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A Pretty Good First Day

By DBR Archives

The NCAA Tournament is endlessly fascinating. Sure there were a couple of laughers: BYU got thumped by Marquette. Kentucky ran over Western Kentucky. Gonzaga dispatched West Virginia pretty pitilessly. And it was no great surprise that Ohio State thumped Loyola. Otherwise?

Way cool.

Friday Broadast Times & Networks
  • Cincinnati vs. Texas, 12:15  PM  PT, CBS
  • San Diego St. vs. NC State, 12:40  PM  PT, truTV
  • Creighton vs. Alabama, 1:40  PM , TBS
  • Florida vs. Virginia, 2:10  PM , TNT
  • Florida State vs. St. Bonaventure, 30 minutes after conc. of     Cincinnati/Texas, CBS )
  • Georgetown vs. Belmont, 30 minutes after conclusion of San Diego St./NC     State, truTV
  • North Carolina vs.Vermont, 30 minutes after conclusion of     Creighton/Alabama, TBS
  • Missouri vs. Norfolk St., 30 minutes after conclusion of Florida/Virginia,     TNT
  • Memphis vs. Saint Louis, 6:50 PM PT, TBS (Columbus)
  • Duke vs. Lehigh, 7:15 PM PT, CBS (Greensboro)
  • Michigan vs. Ohio, 7:20 PM PT, TNT (Nashville)
  • St. Mary's (CA) vs. Purdue, 7:27 PM PT, truTV
  • Michigan State vs. LIU Brooklyn, 30 minutes after conclusion of     Memphis/St. Louis, TBS
  • Notre Dame vs. Xavier, 30 minutes after conclusion of Duke/Lehigh,     CBS
  • Temple vs. California/South Florida, 30 minutes after conclusion of     Michigan/Ohio, TNT
  • Kansas vs. Detroit, 30 minutes after conclusion of St. Mary's/Purdue,     truTV

Start with Asheville. They have no business in a game with Syracuse - but they were, right up to the closing minutes. In a word: magnificent.

Davidson hung with Louisville, losing by just seven.  Harvard gave Vandy a tough game. South Dakota State - South Dakota State - gave Baylor fits.

Colorado knocked off Vegas, which screwed up a lot of brackets. The most interesting game, in many ways though, was UConn's  loss to  Iowa State . Look, we don't like UConn very much. The program reeks. Jim Calhoun is a solid coach but often comes across as a despicable man.

Nonetheless, their team last year was beautiful. They really came together, they had a leader and in the end, they were superb.

This year? Not so much. This has been a team with ridiculous talent and no heart. They barely deserved a bid and certainly didn't deserve to win.

As a small point, though, this is a bit of a pattern for UConn: they tend to follow their championships with a certain amount of chaos, arrogance and foolishness.

After 1999, Khalid El-Amin managed to get himself into more than one scrape. After 2004, they had the laptop thefts and several other issues. It's kind of unique, really. Most schools follow titles with lesser teams, but no on falls quite like UConn does.

We were very impressed with VCU as well. Rumors are tying Shaka Smart to the Illinois search; this game proved that last year was no fluke. VCU is a very, very well coached team.

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