Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting. – John Russell

A First Round For The Ages

There simply are not enough superlatives with which to fill this lengthy tome to describe the historic nature of the madness we witnessed today. This was, without doubt, the most unbelievable day – the most unbelievable two days – of college basketball I have witnessed, and I’ve been doing this a very long time. Lest we think that’s just the subjective opinion of one long-winded sportswriter wannabe, let’s see if the numbers bear it out.

• For the first time in tournament history, a 13, 14, and 15 seed all won games in the same day.
• There were ten games won by double-digit seeds, the most ever in the first round.  In all 13 of the 32 games played were won by the lower seed, a winning percentage of .406.
• Yale and Hawai’i each got their first tournament win in school history.
• ESPN reported that Michigan State was the second most popular pick for national champion with 2.9 million brackets, making the Middle Tennessee upset, at least by one 21st-century metric, the most shocking of all time.  According to FiveThirtyEight.com’s Elo rating system, the Spartans were the highest rated team ever to lose in the first round.

Game Notes

• First One To Fifty Wins – In what was the lowest scoring tournament game in the shot clock era, Wisconsin and Pittsburgh combined to score the same number of points Middle Tennessee scored in beating Michigan State. I heard the TruTV studio guys report this was the lowest winning score in a tournament game since the 40s, proving that this game really did set basketball back 75 years. All that was missing was short shorts and granny-style free throws.
• Tales From The Playground – In a game one of the announcers commented was “beginning to look like a pick-up game,” Green Bay and Texas A&M combined for 38 turnovers in a near 30 point blowout by the Aggies. I was looking forward to that second round showdown between A&M and Texas, but that was spoiled by…
• The Half Court Heave – Northern Iowa’s Paul Jesperson hit the greatest half court shot since Ulysses S. Reed stunned the Louisville Cardinals with a 49 foot buzzer beater in 1981 (a shot I witnessed, by the way, with my dad, a huge UofL fan – I can still remember him, bracket in hand, staring at the TV in disbelief). And speaking of buzzer beaters…
• Upon Further Review – The confetti hadn’t even hit the floor in Oklahoma City (where Northern Iowa had just beaten Texas) when St. Joe’s Isaiah Miles made a three pointer to go up by two with 11 seconds left. Not to be outdone, Cincinnati’s Octavius Ellis appeared to send the game into overtime with a buzzer beating dunk, but when a replay review revealed that the ball was still in his hands when the clock read 0:00, the basket was disallowed, giving St. Joe’s the win. What do you we call that, exactly? The buzzer un-beater? The dunk that wasn’t? How did we ever play basketball without video review?
• Dollar Shave Club – I thought I read somewhere that college coaches get paid considerable sums of money. Why is it, then, that Notre Dame coach Mike Brey can’t afford a razor? This could be conclusive proof that all of those commercials bemoaning the high cost of razors are accurate. Five o’clock shadows aside, the Irish managed to avoid giving the 11 seeds a perfect 4-0 record by beating upstart Michigan. Perhaps my wife said it best, “I figured Michigan’s mini-run had to come to an end after beating IU in the Big Ten tournament and then winning the First Four game.”
• Not-So-Sweet 16s – The year of parity and upsets has not been without its moments of dominance. In a field supposedly lacking any true front runner, the #1 seeds won in extremely convincing fashion. In fact, the top seeds who were supposedly ripe for the historic first round exit won by a combined 117 points.
• Lumberjacks Fell Mountaineers – Continuing his long tradition of March Madness failure, Bob Huggins’ West Virginia Mountaineers collapsed in spectacular fashion to Stephen F. Austin. I should have known better. While coach Tom Izzo’s loss was both unexpected and tragic, Huggins’ was neither. This is the part of the show where the singing of “Take me home, country road” gives way to “I’m a lumberjack and I’m ok…”

Name Game

One of the more interesting and entertaining aspects of March Madness for me is identifying the players with names that are unique, strange, lend themselves well to puns, or are just plain fun to say. What follows is this year’s offering of the name game.

• Giddy Pots, Middle Tennessee – Certainly the Blue Raiders were Giddy with excitement after pulling off perhaps the biggest upset in tournament history.
• Scoochie Smith, Dayton Flyers – Unfortunately, the Flyers were unable to scooch by the Syracuse Orange and their confounding zone defense.
• Buddy Hield, Oklahoma Sooners – They call him Buddy Buckets, and he sure makes a lot of them.
• Tum Tum Nairn, Michigan State Spartans – Coach Tom Izzo needed a couple of Tums of his own after today’s crushing defeat.
• Prince Ibeh, Texas Longhorns – If you’re wondering what’s funny about that, Prince’s last name is pronounced like eBay. eBay with the basket. eBay with the rebound. eBay at the free throw line. At times the play-by-play announcer sound more like a pitchman for the auction site.
• Thomas Walkup, Stephen F Austin Lumberjacks – First, he looks like a lumberjack. Second, the opportunities for puns with this guy’s name are endless. “Just Walkup to the line and win the game for us, son.” “You got it, coach.”

Trends

I’ve observed a few trends so far in this year’s tournament, some interesting and others disturbing.

• Hip Eyewear – From James Worthy style googles to safety glasses, it seems like more guys are protecting the eyes.
• Big Hair – John Wooden would have given many of today’s players the address of the nearest barber shop.  And speaking big hair…
• Big Beards – I don’t know if it’s Duck Dynasty or James Harden that inspired this tread, but it just seems so contrary to all that is basketball. Don’t those beards make your face hot?
• Fouling Three Point Shooters – Never a winning strategy. You’d think this would be the easiest foul in all of basketball to avoid, especially near the end of games in which you are ahead and trying to stay that way.
• The James Harden “Feed Me” Gesture – Not sure how I feel about that, but it’s not very original.
• Bright Uniforms – I’m talking highlighter yellow bright (see Baylor and Oregon). Perhaps this is a means of blinding the opponents.
• Slick Floors – Seems like I have seen a lot of players slip and hit the deck while trying to make a cut. Either that or today’s players just can’t keep their balance very well. Somebody is going to get hurt.
• Missed Dunks – And missed layups, too. If you want to win, you have to make the easy ones.

Round One Awards

The plethora of upsets has certainly led to some interesting movement in the contest standings. Without further ado, I present the final round one contest awards.

• The Upset Stomach award, sponsored by Pepto Bismol, of course goes to the two contestants who guaranteed themselves every upset by picking ALL of the lower seeds to win in the first round: Matthew Hickey and Eric Schneckloth. They are currently tied for 3rd, but since they only won the upsets, they only won 13 games. WIll that be enough to stay close enough to first through the second round so that the re-picks can get them back in contention. I don’t know, but it will be fun watching them try.
• The Bombs Away award goes to Jeremy Elmore who dropped from a high of 12th to a low of 171st in the standings.
• The All Over The Map award goes to Kim Schneckloth whose position in the standings has ranged from 766th to 36th and now stands at 52nd.
• The Top Prognosticator award goes to Braden Murray for picking 29 of the first 32 games correctly. Braden is currently in 5th place. As Darth Vader would say, “Impressive.”
• The Next Time Flip A Coin award goes to Connie Randazzo, who managed only 10 wins in the first 32 games. Ouch!
• The Hoosier Hospitality award goes to Brock and Ben Zagel who joined me at the Wizard’s secret lair for some pizza and game watching. Good times.
• The Super Bowl Hangover award goes to least year’s contest champion Heather Dilulio, currently tied for 665th.
• The Sitting Pretty award goes to AJ Spuches, the only contestant who can still win all of the remaining 31 games with original picks. AJ is currently in 7th.
• And finally, the Round One  Leader award goes to first place minion  John “Upset City” Smith. John’s approach is only slightly different from the “all upsets” approach, which is why he has 6 more points than Matthew Hickey and Eric Schneckloth. This sort of strategy has never led to a contest winner in the past, but with the record number of upsets in the first round this year, it just might be a workable strategy. In contrast to AJ, though, John can only win 11 more games with original picks, so the re-pick round will be crucial to his success.

I’ve fallen asleep at my keyboard something like ten times while trying to complete this commentary, which probably means I need to rest up for the second round this weekend. It also is my excuse for any babbling incoherence you may find in this edition of the commentary.

So until tomorrow, minions – or I guess, actually, later today – grab some breakfast, check the standings, and then get ready for more madness.

The Wizard of Whiteland

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