|
|
|
|
Not
so good |
|
|
From marchmadman Updated 03/22/24, 10:00am |
|
|
After
the 16 games on Day 1, only around 2,100 of the more than 29 million entries
across major online games (Men's Bracket Challenge Game, ESPN, CBS and Yahoo)
remain perfect that s about 0.007%). The
first two games took out a lot of entries as both were upsets
(No. 9 Michigan State over No. 8 Mississippi State and No. 11 Duquesne's
71-67 defeat over No. 6 BYU). Seven games into the
tournament, No. 11 Oregon beat No. 6 South Carolina. The
brackets continued falling as No. 7 Dayton's 63-60 comeback victory over No.
10 Nevada dropped the percent of perfect brackets to
around 2.5% (Nevada was actually favored by the
betting books). Enter
No. 14 Oakland ... the Golden Grizzlies downed No. 3 Kentucky, eliminating
the sixth-most picked national champion. No.
11 NC State and No. 7 Washington State continued dwindling down brackets
before Kansas escaped Samford to avoid a bigger bracket destruction. ***SIDE BAR*** As
No. 13-seeded Samford attempted to catch up to and potentially upset No. 4
seed Kansas on Thursday night, a controversial foul all but ended the dream
as the Jayhawks squeaked by with a 93-89 NCAA Tournament win. After
Jaden Campbell pulled the Bulldogs within one with a 3-pointer with under 15
seconds left in the second half, Kansas inbounded the ball, and Nicolas
Timberlake went up for a dunk to try to put the Jayhawks back up by three. But
A.J. Staton-McCray caught him down from behind with what appeared to be a
perfectly timed block, giving Samford a shot. However,
officials called Staton-McCray for a foul, and Timberlake sank both free
throws and Kansas advanced. To be
clear, only one of the three officials called the foul that's not uncommon
since refs have different areas of the court they are responsible for. But two refs were focused on this play, and only Lamar
Simpson called it. If
Timberlake thought there was any controversy, he wasn
t letting on. I was
definitely fouled on the breakaway, he said. Replays, though,
showed Staton-McCray appeared to block just the ball and should not have been
called for a foul, leading to plenty of outrage across the college basketball
world. ***END SIDE BAR*** The
longest (verifiable) streak of correct picks in an NCAA tournament bracket to
start the March Madness tournament is 49, a mark that was established in 2019. An Ohio man correctly predicted the entire 2019 NCAA
tournament into the Sweet 16, something we've not seen in years of tracking
publicly verifiable online March Madness brackets at all major games. Last
year, only 787 brackets nationally remained perfect after Thursday's first
day. We're
in better shape this year, but the madness is just beginning. |
|
|
|
|
|
#GoTerps #UNCW #WeAre |
|