Day 1 of the NCAA Tournament

And I have one word for it... WOW!

A double OT game, an OT game where team came back from an 18 point deficit, a fadeaway game winner, and more than one game that was back and forth all day.

The games I'm referring to, of course, was BC topping Pacific in double OT, George Washington coming back from 18 down in the 2nd half to beat UNC-Wilmington, Chris Lofton hitting a tough fadeaway to stave off #2 Winthrop, and Indiana beating SD State. Another great one featured Gonzaga coming from behind to beat 14 seed Xavier. In the biggest surprise of the day, Montana had a relatively easy time beating Nevada today, and they'll take on BC on Saturday.

However, despite near-upsets of a 2 and 3 seed, no other outcome (besides Montana) really came as a shock today. The two biggest upsets seed-wise were 11 seed Wisconsin-Milwaukee and 12 seed Texas A&M, but those weren't reall unexpected.

As for my picks, almost everything went right. I was 13/16, missing only with Marquette, Nevada, and San Diego St. On lots of other games that I sorta went back and forth on, things went my way. For example, I changed my pick to Wichita St. at the last minute, I originally took Syracuse, I put a lot of thought into the Tennessee game and UWM game, but they went my way.

While I'm here, I have a real bone to pick with Brandon Heath. He did everything but shoot at Indiana's hoop in the closing minutes. Long, errant 3 point attempts, a runner that wasn't even close, and the huge mental error that allowed Indiana to get the ball back with 13 seconds instead of 6 or 7. Just a dreadful performance after he hit the 3 to put them up 79-76.

And here I was ready to name my first-born child Abukar.

Three best names of the Tourney: Mohamed Abukar, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute. Great stuff there.

With that, day 1 is in the books. Let's hope for more of the same tomorrow.

And by more of the same I do not mean that Applebee's commerical. Seriously, does CBS have more than 5-10 commercials? I don't care about two guys playing the guitar, or KG coming out of a ball to drink a Gatorade. I see CBS goes to a commerical after every single timeout called. Normally, stations at least let the announcers talk occassionally during the 20 second timeouts, but in the Tourney, we're subjected to more and more awful commercials. CBS, just because I see 30,000 previews for "The Unit" does not mean I'm going to watch the show. In fact, I'm specifically going to avoid it. Just awful stuff in otherwise good coverage, at least in my part of the country.

And speaking of CBS, the commentating lowlight of the day: After Chris Lofton's fadeaway to put Tennessee up 63-61, here was Kevin Harlan after watching the replay: "Where did he get the courage to take that shot?" Uh, I like you Kevin, but I think he got the courage from the clock winding down, and him having the ball in his hands. Just a guess.