The Friday late games started with some intrigue. UConn vs. Oklahoma was pretty close, Illinois hit a three pointer at the buzzer to go up 5 at half, and Bryant was only down 5 at half time as well. The only game that wasn’t competitive was Oregon vs. Liberty – where I think the Ducks started off with an 18-2 start.

Unfortunately, the games did not stay close. The only one that stayed interesting was the Huskies and Sooners. For the first time in 11 tournament games, the UConn Huskies found themselves behind as the Sooners came back in the middle of the second half to take a 1 point lead. The teams would go back and forth until about 4 1/2 minutes where the Huskies found themselves up 57-56. Alex Karaban would hit a deep three pointer to kick off a 10-3 run for the Huskies to help them survive and advance against the Sooners. Meanwhile, the three Big 10 schools, Illinois, Michigan State and Oregon ran away in the second half to advance.

I think I just heard on the post-game show that this is the first year since 2017 that all of the top 16 seeds managed to win. The top teams to lose over Thursday and Friday were 5 seeds Clemson and Memphis. While we all love the upsets, it should lead to some really exciting games later in the tournament with all the favorites advancing.

With a lot of the favorites winning, we have some really high scores. Our leaders are Debbe Evans, Jim Sell and Scott Grimes – who all successfully got an incredible 29 of 32 first round games right. They are chased closely by Stacie Gilmore and Ashley Peterson, who both got 28 of 32 games right. We then have 18 people tied for 6th place at 270 points.

In the Upset Pool, Stacie Gilmore is our leader with 148 points – as she correctly got our three biggest upsets in McNeese, Colorado State, and Drake. Ashley Peterson is only 5 points behind in 2nd place. And 3rd through 5th are also just separated by a point, as Gregg Farber is in 3rd at 142, Scott Grimes is 4th at 141, and Jim Sell is 5th at 140.

The Lunatic is lurking at 260 points – a tie for 24th is a pretty good start for our sleep-deprived blogger. With 165 of the entries getting 24 of the 32 games right, getting a single Sweet 16 or Elite 8 game correct could move people significantly in the standings. Good luck to everyone in the Second Round in Stomping the Lunatic!!!!