and Temple.

Thankfully, I only had Wake going to the Sweet Sixteen. That woman that was in first place? She had West Virginia in the Elite Eight and Portland St in the Sweet Sixteen. Anytime you make it through the first two days with all of your Elite Eight teams in tact, you're in good shape.

First place is now some guy who picked the rest of the 8 games correctly last night. He had Wake in the Sweet Sixteen too, but he's up on me by 1.

Now for yesterday's highlights, because I have a feeling if I continued on about my bracket, you'd stop reading.

Syracuse did as expected and spanked Stephen F. Austin. I watched about 5 minutes of the game and immediately hopped on to E-Bay to order my very own Eric Bell. He's almost life size!

Oklahoma St beat Tennessee. I've written an apology to Peyton Manning for picking Ok St, but I don't know if he's gotten it yet. Picking 8/9 games don't matter anyway, because unless there's a REALLY good sleeper, you're not putting them past the second round. Anyway, it was a good, close game, just as expected.

My Utah St. Aggies almost pulled off the upset. I call them mine only because I was so confident in them winning that I felt I should get some sort of credit if they actually did win. The worst feeling in the world is hitting a last second 3 pointer when you're 4 points down. It was a great game by them.

I didn't watch much of the Kansas/North Dakota St game. I hate Kansas, and I didn't even realize North Dakota was a state.

Temple sucked against Arizona St. Santa Claus can't do it all by himself, so effort from the rest of his team would've been nice. Thanks suckbags.

The Pittsburgh/East Tennessee St game was almost one of the greatest games I've ever seen. I don't think I've ever seen a 1/16 game where I really thought they were going to do it. 8 minutes left, I thought Pittsburgh was just going to collapse any minute. Nope, it didn't happen, meaning I didn't run around outside naked and screaming. Sorry ladies. And Adam.

Dayton beat West Virginia. I don't know much about basketball lingo, so I don't even know what kind of offense that's called. They basically do with a basketball what a football does with a football when they run a triple reverse option. And they really played off the fake handoffs beautifully. Imagine a bunch of tall, lanky, speedy guys playing basketball the only way tall, lanky guys can. Dayton's my upset pick against Kansas. Just watch.

Missouri beat Cornell, but didn't pull away until later in the second half. Reason being, Missouri sucks, and so does the fact that I picked them to go to the Elite Eight. I expect to regret that decision tomorrow, but I really thought they'd be playing Utah St (and then overranked Memphis who are bound to drop their Sweet Sixteen game).

At this point I went to see Watchmen for the second time. It's so much better on IMAX. Imagine Malin Akerman's beautiful breasts as she rides Patrick Wilson to the tune of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Now imagine her breasts are bigger than your entire body. Yeah.

Arizona spanked Utah. I picked against Arizona teams twice and have twice regretted it. I picked Utah teams twice and twice I have regretted it. Never again.

Southern Cal beat Boston College. Obviously. BC only beats good teams, they lose to bad ones.

Portland St. got rocked by Xavier. This makes my picking Wisconsin for the Sweet Sixteen much more unlikely. Crap.

I got back in time for the end of the first overtime for the Siena/Ohio St game. That game was incredible, even if you only started watching during overtime. Ronald Moore gets to be the first superhero of the tournament with his 3 pointers he hit under ten seconds in both overtimes, to first tie it up, and then give them the win. Brilliant.

I thought Cleveland St would upset Wake Forest, but I wasn't confident enough to pick them when money mattered. After all, Wake was at one time the best team in the country (or overrated by the media). Ohio's definitely representing this tournament.

Michigan St. left just enough breathing room that Robert Morris could have climbed back into it. They unfortunately didn't, but I would have sent links to every guy on ESPN to this blog just to tell them how bad I called an upset (except I would have cleverly edited my post so I didn't mention at the end that I was just kidding).

Wisconsin over Florida St was huge for me. It was also a great game, even though they would only switch over to it when there was about 30 seconds left in regulation (and there were like, 3 minutes in overtime for the Ohio St/Siena game). I was too lazy to grab my laptop and throw the game on there, so I just watched the bits and pieces CBS showed. Two seconds to go and they get a prayer thrown up that goes in, plus the foul. Trevon Hughes hit his free throw, and that was the game. Brilliant.

I'm going to keep it short today, because I need to start drinking approximately NOW to calm my nerves for the UConn/Texas A&M game. Ok, maybe it's not that bad, but I did realize something. Over in California, when my friend Kris and I were at a sports bar in Long Beach to watch the UConn/Syracuse game, people kept asking why we were so into it. I answered, "Have you ever been in Connecticut? Can you find anything else to be unashamedly prideful of except for UConn athletics?" At least when a team in California loses, they go out and take a walk amongst some palm trees and the beach before hitting up their local medical marijuana store. In New England, when our team loses, we have to go dig our car out of five feet of snow when it's -20 degrees and cigarettes are $7 a pack. THAT'S why we take our sports so seriously.

Games to most definitely not miss:

UCLA/Villanova. I think UCLA come in to this as a heavy underdog. If Nova were in another conference, they could've very well won it and gotten a #1 seed. Instead, they had to be in the Big East, where there are 3 #1 seeds and 1 other #3 seed. However, UCLA is the type of team that can shine in the NCAA Tournament, and if they're on today, it could be a tough time for Nova. My pick: UCLA

Maryland/Memphis. Memphis barely fended off Cal State Northridge, and Maryland had a tough game grinding it out against California. For my bracket's sake, I'm rooting for Memphis, but my heart is hoping the Fighting Turtles will knock the first #2 seed out of the tournament.

UConn/Texas A&M. Texas A&M is the type of team that can cause a lot of turnovers, especially against UConn who has sloppier ball handling than a heroin addicted hooker who hasn't had a fix in a week. Wait...let that sink in. Ok, let's move on. I definitely think UConn has the toughest 2nd round game of any #1 seed, but I also think they should be put up against #16 seeds the entire tournament. My pick: Texas A&M. To lose.

Purdue/Washington. This game's going one of two ways. It'll be close the entire game, giving Purdue a chance to take it at the end. Or...Washington dominates the entire time. I'm taking the latter. Jon Brockman is a beast, and I just hope he comes down with the 2 day flu or something after the game so UConn doesn't have to see him.

Western Kentucky/Gonzaga. Can the Gonzagas of this tournament beat Gonzaga? There is a very realistic possibility of it. This ought to be a shocker, no matter what happens.

Alright, it's past noon. Let's hit up those beers.

For all my UConn attending readers out there (Kris):

UCONNNNNN

HUSKIEEEEES!

UCONNNNNN

HUSKIEEEEES!

UCONNNNNN

HUSKIEEEEES!

HUSKIEEEEES!

UCONNNNNN!

WOOF.

2:57 pm: UCLA was a dumb pick.