The Lunatic crashed hard last night – it was so nice to get a full night of sleep, even if it meant almost sleeping through the entire morning. Although maybe I am still dreaming since I think I saw that I was 11th in the standings after Saturday’s games. It gives me hope, but you know what they saw about that. As the title of season-finale of the first season of Ted Lasso tells us, it’s the hope that kills you. Still, the Lunatic is having such a great weekend that he doesn’t care about the consequences for later.

I did wake up in time this morning to get my handicapping page done, and so I can spend the day just enjoying the basketball. And there are so many good games to be played.

In the early games, we get to see two of the favorites play in Florida and Duke (with dangerous 8/9 seeds of defending champions UConn and Baylor from the Big 12 that is 9-1 in the tournament).

The dinner games have a track meet against Kentucky and Illinois, and a clash of styles as offensive-minded Alabama takes on defensive-minded St. Mary’s.

The early evening games let us see if the last of the teams I consider to be allowed to be a Cinderella – Colorado State can upset Maryland to send one of the 12+ seeds to the Sweet 16, and an exciting matchup between Iowa State and Ole Miss.

And the nightcap finishes with New Mexico trying to upset the Big 10 regular season champion Michigan State, and what might be the best game of the night as Arizona and Oregon finish off the night (both the Wildcats and Ducks won their 28+ points).

By the end of the day, we will be down to the 16 remaining teams with a chance to win the National Championship. There should be so much great basketball today – don’t miss any of it!!!