unclevlad Posted March 21, 2021 Report Share Posted March 21, 2021 And what a way to finish off the first round... Abilene Christian slays BIG GIANT brother Texas in a 14 over 3 upset. The brackets are almost certainly WELL smashed; in ESPN's (usually HUGE) public brackets, no one has a perfect bracket...after one day, that's rather rare. Big upsets: 2, 3, pair of 4, 5, and pair of 6 seeds all fell. Buffs took Hoyas to the woodshed; UCLA solidly pulled off the upset; Longhorns lost; Big 10 took a big gut-punch to the ego (the 2 and 3 to lose...were both Big 10). Excellent start... Kind of a funky schedule for tomorrow...back-to-back single games to start, then 3 games staggered...long stagger this time, an hour between starts...and last 3 games that likely are starting a half hour after the first 3 finish. And then MONDAY games, whee!! Fun, fun, fun........... EDIT: can't forget the one piece of bad news...VCU had to withdraw due to multiple positive tests. Gotta feel for them; this only came out a few hours before they were scheduled to play. Has to be tremendously disappointing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted March 21, 2021 Report Share Posted March 21, 2021 One of the sixes that fell was BYU, who maintains a death grip on their record for most Big Dance appearances without a trip to the Final Four (30 and counting). Most unfortunate, because the higher-ranked team they would have faced in the second round – Texas – also got eliminated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted March 21, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2021 And yes indeed, 1 game into the round of 32 and the tournament theme is known: CHAOS! #8 Loyola-Chicago beat #1 Illinois. Many brackets are now pulped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted March 21, 2021 Report Share Posted March 21, 2021 Wow. Even Sister Jean said she wasn't expecting that. (I had Illinois losing to Gonzaga in the championship game. My bracket is womped.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted March 21, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 21, 2021 You have plenty of company. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted March 22, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2021 OK, the brackets have now all been hacked to bits then fed to a garden chipper... 8 beat 1 to start the day; by the end of the day, add in 11 over 3, 15 over 7 (not *that* great an impact on brackets, the major impact was the 15 over the 2), and the night wraps with 12 over 4. I gotta tell ya, I'm going to be massively lost in terms of day of the week tomorrow. There's NEVER March Madness games on Monday!!! Much less at 10 AM. The schedule looks to be basically the same as today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted March 22, 2021 Report Share Posted March 22, 2021 I just took a look at my bracket to assess the damage. I went 17/32 (~53&) in the first round. That's worse than normal for me, and that's not nothing. As of right now, I have exactly one team (Baylor) still alive on the right side of my bracket. The good news is that I went 62/69 on this quiz: How many team letters can you guess? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted March 23, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 23, 2021 Almost every bracket is a mess. And quite a few of the better ones in the ESPN standings, will fall off the radar soon...the teams they've picked to win, have already lost. One aspect seems rather solid: the teams that had recent Covid disruptions couldn't overcome the loss of practice/prep time or the loss of a significant player. Georgia Tech lost their ACC player of the year, and lost to Loyola-Chicago...in an 8-9 matchup to be sure, but still. Kansas won vs a 14, but lost to USC, a 6. Virginia never had it together against Ohio. Oklahoma did win their 8-9 game...and then met Gonzaga. Yeah, that wasn't gonna go well no matter what. So we get a few days off. Sweet 16 is Saturday and Sunday...which means they're scheduled consecutively through the day and night, rather than staggered, all-evening starts. The downside looks to be that the talking heads will have excessive pontification time, with no other game active to switch to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 The first member of this year's Final Four is the Cougars from the University of Houston. The last time Houston made the Final Four, their starting center was Hakeem Olajuwon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted March 30, 2021 Report Share Posted March 30, 2021 Baylor joins Houston in the Final Four, the Bears' first trip since 1950. We're guaranteed one team from Texas in the championship game. We could be guaranteed a Texas vs. California championship if USC and UCLA both pull off upsets tomorrow ... which I don't foresee. As fun as it would be to see the B1G (who got nine teams into the tournament, eight of which were eliminated in the first weekend) completely shut out of the Final Four, I think Michigan is too good to lose to 11-seed UCLA. I watched Michigan play the other night, and they're solid. And as far as USC-Gonzaga goes? Well, I'm sure there are riskier bets than picking against the Zags ... but I can't think of what they might be. Gonzaga does everything well, they have no obvious weaknesses, and I feel they deserve to be the favorites until somebody beats them. I don't think the Trojans are the team to pull that off. But ask me again in 24 hours. As the smouldering remains of my bracket will attest, I could certainly be wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted March 31, 2021 Report Share Posted March 31, 2021 Well, I was one for two tonight...which is about how my bracket looks. Seriously, I should've used a d6 to make my picks. Maybe next year... UCLA knocked off #2 Alabama and #1 Michigan in consecutive games. They're the first First Four to Final Four team since VCU in 2010. As a reward, they get Gonzaga, who treated USC like a speed bump earlier in the evening. I'd love to see a Houston-Gonzaga championship game. Two mid-majors playing for the title and all that. Funny thing for locals here: Both BYU teams were eliminated by PAC-12 teams who ended up in the Final Four (UCLA for the men, Arizona for the women). I did manage to pick two of the Final Four correctly, Gonzaga and Baylor. That's better than a lot of years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer84 Posted April 3, 2021 Report Share Posted April 3, 2021 Great run by the Beavers. Can't even complain too much about the Elite 8 loss. Houston abused us in the first half. Not bad for the team picked 12th in the PAC-12. won our first conference tournament title. Took Oregon to the woodshed twice this year. Waltzed into the big dance ready to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slikmar Posted April 3, 2021 Report Share Posted April 3, 2021 My brother was laughing at them putting basically every SEC team in and all of them being knocked out before the 16. No bias in selection committee there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted April 3, 2021 Report Share Posted April 3, 2021 The Securities Exchange Commission has teams ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted April 3, 2021 Report Share Posted April 3, 2021 Houston is down 45-20 Baylor at the half. Unexpected, to say the least. I mean, if Gonzaga had been up by that score against UCLA, I could see that. Gonzaga has treated everybody this way all tournament long (all year long, really). Let's see if Houston can make a run in the second half. 21 minutes ago, slikmar said: My brother was laughing at them putting basically every SEC team in and all of them being knocked out before the 16. No bias in selection committee there. The B1G is a similar story. Michigan is the only team that played worth anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted April 6, 2021 Report Share Posted April 6, 2021 Baylor 86, Gonzaga 70 Too bad. I was really hoping the Zags would finally win it all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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