Wild, Wild, Wildness

When the schedulers saw fit to give us 3 vs. 14 matchups in all three of the first three NCAA tournament games, we were disappointed. 14-seeds have only managed to beat 3-seeds 18 times in 120 games since the tourney went to 64 teams, 30 years ago, and only five times in the 21st century. Boring, boring, boring.

Shows what we know.

The first game was surprisingly close. Northeastern, down 2 with the ball and the shot clock off, managed not to get off a shot and Notre Dame survived, 69-65. We could practically hear the sighs of relief from the 17 of our contestants who picked the Irish into the Final Eight, and the heart palpitations of Brenner, Templeton, and M Kleiman, who took Notre Dame into the Final Four.

After that, bedlam. 14-seed UAB snuck by 3-seed Iowa State, 60-59, dashing the hopes of 18 of our entrants who took Iowa State to the Elite Eight and 9 of us (Baumgarten, Da Dye, D'Zuro, Gorenstein, Haklar, P Leach, O'Brien, Rybaltowski, Templeton) who hoped to ride the Cyclones to the Final Four. 14-seed Georgia State, playing without its starting point guard, knocked off 3-seed Baylor, 57-56, similarly minimizing the chances of 9 contestants (Burch, Crotty, Do Dye, M Josephs, L Leach, Marshall, K Ripley, R Schlegel, Warner) who liked Baylor into the Elite Eight, and especially Doug Dye, who picked the Bears to roar into Indianapolis.

Then 11-seed UCLA beat 6-seed SMU (much to the Elite Eight chagrin of Barone, M McAtee, Paston, E Pogach, and Serri), 60-59, on a controversially goaltended three-pointer with UCLA down two and just a few seconds left. Then Cincinnati edged Purdue, 66-65 in OT, then NC State (wild card choice of Fitch, Hahn, E Pogach, Smith, Warner) beat LSU (wild card selection of Gorenstein, Rubinson, Rybaltowski) by the same 66-65 score.

10-seed Ohio State beat 7-seed VCU, 75-72 in OT. 13-seed Harvard came this close to upsetting Booth, Burch (E8 & F4), A Cristinzio (E8 & F4), Crotty (E8 & F4), M Josephs, S Leach, Marshall, Steinhardt, and, oh yeah, 4-seed UNC, missing a three-point shot at the buzzer and losing 67-65. 12-seed Wofford had a similar opportunity but also came up short, 56-53, against Arkansas and Mash Leach (Ark into E8) and Rybaltowski (ditto).

So, counting the not-so-famed First Four, we had 12 games decided by four (4) or fewer points by the first Thursday night of the tournament. The five one-point games set a single-day NCAA tournament record, the six one-point games in the tournament so far (counting Dayton's win over Boise State in the First Four) are just one away from the record for one-point games (7) in an entire tournament. Add in single-digit wins by Utah and Butler, and that tied the single-day tournament record for most games decided by fewer than 10 points.

So, we guess that was a really long way of saying yesterday was a pretty good day. Here's hoping for even more zaniness in the next 12 hours.