Oh, The Humanity!

Historically, the average number of upsets in the entire third round is two. We had three tonight, and there are still four games left in this year’s third round! No contestants picked all four games correctly tonight with original picks. (Including re-picks, seven contestants went 4-0 tonight.)

There Is No “I” In Team

There is no “D” in Jimmer, either, but there sure is a “me”. Jimmer took 44 shots tonight. That means he had 12 more shots than points. Yeah, he’s good, but he never saw a shot he didn’t like, and he never saw an opponent he thought it was his responsibility to guard. The only difference between Jimmer and a real matador is the red cape and funny hat. The talk of him making it in the NBA fails to take into account that he is an enormous defensive liability.

Jimmer’s gun-slinging wasn’t the half of it in this game, however. The two teams combined for an incredible tournament record 71 3-point shot attempts! 71. 3-pointers. In one game. That is more than all the 3-point shots attempted in the Duke-Arizona and UConn-SDS games combined.

Picked San Diego State? You Got Conned!

Kemba “Use the force, Sky” Walker channeled his inner Jimmer with 36 points as UConn continues to march toward the Final Four. Perhaps the most memorable moment of this game was the Boneheaded Play Of The Day when San Diego State’s Jamaal Franklin shoulder blocked Kemba Walker on the way to the sideline during a timeout. This was right after a made basket that put SDS up four points. Technical foul. Two free throws. Change of momentum. Nice. I went away from this game to watch the BYU-Florida overtime, but I heard on Sports Center that Chris Weber was spotted in the crowd calling for a timeout for San Diego State toward the end of the game when they had none remaining.

Coach K Gets KOed

Where in the world did these Arizona Wildcats come from? Derrick Williams had 32 as Arizona incredibly blew Duke out of the gym. The second #1 seed goes up in smoke, and with them, 306 contestants lost their Final Four pick from the West. There will be no rematch of last year’s championship game, but it won’t be because Butler can’t get there.

Hayward, Schmayward

Bryson Davis may “miss Gordon Hayward”, but these Dogs look every bit as good without him. Jamie Prime asks “This isn’t the Frozen Four,” an allusion to the NCAA’s hockey tournament. Five minutes into the game with the score 5-3, this was more like a hockey game where basketball finally broke out. The last 10 minutes aside, when Butler insisted on making it interesting, Butler continued to play their bruising style of defense, completely neutralizing Wisconsin’s stars Jordan Taylor and Jon Leuer, the latter finishing with more fouls than points. Andrew Smith gets the Larry Bird award for coming out of the locker room and back onto the floor after writhing on the floor in agony minutes earlier from an ankle injury. I personally hope that Seth Davis and the rest of the geniuses on TNT keep their mantra going.

• Round 1: “Butler has a shot, but Old Dominion should win this game.”
• Round 2: “Butler is good, of course, but Pittsburgh should be too much for them.”
• Round 3: “Butler is an interesting match up, but ultimately, Wisconsin’s size should be the difference in the game.”
• Round 4: “It feels like if you pick against Butler, you’re going to be wrong, but Florida played great tonight, too. They’re balanced and big and should be too much for Butler, especially with Andrew Smith hurting.”

Yeah, and MTV still plays music.

Top 10 Aliases

I was looking through the updated aliases as the games are getting ready to start this evening, and I couldn’t resist giving a quick Top 10 list in the spirit of Indiana’s own David Letterman.

1. Shari “Mad Dog’s Mama” Rohyans – I love that little Mad Dog! (Inside joke.)
2. Jim “not the one from Muncie” Davis – Gimme a slice of lasagna, Odie!
3. Brian “VC Who?” Gerlach – Very Capable of Upsetting U, that’s who!
4. Brent “Goin” Bolin – Might as well, cuz you ain’t goin dancin!
5. Brad “Despair, thy name is Mrs. Wizard…” Schafer – Brad has an inferiority complex due to multiple consecutive years of getting thumped by my wife, Heather Little.
6. Robert “In Texas drawl, count to 5 takes 5 secs” Tipton – Yeah, but how long does it take away from Cameron Indoor?
7. Jason “Drinking Ginge” Roehl – It’s not too sweet. I repeat, it’s not too sweet. Sing it with me!
8. Dennis “apparently not so menacing” Livingston – Tied for 285th. Mr. Wilson can sleep well tonight.
9. Trevis “Kiddest Thou Me, Good Elmore?” – Gus Johnson does Shakespeare. I love it!
10. Elliott “I give Dilemmas, You make Dilemmanade” Murray – 445th and still with a positive attitude!

Quick Awards

It’s hard to be witty at 1:40 AM. It’s even harder to be magnanimous. Thus, tonight’s awards will all be of the “Razzies” variety.

• The Hit The Skids award goes to annual contestant Skid Booles who plummeted from 22nd to 276th.
• The I Am So Sick Of Seeing Your Name At The Top Of The Standings award goes to another annual kid contestant Olivia Klinker. From 477th all the way up to 15th. They rebuilt the courses because of Tiger Woods. I am about ready to revamp the contest just to keep Olivia in the bottom half.
• The Anal retentive award goes to Jason “Mac” Snyder who emailed me just to make certain my score-tallying code that I’ve had in place for 10 years didn’t cheat him out of 15 points. I’m a PC, and I know how to do the math!
• The Mercy Is For Da Weak, Da Enemy Deserve No Mercy award, presented in honor of the late Pat Morita, goes to Zach Richardson who sent me a text message at 6:02 PM complaining about the accuracy of my web server’s system clock. And speaking of Mr. Miyagi…
• The You Beginner Luck award goes to contest rookie Jane “Go Urbana” Gomez, who has spent the entire contest so far in the top eight, and is distancing herself from the rest of the field. First of all, Jane’s alias smacks of hypocrisy. She didn’t even pick Illinois to win a single game. Secondly, she took Arizona and Florida on re-picks, which wouldn’t have happened had I conveniently not had time to respond to her email at 3:30 PM today asking to have her password reset. Blast my integrity.

And with that I sign off until tomorrow’s edition of the commentary, brought to you by Rebecca Black. It’s gonna be fun, fun, fun, fun, lookin’ forward to the weekend!

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