Day 2 Recap

First, the mandatory link to the Day 3 Pick Sheet.

And, the obligatory link to the LEADERBOARD.

Now that the formalities are out of the way, onto an insightful summarization of the goings on that occurred during the 2nd day of what is once again, and rightfully so I might add, called the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Yes, the stupid NCAA tried to make us call this the second round for a few years...but, America fought back. Yes, we're going to super size our freaking value meal no matter what stupid nerd doctors say. Yes, we're going make Mexico build and pay for a wall they don't want. And, yes, we are going to refer to the play-in games as play-in games and the round of 64 is going to be the first freaking round forever and ever!

I realize the basketball on day 2 was absolutely incredible, but before I get to the games....I want to talk about commercials again. I understand that there was a fairly significant amount of text about the commercials on the Day 1 recap. But, to be fair, these games are like 50% commercials. I feel like I really dropped the ball yesterday by not bringing up the BW3's commercial about Daddy Going to Art School. In case you don't watch it, and haven't seen it somehow, it features an apathetic mother who is leaving her children with their father, a father that the children apparently hate. The children do not want to be left with this man, and beg their mother to allow them to go into BW3's...but she disallows this....because their father went to art school. At first glance it's kind of funny I guess, and it's cool that this chick is ditching her nerd husband to watch basketball. BUT, what does it mean!? Why does his having attended art school mean the children are not allowed in BW3's? Does he hate sports and forbid his children from watching sports? Does she just hate her children and want to pawn them off on her weak nerd of a husband? I demand a sequel to this commercial BW3's. America needs answers!

While America was fiercely debating the meaning of BW3's commercials, the first round was coming to it's climactic conclusion. If you took the time to fill out a bracket, it's probably completely blown up by now. Michigan State, the second choice in Vegas to cut down the nets in Houston, wound up getting run off the court by a Giddy Middle Tennessee State team. I think we can all agree the middle part of Tennessee is underrated, and today it was proven. But, while this blew up brackets, it was relatively meaningless in the Survivor Pool as only 1 person put his hopes and dreams on Tom Izzo's shoulders today. Hilariously (well not for him/her) the entry was under the name "You did what?" Which is precisely what people said when they found out (s)he picked Michigan State today.

Despite brackets across the country being busted, you bastards just won't make bad picks in the Survivor Pool. The three most popular picks for Friday were Iowa (30), Maryland (29), and VCU (27). All 3 won, of course. After going an incredible 61-3 in 8/9 match-ups on day 1, our combatants now sit at a preposterous 139 - 17 in 8/9 and 7/10 games. These games are supposed to be hard people. Hell, you guys went 10-5 picking 13 seed Hawaii over 5 seed Cal. That's really good, but, of the five losing entries, three belonged to DaddyNeedsAWin....Well Daddy, you can't always get what you want, but if you pick Cal three times you also don't get what you need apparently. Meanwhile, Larry Gillespie and Tim Couch Fanclub get shout-outs for a second consecutive day; not only did they both pick Yale yesterday, they both backed it up with wins on Hawaii on day 2! Also, no idea if I used that semi-colon properly. I don't know how to use them, but it felt right. It's not like this is being graded. You don't own me any more Mrs. Miller, I don't give a crap if I use perfect grammar. You know who else didn't know how to use semi-colons? Jesus.

Another quick punctuation mark aside...When did people start spelling it Hawai'i? This feels like more politically correct BS to me, and I don't like it. If it's not political correctness it's probably just another attempt by Big Apostrophe to get us all to use those lame flying commas more. Im not buying it.

The last three games of the night were legitimately three of the best basketball games you could ever imagine witnessing. But, once again, they didn't result in many eliminations. Notre Dame carried the hopes and dreams of 13 participants. The Irish shook off their post St. Paddy's day hangover in the second half, and, once again, a bunch of people moved on to tomorrow.

Northern Iowa, in about the most dramatic fashion imaginable, moved a mere four people onto Saturday. The also sent four people packing that were silly enough to pick Texas. Including Larry Gillespie, you remember him, the guy with one of the Yale - Hawaii entries, not so smart anymore, huh Larry? No, seriously though, losing like this sucks. But you know what's even worse? I mean, like way worse? Losing like this. And, yes, that dunk that didn't count ended the run for seven of our fierce competitors, including one of the pool creators, The Phillionaire's Club, and the only guy smart enough to play Stephen F Austin today, mmidland. The worst luck guy? How about silverfox who had entries on each of these losers. Ouch.

At the end of one of the most insane days of basketball ever, 186 of our 260 original entrants are still alive and picking. Good luck on day 3, we're all going to need it.