NCAA Basketball Tournament Day Three Open Comment Thread

. . . and I know some of you took the day off from work, so, although everyone gets a free pass for the brevity of the comment threads for the play-in games, no one has any excuses today. We are within 30 minutes of tip-off of the first of 16 games today, featuring three SEC East squads (Florida, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt), a traditional rival in other sports (Clemson), a non-conference opponent the Fox Hounds played earlier in the season (Temple), and a ten seed that ought to eliminate all griping that Georgia didn’t deserve a ten seed (UCLA).

Have at it, everyone!

I think the got it confused with Alottafagina State.

Considering that the Country Gentlemen were up early, I’d have to say that score favors the Mountaineers in the second half.

I hope we don’t get into this kind of a track meet tomorrow night. If the score’s 40-40 at the break tomorrow, we’ll lose 80-70. We need to keep our game with Washington as a “first team to 60 wins” kind of game.

West Virginia advances, so that’s at least one five seed who will survive into the second round.

Butler and Old Dominion have a barn burner going inside the final five minutes of regulation.

Louisville and Morehead State knotted at 33 at the half.

Penn State up by two on Temple with 3:30 or so to go in the first half.

There goes MaconDawg’s Thursday bracket…

I’m about 2/3 of the way through the book Soccernomics, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the beautiful game. I’ve never read Moneyball, but I’ve been told it does to soccer what Moneyball did to baseball.

The authors do an expert job of describing the economics and statistics of how clubs become winning clubs (and how certain regions became, and remain, soccer powerhouses), all while avoiding crossing your eyes with lots of the maths. (As I’ve mentioned in the past, I am not a mathematically-oriented person, though I enjoy reading reasoned, intelligent analyses from those who are good with the numbers.) They also compare the world’s most profitable league, the English Premiership, with the NFL in a very provocative and thought-provoking way.

The book also has the added feature of having the longest actual title of any book I think I’ve ever read. The proper title of the book is: Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey—and Even Iraq—Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World’s Most Popular Sport

Check it out if you’re so inclined!

be bustin’ brackets? Wow.

Ron Jeremy approves.

Louisville shooter got tackled and no call to end the game

0 games correct in my bracket.

I step away for a while to get a little work done, and I see Louisville went down to Morehead State (sorry), Temple beat Penn State by two, Kentucky is in a dogfight with Princeton with about 15 minutes to go, and Pitt leads by five at the half.

Suddenly, Georgia being in the tournament (and maybe even winning a game) doesn’t seem so farfetched.

MaconDawg, if Princeton wins, do you want me to un-ban Rangers100 for, oh, say, about 45 minutes? :)

Could this really happen?

. . . no one in the tournament is appreciably better or worse than anyone else in the tournament.

up 3 with 18.9 seconds

to give Vandy the chance for the rebound and OT, right?

. . . the UC-Santa Barbara upset isn’t happening?

would make a better showing. Having said that, I picked Richmond.

Meanwhile, I haven’t actually seen much of the tournament today, but, from what I have seen, I would be the tournament’s leading free throw shooter. Seriously, everyone I’ve seen has been horrible (or, as Charles Barkley would say, “turrible”) at the charity stripe.

Roy Williams had this to say about Mark Fox’s days as a volunteer assistant for him at Kansas:

Mark came to every practice. He gave me a notebook at the end of the year with his thoughts and ideas and his interpretations of what we tried to do and wanted to do. It was extremely thorough and well-thought out. If I had been a teacher I would’ve gave him an A+.

For the sake of tankertoad’s sanity, I can only hope the notebook wasn’t green! :)

He’s a machine-cyborg capable of three-dimensional situational awareness.

(Just wanted to share that.)

Belmost-Wisconsin is looking like a game on the scoreboard, not so much on the court.

I have, let’s just say, a gentlemen’s wager bet for money that no 14, 15, or 16 seed will win any tournament game this year (outside of the play-in games, of course), and I got what I consider to be surprisingly attractive odds for such a bet. (That basically means that no 1, 2, or 3 seed loses their first-round game.)

BYU was, by far, the team about which I was the most nervous. Of course, things could get stupid(er) and the Bucknell Bison could upend UConn or something like that… but if BYU is victorious, I feel pretty good about this one.

. . . and I know we’re going to have a late one tomorrow, so I think I’m going to sign off, read a little bit, and call it a night.

See y’all tomorrow. The general tourney comment thread opens at 11:45 a.m. Our game thread opens at 7:45 p.m. Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ’em.

I was in Vegas. Then missed my flight and spent two more days in Vegas.

So here is my quick take:

Making the tourney is a complete success for 2011.
Winning just one game is a tremendous success. Just one damn win.

GO DAWGS!

So true. Just went to see JM with my wife Karen and my cousin Chuck. 5 hits and 20 dull songs about dying and politics. He’s afflicted with Jackson Browne syndrome (former rocker becomes “artiste” and begins preaching his political views to all of the masses). Other victims include Bruce (terminal case), Seger (occasional flare-ups), and Bono (World’s largest ego).

IMHO, rock and roll should be about fast cars and faster women.

How ’bout some R O C K ?

….. but not Keith!