LOL..I think Tennessee should change their nickname to CSUN's "Matadors" after they vacated the lane like that.

Wow back to back clutch shots in the UT/OK St game.

I need the total opposite :p

nice

Unbelievable drive

And that was the Vols best defender (Tabb) he blew past.

Marquette is celebrating a bit to early

Damn it. I'm gonna lose both of those games. SOB!

Come on, Utah State...don't do this to me.

OK state FTW!

BANK FOR THREE! ROFL!

Fuck you Tennessee!

Thank god for the glass.

Good lawd there have been some great games today. I am freaking nervous watching these games. Cmon Utah State!!!

It was so bad...it's good

I've almost yelled 3 or 4 times at my desk watching these games.

Jesus, Marquette with a less then attractive inbounds pass

Well, I had OSU in all but oen of my money brackets... I have Utah St. in all of them though. Marquette is supposed to suck without Dominic James dammit!

And the poorly conceived possession puts an appropriate end to the Vols misery. One of the most frustrating teams I've ever followed, every bit on par with any GT team that's ever caused hair pulling.

Lowest fracking collective basketball IQ of any group I've seen at the high school level or higher, worst collective concentration of any group I've seen since elementary school. I believe the gross underachievement calls the coaching skill (not the recruiting skill) of Bruce Pearl into legitimate question and even moreso calls into question his ability to recruit basketball players instead of athletes that need to be coached up, which he clearly isn't capable of doing with the current staff. Another season like this one & the bloom will be entirely off of him in Knoxville, and he might actually be smart to take any equivalent offers he might get in the off-season.

He desperately needs to find some players who are interested in leading the lead in something other than tattoos and are willing to work at basketball to earn their free ride instead of playing at it like they're back on the block.

shit...Wilkinson had the look.

Sigh..

Exciting to watch. That's what matters.

I suck with the seeds 7-10... I have gotten everyone of them wrong.

make a F'n free throw!!

You're down 4 points with 5 seconds left. You can't inbound it to a guy standing right in front of you. You need to throw it at least to mid-court....

Still no real upsets this year.

Sigh, tried for the NDST upset bid over Kansas, but I got the other 2 right.

great start to the day, too bad NDSU and Utah State couldn't pull it out in the end.

There is someone in my office pool 20 for 20 right now. Bastard.

3 others at 19 for 20.

For those of you who haven't seen any of Arizona state this year try and catch some oh this game. They have 2 fantastic players in Jeff Pendergraph and James Harden.

But they're going to lose, right?

:D

I'm 19/20 in the gotti pool and 18/20 and in the lead at my wifes office pool

It's actualy a tough matchup, Christmas is a great player

The lack of 1st round upsets last tournament and so far this tournament is really starting to suck. The only lower seeds that win are mediocre major conference teams anyway. Not exactly Cinderella material.

I went to NDSU, so needless to say, I was on edge today. A good game, the team played well, just not deep or well rounded enough today. Still, they shouldnt be upset about the final score of the game.

I'd say WKU over Illinois is a solid upset, just not a spectacular one. And still bigger than Utah State over Marquette would have been.

One of the problems with trying to find upsets this year is that while the higher seeds may not be as good as they've been in the past, neither are some of the lower seeds.

The lack of upsets makes for better games later on, if you want to look at it optimistically.

It also provides more opportunities for upsets later, like 4/5 v. 1,

my exact thoughts

Let's go Temple! Christmas might be one of the best spot up shooters in College basketball. He should have a nice NBA career off the bench.

Sorry but I hope ASU cancels Christmas this year :p

Of course the lack of upsets tends to support the seeding job done by selection committee and Lord only knows we can't have that happening.

This isn't an accident. The NCAA has to keep the machine fed.

I have a feeling Dayton will be the first upset of the day

After the conversation on seeding and the pod system and teams closer to home I looked through 15 years of tournament history just out of curiosity to see if there were way less upsets since the pod system went into place etc. Looking over the tourneys from 1992 to 1998 and 2002(when the pod system started) to 2008, the numbers were strikingly similar.

In an average year there are right about 5 teams seeded 10 or lower that win first round games. If you don't consider 10 vs 7 games as noteworthy upsets, then we're down to a little under 4 11 seeded or lower upsets per year. In some years there were as many as 8(usually in those years 3 10 seeds win + an extra 12 or whatever) and in two years there were only 3 upsets in the first round, one in the 90s, one this decade, each of them including at least one 10 seed in that count.

So yeah, a 12 seed and a 10 seed winning on day one and that's it might be a little boring, but its just about average.

And of course, we're talking about 24 games in question(10-15 seeds, since 16v1 isn't happening). The difference between 3/24 and 5/24 in any given year is, to put it mildly, not even close to statistically noteworthy. Boring, yes, but not noteworthy IMO :)


... just trying to head off conspiracy theories with a little reason!

I watch a lot of Big 10 and Illinois was not that good. Plus they were missing Frazier which essentially turned them into a NIT squad. I don't think it was much of an upset.

I'd say it's still an upset, just one that's less surprising under the circumstances.

But I'm not sure what else you're going to get this year. I mean, do you really expect Binghamton to beat Duke?

It's a fairly chalky year. Anyone worked up about their bracket on day 1 or 2 hasn't done this too often. Once you start losing E8 teams, call me :)

SI

I guess it just feels light on upsets because most brackets are still well intact. Seems every year we lose an Elite 8 or Final Four team in the first round. I haven't even lost a Sweet 16 school yet.

Cornell up on Mizzou and ETSU hanging with Pitt near the half. Maybe it was just saving up for this afternoon.

If I was a college basketball coach I would make my whole team run 10 laps everytime a player of mine fouled someone going to the rim and the opposing player makes the basket.

I've got Dayton on TV and Mizzou on mmod... has anyone been watching the Pitt game? What's going on there?

Pitt is playing very sloppy and with no urgencey.

I expect Dixon is giving them a good reaming in the locker room

Arizona St. needs to do a much better job of protecting the ball.

If I have to hear one more Christmas pun I am going to jump off my balcony

you mean like the rest of the team is on holiday?

ASU should hang on to this one. Just need to protect that ball, as Lathum said.

Temple needs to avoid having him foul out. They rely on his presents.

it'd be nice if Harden could hit a shot...he's 18 pts under his average right now.

I really hope that no one is getting excited about a Cornell upset. If Mizzou is tied or just ahead at halftime, it's all but over. I don't believe that Mizzou has lost a second half this season. The games they lose are when they're down by double digits at halftime. Even then, they usually put on a massive 2nd half rally and lose by two or something like that.

been nice knowing you

Go Cornell!

I would be more upset with all the fouls that I am seeing 40 feet from the basket especially on pick and rolls.

my point was that if you are going to foul a guy around the basket make sure it's hard enough so he doesn't make the shot

I keep waiting for Pitt and WVU runs.

Given the way basketball is called in general nowadays, you might have half your team sitting on the bench due to intentional fouls.

If Pitt doesn't get a run real soon, that crowd will really start to become a factor against them. The scary thing is that ETSU would be winning if they weren't so horrible from the line today.

true

Arizona St has to be pretty happy they won despite Harden having a dreadful day

Bob Huggins strikes again.

Per the usual, Cornell is suddenly wearing cement shoes.

very true....although Pendergraph and Glasser have been playing great as of late so it's nice to have other's step up when he's down.

ETSU hanging around...

Makes me regret not putting Florida State over them in the Sweet 16

Okay, I'm not watching the game, but the state line looks crazy.

Pitt is winning shooting .372-.281, free throws .667-.500, and rebounds 36-23. So what am I missing? What has kept ETSU in the game?

Equal number of made baskets. ETSU shooting like crap but has taken 17 more shots than Pitt thanks to 17 offensive rebounds and 16 Pitt turnovers.

edit to add: And the total rebounding margin is 36-33, not 36-23.

Regardless of the outcome, Pitt looks horrible. Not bad shooting night horrible, but just turnovers and bad teamwork.

Okay that makes sense. Yahoo has the rebounding totals incorrect.

Annoying trend: Calling timeout after a made shot.

You can't spell upset without ETSU!

Horrible no-call on an ETSU 3-point attempt.

Come on ETSU!

I don't think they will have enough.

No way they can win this. They just aren't talented enough offensively. Pitt is starting to find its rhythm on offense too.

holy crap

Holy shit!! Within 2!

Pitt looks extremely sloppy. Or sleepy.

And ETSU turns it back into a game again with a 5 point trip that included two offensive rebounds, a Pitt foul, and now a Pitt turnover.

Jamie Dixon looks nervous as a cat.

This Tiggs guy for ETSU and his ballhoggery are driving me nuts.

How was that not a foul?

If ETSU shoots better from the line, they are winning. They are under 50% from the free throw line.

WVU has had its chances to take this game over.

I wish they would switch over from Cornell-Missouri to the other close games.

Ha...That Buffalo Wild Wings commercial is pretty funny.

Note to self never ever pick a Bob Huggins coached team.

Oh, great. ETSU's 42% FT shooter to the line

Quality shot by Fields there, what a stupid team Pitt is

Screw you WVU!

Tough call against the Mountaineers right there

One of these days, the right coach is going to end up with the right micro-major conference basketball team, slip into Cinderella's chair as the #16 and topple one of these #1s. It's all about building a team that can get here and has the horses to do this...but man, that takes a lot of foresight, luck and well...luck.

But if you're that team then you seem likely to be a 15 instead of a 16 because of the really mediocre 16's that get in with the auto bids.

edit to add: Maybe a team that played poorly without an injured star for the first half of the season, got that player back & got in with a .500ish record by making a conference tourney run with their improved lineup?