Day One Wrap Up

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“Everybody wants to take responsibility when you win, but when you fail, all these fingers are pointing.” – Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski

The first day of March Madness 2016 is in the books. Let’s take a moment to assess the damage.

Upsets And Blowouts

Of the 16 games that were played today, only two that were won by the favorite were won by less than 10 points. My point is that today was, in a sense, feast or famine. In 14 of 16 games, we either got an upset or a blowout.  In fact, 7 of the 16 games were won by the lower seed, although three of those were the 9s beating the 8s, which is an upset in name only.  Still, the 9s were 3-0 today. The 11s and 12s were a combined 4-1.

The Blowouts

I don’t remember where I heard it, but some announcer years ago told a story about a coach or perhaps another announcer who said there are certain games that should be gong games, as in, instead of playing the game, you should bring a gong to center court, ring it, and then send everyone home. This would be a tremendous time saver. The games from today that should have called for the gong include…

  • Let’s Go Peay Down Our Leg – Top seed Kansas hung a hundred (and five) on Austin Peay in a game that was little more than a practice for the Jayhawks.
  • Florida Gulf Toast – Unlike their Cinderella story of 2013, the Eagles were toasted in the second half by perennial powerhouse North Carolina.
  • The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything – The most interesting moment in Virginia’s shellacking of the Hampton Pirates was when their coach, Tony Bennett, in explicably collapsed on the sideline during the first half. Coach Bennett was reportedly dehydrated and returned to the bench during the second half.
  • Stony Bricks – After an abysmal shooting display by both teams in the first half, Kentucky dispatched the Seawolves in the second, beating them by almost 30.
  • Chattanooga Choo Choo Derailed – In what was an otherwise great day for 12 seeds, Chattanooga got whomped (that’s an 80s term for “beaten badly”) by Indiana, who, by the way, looked very strong.
  • Seton Hall of Shame – After a tremendous and unexpectedly great performance in the Big East tournament, the Pirates looked absolutely spent in this game. The frenetic pace in the first half looked almost like a Globetrotters exhibition, and in the second, they were literally sucking wind. The Dubious Honor award goes Seton Hall’s Isaiah Whitehead tied an NCAA tournament record by going 0 for 10 from 3 point range.  Gonzaga, on the other hand, advanced to the second round of the tournament for the 8th consecutive year. I’ll give myself the Oh Ye Of Little Faith award for being a Zags fan and yet not picking them for crying out loud!
  • Not In The Zona – In a game that was much more lopsided than the final score indicated, Wichita State shocked just about no one by putting the hurt on Arizona. At one point Wichita was up by over 20 points. At least no one stormed the court, thus preventing any Arizona players from having to punch a fan.

The Rest

  • A House Divided – We knew Baylor was in trouble when star players Rico Gathers and Taurean Prince were seen getting one another’s faces on the sidelines. The altercation was bad enough that both were benched by the coach to cool off even with the team trailing. After the loss, the second disappointment for Baylor in as many years, a reporter asked Prince in the post-game interview, “How does Baylor get outrebounded by Yale?”  Prince’s response get’s the Bobby Knight Award For Post-Game Interview Sarcasm when he explained, “When the ball comes of the rim, you go up and grab it when it comes off the rim, and you grab it with two hands…and that’s considered a rebound.”
  • PU – Something stinks in Lafayette. It could be Purdue’s utter lack of ability to finish a game. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear this game was thrown.
  • The Hand of Providence – It seems that the Fryars’ school is aptly named, as they seemed to escape certain doom multiple times in this one. TNT analyst Reggie Miller even commented, “It’s like the Fryars are cats. How many lives do they have, here?” USC missed the front end of a one-and-one twice in the closing seconds, leading by one point in both cases. This set them up for the Boneheaded Play Of The Day award, when USC’s Elijah Stewart left his man, Providence’s Rodney Bullock, right under the basket. Bullock scored the layup, and that was the game, the first tournament win for the Fryars since 1997.

Day One Awards

And now for the really good part of the commentary, the first day awards. Let’s start with the moment I know you’ve all been waiting for, the alias awards. It’s become quite the tradition in Jeff’s March Madness contest to come up with the most clever quip, inside joke, cultural reference, or pun in an effort to earn an award from the Wizard. Let’s begin with some aliases that, while not necessarily worthy of an award, are certainly worthy of a response.

  • Andrew “Boilers, first 5-seed to win it all!” Ables – Or, second 5-seed to not win AT all.
  • Troy “Why Do I Keep Torturing Myself” Breidenbach – Because hope springs eternal, and each year we all believe we can win.
  • Tyler “People Don’t Follow Name Directions” Breidenbach – You noticed that, too, huh?
  • Fess “48-0, Who needs re-picks” Bryson – Apparently you will. You’ve lost 3 of your Sweet 16 and Elite 8 so far.
  • Christopher “Wishes this was Buffet’s bracket pool” Charlson – As do I
  • Bethany “Cares more about my bracket than my GPA” Davis – Sounds like a case of Senioritis.
  • Delsi “Only Doing This Cause Dad Made Me” Fraser – That’s because Eusi needs someone to beat.
  • Evan “I care about the rules” Gidley – You’re my man, Evan.
  • Tom “Rules? We don’t need no stinking rules” Gidley – You no make-a the game. You no make-a the rules.
  • Trevis “I Never Liked R anyway” Lithe[r]land – I put the missing “r” back in your last name, thereby fixing your name and spoiling your joke. You’re welcome.
  • Wayne “IU and Purdue Fan” Murray – At least you had a backup.
  • Bill “Purdue Gonna Win” Randall – Maybe next year.

And now for a few Alias Superlative awards:

  • Best Hash Tag – Ryleigh “#StopMinions2k16” Lamb
  • Best LOL – Monique “Slap Yo Mama” Moss
  • Best Cheap Shot – David “the wizard has lost more than me” Allender
  • Best Cultural Reference – Alana “Cinderella’s evil sister” Solano
  • Best Homage to a Veggie Tales Song – Paul “I’ve never seen any Rocky movies” Sopke
  • Best Sports Reference – Matthew “I’m just here so I don’t get fined” Muschalik
  • Most Nerdy – Jared “47 6f 20 49 55 21” Adams (Go to a hex to ascii convertor on the web to decode)

Top Puns:

  • Top Pun: Jason “If your chicken runs away, you should” Cooper
  • Honorable Mentions:
    • Mike “WIN IT” Aue (his last name sounds like awe)
    • Mark “It’s not enough to just Partici” Pate
    • Jordan “is very” Wise

And finally,

  • The Flattery Will Get You Nowhere award goes to Robert “Can I Vote for Jeff for President?” Tipton.
  • The Burma Shave award once again goes to the Fairchild Family who used the alphabetical nature of the contestant listing to display the lyrics of the first line of the chorus from The Gambler. The Fairchilds will receive the complete boxed set of Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits.
  • And finally, the Best Alias award for the 2016 contest goes to Karla “I’m not 50 I’m $49.95 + tax” Clair. I don’t care if she saw it on a bumper sticker. That’s just plain funny.

And now for a few awards actually relating to performance in the contest.

  • No one got all 16 games correct today, but several contestants did win 15 out of 16. These contestants receive the Close Only Counts in Hand Grenades and Horseshoes award: Gary DeLong, Richard Schrimpf, Bill Spyksma, Janae Dailey, Keith Miller, Robert Tipton, Jim Heffner, Vanessa Sopke, Jeremy Elmore, RJ Wynn, Adam Lamb, and Greg Schweizer.
  • The Cellar Dweller award goes to Connie Randazzo who maintained her position in last place by going 5-11 today. Perhaps Connie will make a spectacular comeback tomorrow.
  • The Underdog award goes to nine contestants who correctly picked all seven upsets today: Dave Barndt, Ken Jordan, Eric Schneckloth, Ben Hand, Matthew Hickey, Bryce Hand, Andrew Bolin, John Smith, and J.R. Shrader.
  • The Mr. Miaggi Beginner Luck award goes to contest rookie Dr. Brittany Heffernan who is currently tied for second and just one point off the lead.
  • The Won’t You Go Home award goes to Bill Bailey, currently in a tie for 12th and 5 points off the lead.
  • The Best Thing I Got In A Text Today award goes to Braden Murray, freshman at Purdue, who sent me this text: “The only upset I missed was Purdue.”
  • Finally, the Yellow Jersey award goes to the winner of the first stage of our contest, Andrew Bolin, who sits alone in first with 41 points.  Andrew’s only two misses were Indiana and Kentucky (sounds like it’s personal to me), but these losses didn’t hurt him much because he didn’t miss out on any upset bonus points because of them.

And with that, I think I have run out of awards, energy, and inspiration for one day. Time for a ten and a half hour break until the madness begins anew.

Until then,

The Wizard of Whiteland

P.S. I would like to point out to Larry Shepherd that no minions were harmed or even mentioned in the composition of this commentary.

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