Ok, here should be everything you need for the rest of the tournament! Bookmark this forever (or until, like, 3 weeks from now) to see anything and everything you need!
Day 2+ Pick Form (This form will be the only form you'll need for the remainder of the tournament)
Daily Recaps
Well, well, well, after two days of contest mayhem and, dare I say, madness, Day 3 was as calm as a placid lake on a cool spring morning.
We entered Day 3 with just 253 of our original 1078 entries still alive. By day's end only 19 of those 253 entrants failed to pick a winner. So after halving our field on Days 1 and 2, less than 10% of our contestants lost on Day 3. This tells me one of two things...
1. Yesterday was easy for everyone
OR
2. All the dumb people already lost
There's really not even much to talk about today. Oakland knocked out some people who took a shot at a bunch of tie breaker points, and Oregon knocked out some people, but, really, it was pretty uneventful. And, it was pretty chalky. That makes it easy yesterday, but it's setting up to be tough for the people that survive today. Next week we'll have Illinois v Iowa State and Creighton v Tennessee in very evenly matched games.
It's not really very fun to make jokes when no one lost yesterday. Yup, we all just had a nice, pleasant, and fun day. Definitely nothing to worry about from yesterday. I, for one, am just going to have a great day today after such an uneventful day yesterday!
Day 2 is in the books and everything went great yesterday. It was easy, and everyone was happy and carefree as they.....wait....oh yeah, it was another bloodbath, what a surprise!
We went into Day 2 with the field already cut in half. With only 508 brave warriors still battling into the second day. And, once again, that number was cut in half yesterday (literally exactly half, which is pretty cool) leaving just 254 combatants on the field heading to day 3. Yeah, just 254 out of 1,072 entrants are still around for the weekend.
The day started with 32 entrants throwing in their lot with Louisville Head Coach, Dusty May, as he was kind enough to guest coach the Florida Atlantic Owls against Northwestern who had a mere two picks placed upon their heads. Johnell Davis, tired of playing for a small school in Florida and ready to move to Derby City, decided to waste the final possession of regular time, and then Florida Atlantic decided to collectively just take a nap instead of play overtime basketball. Our pool once again proving that James Surowiecki is an idiot, and, at least among this crowd, wisdom is sparse.
Despite that major setback to start the day, the Survivors found some solace in the next few games, with 44 Baylor, 59 San Diego State, and 19 Marquette selectors moving on to Day 3.
And then....Boom went the dynamite.
The biggest shock to the system yesterday came when New Mexico went home as the most popular pick of the day. The Tourney gods laid out an 11 seed that was the betting favorite and it was too much for our contestants to ignore. The entries were drawn to Richard Pitino's Lobos like the proverbial moths to flames, but like Icarus before them, these combatants found that flying too close to the sun often ends with you on the ground in tears.
But at least there were more safe picks coming up. Like Auburn. Auburn was 4th on KenPom and a 4 seed? There were 49 entries on Auburn and ZERO on Yale. This pick would be safe, I swear. Except for the fact that it wasn't safe at all! (that's one of my favorite movie clips ever, enjoy that mom!) Bruce Pearl, overrated basketball coach and generally pretty scummy dude, got sent home in round 1 as Yale, one of those academic schools, advances and takes zero entrants along with them.
The losses of Florida and Nebraska sent home 18 and 13 pickers respectively. While their conquerors, Colorado and Texas A&M moved 8 and 11 on to Saturday. The Purdue, Bama, and Houston chalk burners also advance. Houston knocked out a team that's coached Griff Aldrich, who was a private equity executive that left a super lucrative career for basketball coaching, he will likely now sell off all his players, the equipment, and uniforms for any profit he can get while forcing three interns to be the basketball team next season and then complaining if they just play harder they should be able to improve on the last financial year's results. (This was a joke about private equity companies and how they suck)
And the night games, which I once again slept through, saw 31 dummies losing on TCU and another 22 losing when the 6 man rotation of St. Mary's ran out of steam against GCU. Nine entries moved on with 12 seed GCU including 5 entries from the worrisome name PigLips. Mr./Ms. Lips has 23 tie breaker points on 5 entries and sits in a very nice spot after that Grand Canyon win.
So, we move on to Day 3. A day sure to be kinder and gentler to us all.....right?
