March Madness, Friday First Round Open Thread
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Mar 19, 2010 9:15 AM PDT
in Basketball
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Ahhhhhh, March is back and yesterday, it was back in a big way.The first four games of the day were decided by a combined 12 points and seven of those came in a double overtime game between Florida and BYU. Things didn't slow down with Murray St. taking down Vanderbilt and Ohio taking down Georgetown. Even the Pac-10 had itself a single decent moment with Washington taking down Marquette in a thriller. All in all, it was one of the most dramatic days of March Madness we've seen and that's pretty good considering the NCAA Tournament is built on drama.
Today, we open with a couple fun potential upsets in 12th seeded Cornell looking to topple fifth seeded Temple and 11th seeded Minnesota going after sixth ranked Xavier. The Pac-10's second team will take the court in the day's final day when Cal takes on Louisville at 6:45 pm PST. Sandwiched in between will surely be some fun with upsets, passion, tears and joy. It's why we love March. Once again, March Madness On-Demand has all the games online and you can grab it in the widget below. This is another March Madness open thread. Go nuts everyone.
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March 19, 1995
Wow.
For everything UCLA baseball, visit my UCLA baseball twitter.
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Mar 19, 2010 9:23 AM PDT reply actions
My 12-5 upset each year
I’m taking Cornell and Utah St as my stone cold locks for a #12 upset over a #5. Day 1 was awesome by the way. Big ups to Ohio, Murray State, ODU, and UW on some big upsets.
Amazing stats from the brackets after day one.
ESPN had something like 4.7 million brackets submitted. 57 are still perfect. 57. I also did a bracket through my local CBS station that also links to a national CBS contest. 96,927 brackets were submitted to this one; zero had 16/16 on day one.
Permit me to brag a minute: I threw together some brackets at the last minute yesterday morning. On the CBS one, I managed to not only pick ODU over ND and UW to win, but went back right before submitting thinking I didn’t have enough upsets, and chose Ohio over Georgetown. They also had a tie-breaker of choosing the final score of the UNI/UNLV game. Actual final: UNI 69-66. My guess: UNI 71-66. I managed to only miss three on my ESPN and CBS brackets, but missed four on the Yahoo/BN one, so I’m part of the crowd looking up at gbruin at the top of the leader list there. Of course, after saying this, I’ll probably end up missing something like 9 of 16 today…
14 of 16 on both my (non-BN) yahoo brackets right now
missed on Ohio on both; New Mexico on one, Tennessee on the other…
by britishbruin on Mar 19, 2010 9:43 AM PDT up reply actions
just thinking about those numbers again
there are a few ways of looking at it
1) there are only 2^16 ways of picking 16 sets of matchups – 65536. So, for 4.7 million people selecting random brackets, you would expect 72 to hit on the winning combination. So 57 would be low but not that low.
2) As far as I can tell, if you assume that each team gets selected according to its likelihood of winning (e.g. a 75% favorite gets selected in 75% of brackets), then the mathematical logic is interesting – Georgetown losing is unlikely as a favorite, but if they lose they wipe out a lot of people’s brackets. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around how far those things offset.
by britishbruin on Mar 19, 2010 10:18 AM PDT up reply actions
I'd think the latter part
would weigh more. 4.7 million monkeys sitting at typewriters would have let to a lot of random picks in favor of (very) low seeds. Eastern Tennessee State and Kentucky both have a 50-50 chance in a coin flip, but they sure wouldn’t be picked by anywhere near half the people who are interested enough in sports to go to BSPN’s web site. The (not-so-)occasional upset thus throws off more brackets than chance would allow.
After watching them play KU tough, I picked 12-seed Cornell over Temple. :)
Picked Cornell, Murray State and Utah St
as my big upsets. 2 for 2 so far. Hoping Utah St brings me the trifecta.
by Kerckhoff405 on Mar 19, 2010 11:58 AM PDT up reply actions
Since I Didn't Have A Chance
last night…
Congratulations, Huskies!! Well done, and thanks for a very exciting finish!!
Love My Bruins
Here In Minneapolis
A lot of Gopher faithful are hoping for an upset of Xavier. Could happen depending upon which Gopher team decides to show up today.
Los Angeles Rams and the UCLA Bruins!!!!!
by Minnesota Bruinfan on Mar 19, 2010 10:16 AM PDT reply actions
Also...
Am kind of wondering who my alma mater (Iowa) will pick as their next roundball coach. I had a feeling Lickliter’s seat was getting extremely hot in Iowa City.
Los Angeles Rams and the UCLA Bruins!!!!!
by Minnesota Bruinfan on Mar 19, 2010 10:17 AM PDT up reply actions
Xavier-Minnesota
Definitely wins for most NBA last names. So far I’ve heard Westbrook, Love, Iverson, Crawford, Jackson, and Carter. Then if you want to get away from the NBA, Xavier has a guy named Redford.
We're havin' too much fun today. We ain't thinkin' 'bout tomorrow.
For the lawyers to mull over
I am now ready to submit my day one brackets. I want to be permitted to do it late pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 473, which permits relief when an order (like who won) was taken against you through surprise, mistake, inadvertence or excuseable mistake. My grounds here are that I didn’t realize I had to get them in BEFORE the games started, an honest mistake. Also, this was solely my attorney’s fault, and he’ll submit a declaration falling on his sword, so relief should be automatic.
And by the way, I’m 16 for 16. At least now I am.
Nooo!
Xavier killing me. I, for some reason, fell in with Minnesota in my picks. That kid who dunked on LeBron is good.
greg in denver - UCLA guy for life
Mizzou and Clemson
are playing like they have a 10 second shot clock. This is crazy, but fun to watch.
greg in denver - UCLA guy for life
Go Badgers
BRACKET BRACKET BRACKET BRACKET…
by britishbruin on Mar 19, 2010 2:04 PM PDT up reply actions
Some of these announcers are praising Purdue
Why exactly? They’re a four seed that struggled to beat a 13 seed that couldn’t make a shot.
For everything UCLA baseball, visit my UCLA baseball twitter.
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Mar 19, 2010 3:01 PM PDT reply actions
Think Florida St. is big enough?
Their starting five has a 6’4’’ guard and 6’5’ guard, then three front court players who are all 6’9’’ or bigger. They can all move well too. It’s no wonder they’re they top defensive team in the country.
For everything UCLA baseball, visit my UCLA baseball twitter.
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Mar 19, 2010 4:14 PM PDT reply actions
Zags up big early though
Quick > big so far: 24 – 9 Zags, with 7:50 left.
What are the chances Few ends up in Eugene next year? Is his current contract an issue? (for Nike, I imagine not…)
greg in denver - UCLA guy for life
a friend of mine has a bracket called
“Not big enough; might fail”
He is a Finance PhD student…
by britishbruin on Mar 19, 2010 8:50 PM PDT up reply actions
It sounds like Elmore-Gus on the Gonzaga game
I wonder if Zags fans are having nightmare flashbacks.
Baseball playing Oral Roberts in 15ish minutes
Baseball game thread is up here.
For everything UCLA baseball, visit my UCLA baseball twitter.
by Ryan Rosenblatt on Mar 19, 2010 5:48 PM PDT reply actions
"Shades of UCLA...Remember that one?"
As CBS goes to break with Gonzaga clinging to a 5 point lead…after being up by (16)!
We certainly do, Gus. A lot of it thanks to you.
Heard that too
Gives me goose bumps just thinking about it. How could we forget!? :)
"The entire world that bleeds blue and gold ... they have been dying for this." - Coach Rick Neuheisel
did anyone see jerome randle's last 3-pointer in the first half?
he was like halfway between the 3 point line and midcourt…
And then a shot right before half
from about 5 more feet back was made in the Maryland/Houston game not 10 minutes later!
by KSBruin on Mar 19, 2010 8:29 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
oops
Obviously I missed your reply to yourself, BruinEngy.
by KSBruin on Mar 19, 2010 8:31 PM PDT via mobile up reply actions
haha it's fine
with UCLA not being in the tournament, I choose to cheer for the other pac 10 schools, at the very least
yup
Pac-10 representing well so far. Two Big LEast schools overrated and being dealt with by underrated Pac-10 schools. If Cal hangs on I don’t give them much of a chance of beating Syracuse, but I’ll settle for them beating down Louisville.
by britishbruin on Mar 19, 2010 8:53 PM PDT up reply actions
And Pitino with the T
Complaining about an intentional foul. Love it.
Bad for my bracket, but go Cal.
greg in denver - UCLA guy for life
5 point possession
2 FT for the T, 2 FT for the intentional, and then 1 FT on the ensuing possession.
That should almost do it.
greg in denver - UCLA guy for life
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