The first Thursday of the tournament more often than not fails to live up to the hype. Today (at least the early half of the slate) continued the trend:
UConn and UNC tried to create drama (UConn with Jimmy Calhoun missing the game due to illness and UNC with Ty Lawson not playing), but both topped the century mark and held their opponents under 60. Yawn.
Mississippi State's run from not even within striking distance of the bubble to SEC champion ended abruptly as soon as they stepped on the floor with Washington. Texas A&M downed BYU. The interesting twist? These two teams tangled in the first round last year as well, with the same result. LSU lost a 13 point lead to Butler before recovering for the 4 point win. Purdue never trailed in their matchup with Northern Iowa, even though it ended up a close game.
The collective gasp you heard around 2 PM was bracketeers around the country checking on the Memphis-Cal State Northridge game and seeing CSN up in the 2nd half. Had they been watching the game, they probably would have been even more nervous, as the highlights show easy basket after easy basket for the underdogs. Memphis simply didn't bother to play defense, and CSN didn't get the memo that they were overmatched. Until a late 9-0 run when CSN ran out of gas, Memphis looked in real danger of blowing up a good number of brackets less than 3 hours into March Madness '09.
The 2nd upset of the opening 8 games was Maryland over Cal. I felt compelled to pull for Maryland once I saw Cal had a player trying to be Joakim Noah. I've always felt one shouldn't aspire to look like a member of the NCAA Hall of Fame ugly team, but maybe that's just me. Luckily, I also picked against Cal, so there was no conflict.
Hopefully the late games will bring more excitement (this American-Villanova game looks promising, while potentiallt ruinous for my bracket).
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