March Madness Day 2 Updates

Wow! How great were the afternoon games today?

• Winthrop lived up to the hype in their defeat of Notre Dame.
• Creighton played well in the near-upset of Nevada.
• Texas A&M CC played their brains out against Wisconsin. It's too bad that the score won't reflect the real story of this game.
• If you had Texas A&M CC in your bracket you are either a cheat and a liar, a member of their alumni, or one of those nuts that fills out 30 sheets.
  
• Wisconsin looked like they were suffering a serious hangover from having lost the Big Ten twice in the last month. I knew they were the un-happiest of the #2 seeds.
• Tennessee scored 121 points against "The Beach". I don't care who they're playing that is huge offensive output. How scary are they in the South?
  
• Miami of Ohio is keeping it close with Oregon. I'm hoping for a good second half.

Just as an aside I appreciated the overhead shots of the Nationwide arena in Columbus during the Virginia game. Made me slightly homesick. You could see the Nationwide tower, the arena district, the restaurants, and traffic on High Street!

I also love watching on the web just for the live feed you get before the game of people milling around in the arena. If you select your game early enough you can see the players run out on the floor and do their warm-ups. It's just like going to the game in-person.

Update 2

Good game from Purdue, but I'm sort of bummed about Illinois. I really thought they would pull off the upset. The Big Ten is looking strong so far, and I'm kind of surprised. I think it was just last year that they had all of their teams lose in the first weekend. Could still happen, but it doesn't look very likely.

Update 3

Amusing factoid that is interesting only to me. During the Holy Cross v. Southern Illinois game, the announcers mentioned that the court that the games are being played on in the Nationwide Arena in Columbus is the same one from the Schottenstein arena. They literally moved it across town. How funny is that? I wonder why they bothered? (Like I said, it's only funny to me -- talk amongst yourselves).

Update 4

So I finished the day at 14-2, which was better than yesterday, but not enough to win any awards for genius prognostication. I'm 26-6 after the first round.

On Saturday and Sunday teams will be playing for the sweet 16. This is where the champions separate themselves from the also rans and the real Cinderellas step up.