As always, pertinent links first:
DAY 3 PICK FORM
LEADERBOARD
We entered the second day of the gauntlet known as the Survivor Pool with 354 brave souls still alive with a chance to take down our biggest prize ever. Meanwhile, 131 Day 1 losers sat angrily in a corner somewhere plotting their revenge. But, this isn't a tale of the losers, today is about the winners...or at least those who were able to remain winners for one day...
Day two was kicked off by an epic battle of Catholics (remember their Day 1 dominance) vs their arch-nemesis, Texans. Providence carried with it the hopes and dreams of 17 one day survivors while 12 of their opponents cast their lot with the Aggies. For some reason Ed Cooley decided to go away from his trademark pant's ripping gameplan, and it turned out to be a mistake that allowed the Aggies to prevail.
The second game of the day featured the most popular Day 2 pick. Surprisingly, 64 contestants put their faith into the hands of Gregg Marshall and the Wichita State Shockers. The committee loves these kinds of blood feuds. Obviously this one being for who deserves the rights to the name Marshall? Would it be Gregg? Or would The University of win the battle? It seemed like the advantage was obvious when Marshall's (the University not the coach) coach showed up in a T-Shirt....at that point you had to feel good if you were backing Wichita. It was a back and forth game most of the way, and right when it seemed like Wichita might have the game where they wanted it...BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE! Dan D'antoni takes his t-shirt on to the Round of 32, meanwhile, Gregg Marshall didn't have the best trip to San Diego. At least Gregg has a sweet and supportive wife that will cheer him up. Surprisingly, not a single entrant took a shot with the Thundering Herd.
The other early games were relatively easy wins for Cincinnati and Purdue. Between the two games 33 chalk eating weasels advanced to Day 3 with a lousy 2 tie-breaker points to show for it. The only real story from these games was that Purdue will move on without 7'3 giant of a man, Isaac Haas, who broke his elbow and is out for the rest of the tournament.
The second session started with North Carolina crushing Lipscomb. I'll admit, I don't know a lot about Lipscomb, but I do know their school name is an anagram from Lip Combs. So, that's something. Texas and Nevada also played in this session, a game that only attracted 13 picks as most people thought it was a complete toss up...which it was...it went to OT where Nevada prevailed, advancing 5 combatants and a fairly excited coach.
One of the more popular picks of the day, Butler, didn't really have much trouble dispatching Arkansas by 17 points. In a game that seemed like a toss up on paper, Butler advanced 29 entries while just 5 suckers fell for the allure of the Razorbacks.
In one of the more interesting results of the day West Virginia knocked off Murray State. This isn't that interesting from a Survivor Pool point of view since it moved 55 people to Day 3 while knocking out no one. But, what is interesting is that it sets up a second round match-up between West Virginia and Marshall. Consider this for a minute guys...West Virginians burn couches WHEN THEY WIN. Which begs the question....what do they burn when they lose?? West Virginia is sure to be a popular pick with anyone who survives to Sunday, and it should be a good clean basketball game between two teams that respect, and possibly even love, one another.
The evening session wasn't super eventful for the Survivor Pool either. K State became another 9+ seed winner that not a single entrant selected as they knocked out the 11 losers that picked Creighton. Michigan State knocked off Bucknell in a game that was more interesting than expected, 8 chalk eaters advanced here. And, Xavier advanced easily moving on the 10 entrants who weren't worried about getting a mere 1 point and losing the ability to ever pick Chris Mack again this year.
The one game of consequence in the evening session was the battle between Auburn and College of Charleston. Auburn, and their celebrity spokesperson Charles Barkley, who you may know from EVERY FREAKING NCAA COMMERCIAL, were taking on Charleston, who showed up with a celebrity of their own....the guy from The Good Wife and some new doctor show. It was obviously very exciting with all this star power, and the game on the court was pretty exciting as well. Jeremy Hutslar was sitting pretty and looking like a genius as the only entrant to pick Charleston...until Auburn pulled away late breaking his heart. Sorry Jeremy, you gave it a good run. 37 other people trusted Auburn instead and survive to battle on Day 3.
Look, let's be real here. I'm not going to write about all the night games, because everyone was only watching one of them....VIRGINIA LOST TO UMBC! We all watched it, there's nothing else that needs to be said, here are a few of my favorite Tweets from the night:
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In the other late games Syracuse helped two people advance, Chaos Itself and Kyle Sterrenberg have huge tiebreaker scores thanks to that win. Meanwhile, Jamie Dixon didn't want to be outdone by Tony Bennett, he's a great choke artist in his own right and he brought his choking ways to Texas, TCU's loss eliminated 17 teams. The New Mexico State and Missouri losses knocked out another 12 entries.
So, for the day, we ended up with 217 combatants moving on to Day 3. For those keeping track that means we've lost more than half of our original entries as 268 picks will not need entered for Day 3. Here's the BryanH infographic through the end of Day 2:
Good luck with Day 3 everyone....you'll need it!
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