The Lunatic has had crazy mixed feelings about the first round.  On one hand, he has watched his Boilers go down (which was his Final Four team in the Midwest for his insane picks) followed by the Michigan St Spartans lose to Middle Tennessee St (which was his Champion for his sane picks).  And yet, the Lunatic went 28-4 and 27-5 with his picks, which is a ridiculous event of success for the crazy sleep deprived lunatic.  Still trying to figure out the odds that I would have only missed 4 games in the first round, and have those 4 teams include a Final Four team and two Elite 8 teams.

That means that the Lunatic is continuing his reign of terror from last year where only Troy Cole could stop the crazy one.  Technically, no one is stomping the Lunatic!  However, one person, John Bachmann is tied for the lead at 280 in the Standard Pool, and because of picking a slightly riskier upset, John is also leading our Upset Pool.  More importantly, John picked Virginia, Oregon, Kansas and North Carolina for his Final Four – and so unlike the Lunatic’s insane picks, John’s top teams all won their games in the first round.

Of course, as it always is, there are plenty who are close.  Doug Crowe, Roy Welcher, and Red Shepley finished with 270 points.   And 9 others scored 260 points.   That combined with the Lunatic’s misplaced loyalty to Purdue, and there should be plenty of opportunities for more people to put the Lunatic in his proper place.

But the true winner of this March is Cinderella.  10 double digit seeds (which I believe is a tournament record) won in the first round, and that doesn’t include the 3 nine seeds that also pulled off upsets.  And how can you not be enjoying March after watching 11 seed Northern Iowa win off a half court buzzer beater!

Good luck to everyone in the Second Round – it will be interesting to see if the craziness continues.