I am sure everyone expected the #1 team in the country to be done with North Dakota State by halftime.  Someone forgot to tell North Dakota State that they are not supposed to hang with the Blue Devils.  At half time, Duke only has a 31-27 lead.  I expect that Coach K will have his young team come out and dominate in the second half.  But the underdogs today have been playing fantastic basketball today.   And in the 7 pm games, Washington has a 10 point lead against Utah State, and Liberty is only down 1 against Mississippi State.  Even 14 seed Georgia State is only down 9 at halftime against Houston.

If  I was a coach of North Carolina, Virginia Tech, VCU or Iowa State, I would be telling my team to not give the underdog any reason to have some hope – they need to come out strong to start off.  Because today, the underdogs are coming to play – they want to stick around for the weekend.

The Cavaliers came out strong in the second half and ran away from 16 seed Gardner-Webb.  History did not repeat itself – Virginia has survived the first round.  It should be interesting to see if this lifts all the weight of the tournament off the Cavaliers and allow them to play like the dominating team that they are during the regular season – or if they will continue to come out tight.

Tennessee also managed to finally slow down Colgate – who played the entire second half without their star player who lost his contact and had no replacement.  Admiral Schofield nailed two big three-pointers to help lead the Volunteers to victory.  And Buffalo scored 91 points and ran away from Arizona State, ending the streak of at least one First Four team winning their next game.

That being said, it doesn’t look like the upsets are done for the day.  Pac 12 Tournament Champion Oregon has a 12 point lead on 5 seed Wisconsin with only about 4 minutes to play.  If the Ducks can hang onto their lead, we will be guaranteed to see a double digit seed play in the Sweet 16 – as they will face 13 seed UC-Irvine.

And we still have 8 more games to go!!!!!!

I have no details other than my phone alert saying that 13 seed UC Irvine just upset 4 seed Kansas State 70-64. And in the meantime 15 seed Colgate is only down 6 in the second half to Tennessee. And of course, Gardner-Webb is up 6 points at half-time to Virginia.

Here I thought – cool, all these top seeds will be playing while I am at work – they will be a bunch of blow-outs. Instead, the mid-major schools are putting everyone on notice that they deserve to be here and do not care about rankings or blowing up everyone’s brackets – they are here to play!!!!

Was checking scores to update the standings page and #16 Gardner-Webb is beating #1 Virginia 26-14 with 8 to go in the 1st half. I don’t know that Virginia fans can handle this in back to back years.

Nothing against Gardner-Webb (I love to see upsets, especially a 16 seed). But I don’t know that Virginia fans will ever recover if this happens two years in a row.

Out of 362 entries, after 16 games, we have one person who is still perfect.

Congratulations to Autumn Busby who was able to perfectly pick Thursday’s games to lead both the Standard (160 pts) and Upset (86 pts) pool – including the 4 upsets (Baylor, Minnesota, Florida and Murray State).

But as it is early, we have lots of people who are close by.  We had 10 people do a very impressive 15 out of 16.  Congratulations go out to TA Forrest, Eric Zeidler, Sam and Dougie, Anne Haines, Tanmay Gautam, Dan Fischer, Andrew Murphy, John Greene, Rudy Brown and Jennifer Ogle.

We also have another 40 entries that successfully went 14 out of 16.  So, there are a lot of folks who are doing very well at picking the early games.  Of those entries, none of them are obviously the Lunatic – he is in a tie for 230th, only getting 11 of 16 games right.

But maybe most importantly to most of us, including the Lunatic, there were no major upsets that took out teams that many of us picked to the Final 4.  And as long as your Final Four teams are hanging around, you have a chance.  It’s early in this race, and everyone will have a lot more chances to move up towards the top of the leaderboard.

Good luck to everyone!!!!!!

It wasn’t pretty, but the Boilers played amazing defense to beat Old Dominion and advance to play Villanova.   Carsen Edwards threw down 26 points, and Matt Haarms added 13 points – but quietly but maybe the most important part is that Nojel Eastern managed to play in the second half after twisting his ankle in warm-ups.  They will did Eastern’s ability to play shut down defense to keep advancing.

BOILER UP!!!!

I am hopeful that Carsen Edwards has had another rest to recover from his back issues.  While the Boilers supporting cast is better than people realize, we are going to likely only go as far as Edwards takes us.   So, we need him to be ready!!!!!  He is a truly special player when he is able to successfully drive to the basket.

 

EDITOR’S NOTE – You can imagine my surprise when Nojel Eastern was not starting.  Apparently, he rolled his ankle in warm-ups and is questionable for the game.  I am having nightmares of watching Isaac Haas go down last year.  Please don’t have an injury end our season!!!!

Florida looked like they were going to be the second 10 seed to pull an upset and head to the Round of 32 as they had an 18 point lead against Nevada.

With only 5 minutes left, the lead is down 3.  The Gators might still hold on – but the game sure has gotten a lot more exciting……

EDITOR’S NOTE – The Gators managed to hang on – as Nevada went cold from the court in the last 4 minutes.  So another 10 seed has advanced!!!!!!  Add in #12 Murray State who steamrolled Marquette behind Ja Morant – and Cinderella looks like it will be well represented in the Round of 32 over the weekend!

Obviously, I go through the news to see all the interesting things going on in the tournament, and ran across this horribly heart-breaking story on ESPN.

Florida State’s senior guard Phil Cofer – who averaged 26.1 minutes and 7.4 points this season – was on the sideline in a boot, missing his last tournament with a injury to his right foot.  I am sure that he was happier that the Seminoles earned a hard-fought 76-69 victory – but he did not get a chance to celebrate.

Because, as he got to the locker room, he got a phone call to tell him that his dad who had been suffering from a long illness had died.

I thought about just moving on – thinking that is a heart-breaking story and moving on to watch a game.  But I just can’t – this is one of those stories that people should know about.  Because at the end of the day, these amazing student-athletes are still young adults who have lots going on in their lives.  We are lucky to be entertained by watching their amazing talents.  We get caught up in all the excitement, buzzer beaters, Cinderella stories and championship runs that make March Madness great – but at the end of the day, it is still just a game.

My condolences and best wishes go out to Phil Cofer and his family.

 

I did get to catch the ending of one of the early games today – and it was incredible.

With 2 minutes, Auburn had an 8 point lead and looked like they were going to move on.  By this point, I had already started to tune out to the radio cast from March Madness Online as I focused on finishing a code I was working on.

Then, with 50 seconds left in the game, A.J. Harris from New Mexico State made a layup to cut the lead to 5 points.  Then, I hear the announcer go and say, the Aggies are going to need to foul to extend the game – wait a second, Jared Harper just travelled – it is New Mexico State’s ball.

New Mexico State gets the ball into Johnny McCants who misses his shot but gets fouled – hitting one of his two free throws.  Then, I hear the announcer yell – and Auburn has turned the ball over again.  OK – now I can’t concentrate, I have to see what is happening.  So, I switch over to the video.

Sure enough, Trevelin Queen made a three pointer – and suddenly, with 29 seconds, it is a one point game.  The Aggies try to trap Auburn into another turnover, but eventually have to foul – where Chuma Okeke from the Tigers hits two free throws to extend the lead to 3.

Then, the unexpected happens.  it is a known strategy that people will foul with less than 5 seconds left to ensure a team can’t hit a three pointer to tie a game.  BUT THERE IS 14 seconds left when Jared Harper looks like he intentionally fouls AJ Harris in the backcourt.  Not only does this let the Aggies try to get closer, but for the Auburn star, it was his 5th foul.  Now, if New Mexico State sends the game to overtime, Auburn is going to be playing without their star.  AJ Harris only hits one of the free throws, and so it is a 2 point game.

Auburn is quickly fouled, and J’Von McCormick impressively hits both free throws, but the Aggies are going nowhere – JoJo Zamora hits a wide open 3 pointer to cut the lead back to one.  The Auburn players looked loss – the one thing they couldn’t let happen was a made three pointer – and they left him wide open.

The quick foul this time sends Samir Doughty to the line – where he promptly misses the first free throw.  Now, the Aggies will get a chance to tie or win the game on their last shot.  Doughty hits the second free throw to set the stage with a 2 point Tiger lead.

AJ Harris drives by all the Auburn Tigers as if they were standing still watching him, and has a wide open layup to tie the game.  And then everyone was shocked.  Harris didn’t want the tie – he wanted to end the game right there.  With nothing in his way to the basket, he kicks the ball out to Terrell Brown at the sideline for a game-winning three-point shot.  Brown misses the shot with 1.6 seconds left but gets fouled by Bryce Brown.

And so now, the Aggies can complete the comeback from the free throw line, as their leading scorer and a 78% free throw shooter has 3 shots to win the game.  Except he misses the first FT.  He hits the second one, but his third one hits the back of the rim, swirls around the rim and falls out.  But the game is not over, because as Auburn and New Mexico State had players go up for the rebound, the ball is hit out of bounds by Auburn.  That’s right, the Aggies have one more chance to win this game with 1.1 seconds left.

And somehow, Auburn forgets to guard Trevelin Queen in the corner – and somehow, his non-contested wide open three pointer from the corner is a complete airball.  Auburn wins 78-77 and Cinderella leaves the dance early.

After the game, Auburn coach was quoted as saying, “Sometimes, it is better to be lucky than good.”  No doubt about it.  Auburn tried to hand this game over multiple times, and somehow, fate decided that they would survive to play again.

And that is why I love March – you can not make this stuff up.  Really, come back from 8 down, give up a wide open layup to send the game to overtime to win the game, get fouled, miss FTs, and get the ball back anyways to miss one more shot.  JUST CRAZY!!!!