NCAA Tournament Thread -- Day Two

[fishwax]

The first day of the tournament was pretty exciting — 5 double digit seeds won, tying the most ever for the first day of the tournament. There were also three overtime games and four game-winning shots in the last five seconds of games.

The schedule for today’s games is below – if you’re stuck in a cubicle (or if you want to watch a different game than your local CBS affiliate is showing, you can see all the games online for free: http://mmod.ncaa.com /

So what games are you looking forward to? What will today's upsets be? How long before your brackets are completely busted?

12:15 PM (15) Morgan State vs. (2) West Virginia
12:25 PM (11) Minnesota vs. (6) Xavier
12:30 PM (12) Cornell vs. (5) Temple

2:30 PM (13) Siena vs. (4) Purdue
2:35 PM (10) Missouri vs. (7) Clemson
2:45 PM (14) Oakland vs. (3) Pittsburgh
2:50 PM (13) Wofford vs. (4) Wisconsin
4:45 PM (12) Utah State vs. (5) Texas A&M

7:10 PM (9) Florida State vs. (8) Gonzaga
7:15 PM (10) Georgia Tech vs. (7) Oklahoma State
7:20 PM (12) New Mexico State vs. (5) Michigan State
7:25 PM (16) Arkansas-Pine Bluff vs. (1) Duke

9:30 PM (16) Vermont vs. (1) Syracuse
9:35 PM (15) UC Santa Barbara vs. (2) Ohio State
9:40 PM (13) Houston vs. (4) Maryland
9:45 PM (9) Louisville vs. (8) California

[HopeHoops]

1. Who got the most touchdowns?

[fishwax]

3. wrong sport -- i think you mean home runs

:P

[HopeHoops]

11. Wickets?

[fishwax]

21. that's the one!

:)

[KamaAina]

2. Go Arkansas-Pine Bluff!

Come on Fighting... um... er... Pine Cones?

[fishwax]

5. lol

Golden Lions, actually --


Here's hoping :toast:

[CBR]

7. We can all hope for Duke's defeat...

:toast:

[fishwax]

4. Minnesota and Xavier tied at 26 at halftime

Good first half in that game.

[rurallib]

6. Go Cornell! Up at half time.

[tigereye]

10. wish they were showing that game here instead of WVU-Morgan

but then I'm a Pitt fan... :evilgrin:

[PRETZEL]

12. they might switch with about a minute to go

by then, WVU should be up by 35.

[fishwax]

25. Looks like Pitt's playing well today, tigereye

I haven't been able to see any of that game, but they seem to have a pretty comfortable lead. :toast:

[tigereye]

70. yeah, they are always a little sleepy at first, and then they hit their stride

The Xavier game on Sunday should be interesting!

[PRETZEL]

13. Cornell putting a whoopin in Temple now

up 17 with about 6 to go.

So much for me thinking Temple would be a sleeper.

They're asleep alright.

[fishwax]

15. I thought Temple might be a bit of a sleeper too

Nope.

I haven't gotten to see much of the Cornell-Temple game, but just judging from the scoring updates it seems they've been firmly in control from the jump.

[JonLP24]

17. One 12 over 5 wins every year

Cornell over Temple looked like the most favorable to me. FTR I didn't pick any 12 over 5 but I was close to going that way,

[fishwax]

20. I picked Utah State as my 12 this year

A&M is good this year, but I thought Utah State should have been an 11 or a 10.

[JonLP24]

22. All 12 vs 5 looked like good matchups

I strongly considered going the other way with San Diego St, UTEP, and Utah St. However Cornell dominated Temple so it wasn't that good of a game. Good choice fish.

[Zavulon]

39. My #12 was effing UTEP.

Gee, that worked out well for me.

[KamaAina]

24. Yeah! Ivy League!

Remember when Princeton did it to UCLA? (Remember when UCLA was actually good?)

[Zavulon]

38. I could have written your post.

I had Temple winning on Sunday, too :mad:

[ceile]

8. Go Cougs!

Houston is going to kick ass!

Well....I can dream can't I?

[fishwax]

19. it's a tall order, but

Murray State won yesterday as a 13 seed, so maybe it'll happen again tonight :toast:

[SteppingRazor]

9. My bracket's already busted becuase of Ohio and Washington, but...

my big upsets for today are Siena over Purdue and Utah St. over Texas A&M. I'm hoping my Mizzou Tigers can pull off a win against Clemson, but I'm not counting on it.

[fishwax]

14. I think you might be right on the first two

I picked those as well. I think I might have even picked Mizzou :)

[elleng]

16. WVU BEAT MORGAN STATE!

Thanks again, fish!

[fishwax]

18. bit of a scary start, eh?

They switched away from that game here when Morgan State was still up about 10 -- I guess WVU must have really turned it on after that :bounce:

"Thanks again, fish!"

No problem -- thanks for joining in! :hi:

[elleng]

23. Sure was scary,

but one of the dee jays said they frequently start slowly!

[JonLP24]

26. This Tigers vs Tigers match-up is pretty good

Back and forth all day. Let's hope it stays that way until the end. 42-41 now Clemson's lead.

[JonLP24]

27. Wisconsin having trouble with Wofford

Up by 2 with 5 4 seconds left. They can seal it with 2 free throws.

[fishwax]

28. I had to step away for a bit and missed most of the afternoon action

Too bad Wofford couldn't pull it off--looks like it was a good game.

[JonLP24]

29. Any games being played right now?

The Price is Right is on.

[fishwax]

30. Utah State and A&M are playing, but my CBS is showing local news

:wtf:

I don't remember them doing this in years past, but perhaps my memory is just faulty.

[JonLP24]

31. I had 2 hours of no basketballl

1 hour of Price is Right now I'm watching 1 hour of local news. I can't remember much basketball last year. I found the time for Arizona State-Temple then Arizona State-Syracuse and watched that. After the loss to Syracuse I couldn't bring myself to watch many games. Years before that I was out of state(mostly without cable) and spent a year out of the country so I rarely caught any games.

[WolverineDG]

32. Knew I should have stuck with Cornell

but nooooo, I have to go & listen to my friend who knows more than I do. :banghead:

Oh well, still only 1 bracket busted (but could turn around at the sweet 16) for now.

dg

[elleng]

33. fish, where do you get the day's schedules?

Need to know asap when WVU will play tomorrow, so I can plan my day!

Thx

[some guy]

34. they won't play until Sunday.

Thursday's winners will play Sat.
Friday's winners will play Sun.

then no games for a few days. 25th I think starts 3rd round.

[elleng]

36. THANKS, guy!

Wasn't thinking about day off!

[fishwax]

67. hey elleng, here's a place where you can get the schedules

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/schedule

I don't think they've set the times for Sunday's games yet, but once they do they'll be up there. :toast:

[elleng]

69. Thanks fish; got it!

[JonLP24]

35. New Mexico St is making an early second half run

Now it's a game for the time being. 42-37 Michigan St lead.

[JonLP24]

37. New Mexico St just took the lead

Wow what a comeback. Michigan St just dominated the whole first half, now the Aggies are dominating the Spartans in the 2nd.

[fishwax]

44. Yeah, I thought they were going to fold in the first half

great comeback by the Aggies.

[JonLP24]

46. I watch so much basketball that comebacks usually don't surprise me

This one did. Did not expect the Aggies to make a game of it.

[fishwax]

51. back to within one!

:woohoo:

[JonLP24]

53. LOL you picked NMST? ;)

I got Michigan St vs Kansas in the regional semi-finals.

[fishwax]

56. oh no -- I had State

but I'm a sucker for an upset :)

[Initech]

40. Want to hear something absolutely mind-blowing?

Today on ESPN they announced that out of 5.8 MILLION (fucking MILLION) brackets received in their contest, today, ZERO people have it correct going into day two. :wow:

[Zavulon]

41. Georgetown's loss alone probably knocked out 5.79 million. (NT)

[Initech]

42. I had Georgetown picked to win that one, I'm out.

[Zavulon]

48. You're probably not out yet, unless you picked Georgetown to win the national championship.

Two people in my office pool did and they're definitely out.

[Initech]

55. My final four is Kansas - Kansas St - Kentucky - Purdue

[Zavulon]

57. I'd say you're still well in it, then.

I didn't put Duke in, either. I have Kansas, Kansas State, Kentucky and Baylor.

[JonLP24]

43. Not surprising at all

The odds of getting a perfect bracket is taking single sheets of paper with different bracket combinations and stacking them from here to the moon and back 1.5 million times to get one right. Even if the odds are that you'd get 90% of each pick right it's still 1 in 700+ to get a perfect bracket. No one on Yahoo! has a perfect bracket left and the top dog from last year on Yahoo! didn't have a perfect bracket and think of all the people that filled out multiple brackets on that which it lets you do.

You have a FAR better shot at winning the lottery than having a perfect bracket.

[Initech]

47. But the announcer said even in past years they've had perfect day twos.

After that is where they all get weeded out.

[JonLP24]

49. Probably right

Doing brackets in the past it was always easier to pick the final 4 and elite 8 than picking the first round. I always suffer first round blood baths.

[fishwax]

50. true, but the odds for picking the first day's games aren't that long

16 games would mean that (my math could be off) 65,536 combinations--and when you factor in that almost nobody is likely to have missed the 1 vs. 16 games and that very few would have missed the 2 vs. 15 games, there are only 12 games (which is only 4096 combinations).

I've never come close to a perfect bracket, but I have come within a game or two of a perfect day in the first round.

But not this year! :rofl:

[fishwax]

45. wow, that is crazy

:wow:

[JonLP24]

52. Aggies turned it into a 1 possession game

Down by 1, Mich St ball.

[JonLP24]

54. Ah lane violation

[fishwax]

58. one more round of games

I'm going to miss most (if not all) of the action tomorrow, so these games had better be good :)

[JonLP24]

59. I've been looking forward to Cal/Louisville all day

Figures they would have a malfunctioning clock to make the wait even longer! Should start up soon. Go Cal! Rooting for them and Washington since Arizona State guaranteed themselves a spot in the NIT after the first round exit to Stanford in the Pac-10 tourney. :(

[fishwax]

60. NIT is better than nothing

Which is what the Sooners wound up with after their worst season in almost 30 years. :grr:

[JonLP24]

62. Did you see the first round?

It was the day before the actual tournament started. Arizona State had a 10+ point lead against Jacksonville with a little over 5 minutes left to play and the whole team--including myself started relaxing waiting for the win. Then--in a blink of an eye--Jacksonville brings it within two with under 50 seconds. Glasser missed a two pointer as the shot clock was winding down with about 10 seconds left and Jacksonville drives down the court and makes a ridiculous bank shot 3-pointer from about 30-35 ft away to win it. :grr:

Overall it was a good season. They didn't get embarrased against top level competition except for one game against Cal on the road and a home game against Arizona where the Wildcats made 75% of their shots in the second half. However the first round exit in the NIT hurt.

The good news in all this, Arizona State was named #1 in the polls this week in college baseball. :woohoo:

[fishwax]

61. good start for Cal -- up 10 at the first timeout

[JonLP24]

63. They're very good team

Kind of surprised they were that low of a seed when Arizona State was #7 last year and they didn't have Cal's type of year that they had this year. However I understand it considering conference RPI was down. Still a long way to go but it's a nice start. Go Cal! :bounce:

[JonLP24]

64. Nice shots by Houston and Cal to end the half

:kick:

[fishwax]

66. that houston shot was sweet!

I missed Cal's shot, though ...

[Mz Pip]

65. Go Bears!

make this Old Blue proud!

[JonLP24]

68. Louisville just made it a tight game

6 minutes to go Cal up by 5.

[Tikki]

71. Ha aha...

UCSB did not lose to (2) ranked Ohio by 30 pts. and went even under 20 pts.

YAY to Gauchos for the good try...

Tikki UCSB Class of 1995...