Round One

Whew, was Day Two a monster! Eight upsets, including two 15 seeds beating 2 seeds. My understanding is that prior to yesterday, 15 seeds had only won 4 games since 1985. It's like in baseball, where of the 15 unassisted triple plays in history, 2 of them took place on consecutive days in 1927. Weird.

Anyhoo, we have geniuses to praise. Only The Wrinkler picked USF to beat Temple, only Dana got Lehigh over Duke, and as I said below, only Gena, Ellie and Sophie got Norfolk State over Missouri. Five of us (me, Acy, Dayle, Ellie, Sophie) picked Ohio to beat Michigan. If you've forgotten, correctly picking a 1-10 seed to win gets you 1 point, 11-12 seeds get you 2 points, 13-14 seeds get you 3 points, and 15-16 seeds get you 4 points. If my math is correct, that means there were 27 points possible yesterday (as opposed to 18 on Thursday). The day's big winner was...wait for it...SOPHIE MAC, with an amazing 16 points. Her sister, Ellie, was right behind with 15. Something in the Pittsburgh water, evidently. Their mother, Liz, is clearly not drinking that water. What are you drinking, Liz? [I'm going for the world record for the most ideas in one paragraph - what the hell am I writing about here?]

So, today begins Round 2, where all games are worth 2 points each. All these upsets are going to make the later rounds weird, poolwise, but let's see how it all shakes out.

Below are the standings after Round One. I hope you're all planning to watch at 12 hours of televised hoop today. I'd be disappointed to find that you've been, oh, playing outside, exercising, reading a book, or any other goofy non-basketball-related activity. Get on the couch, people, it's the tournament.

Stationarily yours,

Meister