Sweet

Well, it took longer than we expected to regain our vim, and at our age perhaps vigor is a bit too much to hope for. Still we're back and so is the Sweet Sixteen. So here goes, with the first of two really long posts to cover the events of the weekend.

Let's start with a look back. We've had four days of games since our last report. But even before the games, some entrants were at a teensy disadvantage, since there were eight (8) Elite Eight choices that didn't even make the tournament: George Mason (Urban's Angels), Arizona State (Cristinzio) Baylor (Urban's Angels), BYU (Urban's Angels), and Florida State (Steitz).

Thursday started innocently enough, unless of course you were one of the 28 contestants who spent an Elite Eight choice on New Mexico (17) or Oklahoma State (11). Or worse, one of the seven who wasted a Final Four choice (M McAtee, M Paston 1, Sciarabba, M Peloso took New Mexico; Brindisi, Rybaltowski, K Ripley took Okla St). Another seven entrants saw one of their Elite Eight teams dash against the rocks: Grossman (Missouri), Serri (Missouri), D Kedson (Pitt), Mahalko (Pitt), Urban's Angels (Bucknell and St. Mary's), Atkinson (Davidson), and Rybaltowski (UNLV).

So after the first day of the tournament, three contestants had already lost two of their Final Eight (Rybaltowski had Oklahoma State and UNLV; Barone had New Mexico and Oklahoma State; Cristinzio had Arizona State and Oklahoma State). And the self-proclaimed Urban's Angels were down an unimaginable five out of Eight (G Mason, Baylor, BYU, Bucknell, and St. Mary's).

The Angels would lose a sixth Elite Eight team on Friday (Notre Dame), but at least they still had Gonzaga and Butler. Um, oops. And thus Urban's Angels became the first entrant in pool history to lose his or her entire Elite Eight by the first Saturday of the tournament. Needless to say (although we'll gleefully say it anyway), Urban's Angels also had a ceiling of zero (0) Final Four teams at the same moment in time (for history's sake, the Angels' Final Four consisted of the religious quartet of Notre Dame, Gonzaga, Butler, and BYU).

Of course, Urban's Angels weren't the only contestants to gnash their teeth on Friday. That was the day Georgetown bit the dust, taking with it the hopes of the 39 who chose the Hoyas into the Elite Eight, the 21 who fearlessly predicted a Georgetown Final Four berth, and the three who went all the way out on the limb for Georgetown as national champion (Bland, Broder, and M Leach).

Also walking around with their frown right side up were the backers of Wisconsin (11 into Elite Eight; Sciarabba into Final Four); Kansas State (Atkinson, B Brenner, Brindisi, Eberly, P Leach, C Whiteside into Elite Eight; B Brenner into Final Four); Notre Dame (Urban's Angels, B Brenner, B Whiteside into Elite Eight; Urban's Angels, B Whiteside into Final Four); Cincinnati (Steitz, Moscow into Elite Eight; Steitz into Final Four); UCLA (Haklar into Elite Eight, Final Four, and Champion); Villanova (Cristinzio into Elite Eight); and NC State (Bland into Elite Eight).

Everyone else could at least savor the feeling of accomplishment in knowing their Elite Eight and Final Four choices all made the second round (and, no, we're not calling the round of 32 the "third" round just because the NCAA decided to schedule a few play-in games). That feeling probably evaporated pretty quickly when Gonzaga (chosen by 78 into the Elite Eight and 43 into the Final Four) got knocked off by Wichita State (chosen by absolutely nobody except Sciarabba as a Wild Card). Butler going down didn't please the 16 and 5 (Urban's Angels, Dye, Hymowitz, M Kline, Sa Leach) who liked them into the Elite Eight and Final Four, respectively, as well as the few and probably not very proud who went out on a limb for St. Louis (Atkinson, Brindisi, Haklar, Rubinson, L Schlegel, Watson into Elite Eight, Watson into Final Four), Memphis (Canning into Elite Eight, Booth into Elite Eight and Final Four), or Colorado State (Fitch, Warner into Elite Eight). Sunday was only a not-so-fun day for those who liked North Carolina (Booth, Cristinzio into Elite Eight) or Minnesota (D'Zuro into Elite Eight).

With Gonzaga's demise, 14 entrants (Urban's Angels, Booth, K Butscher, Hahn, M Josephs, M Kleiman, Mahalko, J Moscow, M Paston 1, K Ripley, L Schlegel, K Sullivan, Watson, B Wright) joined Haklar, Bland, Broder and M Leach in looking forward to 75% of the tournament without a chosen champion to root for.

That's it for part one. Part two of the blog post that wouldn't end will be offered up tonight.