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
Day 3 began with 370 of the original 890 entries alive and picking. So, yeah 58% of the entries were already dead after the opening round. But, the good news is that with those first round upsets in the book, surely Day 3 would be more formful and easier to pick right? Right? RIGHT?
Quick Links for the Lazy - Leaderboard Pick Form
Coming into Day 3 everyone was ready for things to settle down and the Cinderellas to head home. San Diego State understood the assignment and put away Furman with little trouble. There were 78 entries, 21% of the remaining picks, on the Aztecs. Those 78 move onto Sunday with little resistance.
But it didn't take long for things to get interesting. Duke looked like a juggernaut in Round 1, but, as we've seen over and over this March, past performance doesn't matter and everything is random. And 19 people passed up the alleged easy advancement options and fell on the Duke grenade. Shout out to SAMUEL HOUSTON2, the only one smart enough to pick Tennessee and the March Magician Rick Barnes!
So, we had the upset for the day, back to your planned programming with a nice safe number 1 seed Kansas, right? Wrong again muchacho! Kansas losing only took out 5 entries and the Arkansas advance helped literally no one, but it's still an upset, so it still matters.
But, surely taking Missouri over Princeton was safe right? It had to be safe, right? The SEC is winning every game, hell, Arkansas just beat Kansas! And Princeton isn't a basketball school. It's one of those academic schools! With a staggering 150 entries putting their faith in Mizzou, the Tigers laid an absolute egg and sent 40% of the remaining entries home just like that. And, really, it was never even in doubt. Princeton dominated this game from the word go and the 6 entries that swung for the fences with the 15 seed are now sitting very pretty heading into Sunday. The six of you deserve honorary degrees from Princeton for a move this savvy. If Kermit the Frog can get a Doctorate for doing nothing, y'all certainly deserve at least a Bachelors for this.
The last three games returned to normalcy and stayed formful. There were 11 entries that advanced with Houston, 15 with Texas, and 53 went ahead and burned UCLA in exchange for a relatively safe advancement. The losses of Penn St., Auburn, and Northwestern only claimed 9 entries.
I was really hoping Texas would lose because I was all set to pull out a nice, "Well I guess Texas choked, huh?" line in this recap. But, the joke is on Texas, because I just used it anyway.
I'm posting this recap before Alabama and Maryland finish because I'm going to bed, but just 11 picks on Bama and 0 on Maryland means not a whole lot will change with this outcome.
As of now, 175 entries will be moving on to Sunday (164 if Bama loses). So, 19.7% of the original entries are playing on Sunday. It's been an absolute blood bath. So bad in fact that we are seriously considering doing a second survivor pool this Tournament starting in the Sweet 16. Let's see if the chaos continues!
We started the day with just 507 entries still alive after a rough Day 1. As Day 2 is drawing close to an end it looks like we'll have about 350 of those entries moving on to Day 3.
And hey STOP ENTERING YOUR GOD DAMN ENTRY NAMES WRONG ON THE FORM.
Look, this isn't rocket science. For instance, I have an entry named "D$ Buy With Thorough Crowd8" So, I enter EXACTLY THAT on the entry form. I don't enter extra spaces, I don't put a space before the 8, I don't for some insane reason put my full name there or my email address. I put the freaking entry name, it's not that hard guys. To make it super simple, I just copy and paste it off the leaderboard, it's literally idiot proof. When there's 500 entries and 200 of you can't even copy and paste something without screwing it up it creates hours of work to just clean up all your mistakes, so stop making them. Next year we will literally have to consider invalidating any entry that can't follow instructions.
Ok, that said, onto a quick recap...the opening game of the day was USC v Michigan State and apparently we weeded out some of our lousiest pickers because unlike the toss up games yesterday, this one actually resulted in more winners than losers. There were 22 entrants that put their faith in Izzo and he saw them through. The 9 entries on USC kicked off the day with a few losers to go home.
With a lot of people staying a little more conservative on Day 2 the most popular pick on the day was in Game 2 where Xavier had 51 picks. And, while the Musketeers did everything they could to lose this game, Kennesaw State eventually just decided Sean Miller is a classy guy that deserved to get the win. Zero people picked Kennesaw, and in the next game zero people picked UCSB against Baylor. So, not much excitement.
There were 13 people who tried to get VCU home in the 12v5 match-up, but they once again the chalk prevailed with St. Mary's moving 17 entries on.
Marquette and another UofL coaching candidate, my guy, Shaka Smart won easily and moved 17 entries on with zero picks against. Another 36 picks advanced with Creighton vs just 2 losers on NC State. And UConn was popular advancing 25 entries while only eliminating one entry as AAAKrafty7 was the only person brave enough to pick St. John's Coach Rick Pitino.
BUT, the day wasn't completely boring. Pittsburgh once again proved that the ACC is the strongest conference in the nation as they dismantled Iowa State. There were 32 picks on Iowa State vs just ONE pick on Pittsburgh, and it was Fouse7 who had the guts to back Jeff Capel and the Panthers. We should really add a bonus for if someone is the only pick on a winner like this. It's our game, no one can stop us, maybe next year.
And as a somewhat quiet day rolled along, as so often seems to happen during the NCAA Tournament's first round....BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE! There were 27 entries that said to themselves, "You know what, Painter's gonna choke in this Tournament, so I might as well burn Purdue now." Oh you simple fools. I actually feel bad for Matt Painter, the dude is a consistently great coach that has top 15 caliber teams every year, but man...the dude is doing something wrong in March. Maybe relying on 7'6 inch lumbering giants just isn't a recipe for Tournament success? And how about FDU Coach Tobin Anderson? Dude talked his shit and called his shot....and he was right. And he also has a future taking on this dude after his basketball coaching career ends.
And to the 33 Memphis entries, I feel your pain. What a shitshow the refereeing was late in that game. The two picks on FAU got a gift there for sure.
To those of you still alive, good luck with Day 3!
