We have our first two teams in the Elite 8!!!!! First, Notre Dame used a large run to start the game and one in the middle of the second half to run away from Wichita State.

Then, Wisconsin got pushed to the limit by the sharp shooting from UNC – as the Tar Heels had a 7 point lead in the second half. But the Badgers kept chipping away – and then used an 11-3 run to take a 5 point lead into the last 5 minutes. And then the #1 seed in the West withstood Marcus Paige’s three pointers by hitting their last 9 free throws to ice the game.

Congratulations to the Irish and Badgers for getting one step closer to the Final 4 in Indianapolis

Sadly, the spam bots are back trying to break into my Word Press account – as they have posted 6 comments that are meant to take you to another spam site.  And some bold person even tried to create a subscriber account so they could post directly.

Since I don’t have the time to deal with that nonsense, it is easier for me now that I have deleted the bad comments to just lock down the site from allowing any comments or users.

It is really a shame that I would have to go to those types of measures to keep the website clean.  But since I don’t post while the college basketball season is over, it is too much of a risk that I won’t notice these bad things happening and someone might accidentally click on a dangerous link.

My apologies to all the fans of the site.

The night games really had no drama – as Tennessee, UCLA, Baylor, Virginia and Arizona dominated their games.

So the Sweet 16 is set. At this point, Bernard Benson is our standard pool leader at 500 points. He is closely followed by Doomps, Michelle Horgan, Justin Gorman and Philip Ventrella – who are 10 points behind. Then, trailing by only 20 points are Steve O’Neill, Chris Franklin, Laura Carini and Steve Glass.

In the upset pool, Justin Gorman has taken control with 243 points. Justin is followed by Michelle Horgan (12 behind), Laura Carini (16 behind), Bernard Benson (23 behind) and Philip Ventrella (23 points).

The Lunatic is still lurking in the large group tied for 36th. So, it is not a thorough stomping just yet – but we have a full two more weekends of games to fix that.

Also, for those of you who have already given up on your bracket because you had Wichita State, Kansas, Villanova, Creighton, Syracuse or Duke winning it all, there is still hope. That is thanks to the Second Chance Pool!!!! Don’t forget to login and enter your second chance picks – not only is it a clean slate, it is free to enter!!!

Good luck to everyone – hope your favorite team is still playing!

That was harsh! I don’t know if this is ever going to happen again – but it feels like there needs to be a rule to help with this.
After Iowa State drove down the court to take a 2 point lead – it looked like the Tar Heels tried to quickly push the ball up court to move the ball near half court before calling timeout. Problem is the clock never started.

It was pretty obvious they were trying to advance it slightly up the field and call timeout. And because the official never started the clock, it was impossible to know when to call time.

I get that they spent the full remaining time left on the clock, but how could they tell. Lets face it – they likely weren’t going to pull off a miracle shot from where they would have had to inbounce. But they should have been given some time to make a final play.

Everyone is saying they got the call right. And I give Roy Williams a lot of credit for being such a good sport after the decision was made by the official to end the game. The problem to me is none of this happens if the officials didn’t do something wrong – it is unfair to UNC to say that they should have known they dribbled the ball for two seconds but the officials need to take no responsibility for forgetting to start the clock.
They should have either given them the ball where they would have been when they called time. Or better yet, they should have said that because the clock never started, the play never happened.
I actually think it is unfair to both teams. Iowa State made a fantastic play to win the game. They shouldn’t have the controversy of what might have happened – my guess is they don’t care since they get to keep playing but they still shouldn’t have this hang over their win. And definitely not fair to the UNC kids that they went to the huddle thinking they were setting up one last chance to save their season and after a long review was told their season is over without being able to go back on the court.

Congratulations to 10 seed Stanford for their incredible upset of the Kansas Jayhawks.

And thanks to that upset, we are guaranteed to see a Cinderella in the Elite 8. The Cardinal will actually be the favored seed against 11 seed Dayton.

Who would have thought it – but it was two Big Ten schools providing the best offensive performances of Saturday.

After Wisconsin and Michigan State survived tough matches against Oregon and Harvard, the nightcap gave us one last upset for the day, as Shabazz Napier went off for 25 points to lead 7 seed Connecticut to a 12 point victory over Villanova.

Congratulations to Michael Strange – who now has small leads in both pools. Mike is followed closely by Dooomps – who is 10 points behind, and Bernard Benson and Laura Carini who are 20 points behind.

In the upset pool, Laura and Justin Gorman are just 4 points behind. And Bernard and Charlie Hodgson are just 9 points back.

Congrats to all our Saturday leaders.