12:14- The CBS college basketball music is the best. Providence-Texas A&M is our first game. I saw Providence play of couple of exciting games in the Big East Tournament. I’m definitely rooting for them.
12:15- The Friars go mantaman. Bill Raftery is doing the game with Jim Nantz and Grant Hill. I have nothing against Grant Hill, but is he really necessary when you have Bill Raftery?
12:18- It took a few trips back and forth, but Providence scores the first basket of the game.
12:21- 4-0 Providence as we go to commercial. I’m cool with Texas A&M not scoring.
12:24- Some other games where I have strong rooting interests today: Lipscomb over North Carolina, Butler over Arkansas, Creighton over Kansas State, UMBC over Virginia (I so want to see a 1 seed that isn’t a Catholic school lose to a 16 seed), and TCU over Syracuse. The most important game of the day is TCU over Syracuse. There are five teams that I can’t stand to see win the tournament. Duke, Kentucky, and Michigan won yesterday. It’s doubtful that North Carolina is going to lose today. Can we at least get one of these teams out of the tournament in the first round?
12:34- The Pac-12 is out of the tournament. I didn’t realize that. Now can we get rid of the Big 10, SEC, Duke, North Carolina, and Syracuse? That would be beautiful.
12:38- Cal State Fullerton and Purdue are about to get started. Days like this are when I need my Redzone Cable Box idea. Apparently there’s a way to do it online with mlb.tv.
12:49- Providence’s Kyron Cartwright makes me think of this:
12:51- In the Purdue game, they just showed a replay of Purdue getting away with a goaltending. Cal State Fullerton would be
1:01- Providence has the ball for the last shot in the first half down one. They call timeout.
1:02- Cal State Fullerton just took the lead.
1:05- That was a long timeout. Providence airballs a three at the buzzer. Texas A&M is up 28-27 at halftime.
1:08- Not only did Cal State Fullerton have to play a game that starts at 9:40 their time, they also had to go to Detroit. That’s pretty rough. They’re down five.
1:16- Cal State Fullerton is only down two and they just got a stop. They’re hanging around. This has a chance to be a really fun game. Yesterday we got two great finishes (and an overtime game before those two). I stopped on my way home from work at Dave’s Goldmine Mexican Grill. I wanted to get home as quickly as possible so I didn’t want to go someplace out of the way. I was debating whether to eat there or take it home. I checked my phone and saw Loyola-Miami was close with six or seven minutes left so I decided to take it home. Good call. I got to see the last minute of the game with a buzzer beating three for Loyola to go from down one to victory. Houston-San Diego State was another great finish. Some guy with terrible hair had a great game and hit a nifty layup with one second left to win the game. When you have sixteen games going in one day, you have a decent chance to get something like that.
1:21- Cal State Fullerton has better shooting numbers than Purdue right now, but turnovers are hurting them.
1:23- Purdue has extended the lead to seven. Timeout Cal State Fullerton.
1:24- The next game up features Gregg Marshall coaching against Marshall.
1:29- Purdue just hit a three to go up ten. Maybe this won’t be a particularly fun game.
1:41- Conner Frankamp just hit a three for Wichita State. Hasn’t he been in college for six or seven years?
1:54- Texas A&M had opened up a nice lead, but an 11-3 run by Providence has it tied at 50.
2:00- Georgia State and Cincinnati just tipped off. Now that we have four games going on at once, I have to go on a rant about court design because I have some thoughts:
I absolutely hated those old standardized courts that they used in the tournament for way too many years. They finally got rid of them three years ago and replaced them with a snazzier standardized court. The out of bounds colors are different for each site, but it’s all the same design. Why can’t we just play on the regular court of the arena? The ones they have now are definitely better than what they used to have, but they’ve quickly gotten old. I don’t like the key being white. Out of bounds should just be one color rather than whatever design they have going on with blue, white, and one other color. I’m fine with slapping a March Madness logo at halfcourt (it’s much better than the old boring NCAA blue circle logo), but other than that, just play on the regular courts. I like knowing where the tournament games were played just by looking at the court. Now sure, they have their own out of bounds color (for part of the out of bounds area), but I’m never going to remember which place is which color when the rest of the design is exactly the same. I want to see the tournament being played on some wacky court in Boise.
I have other general court design thoughts. I want to make the paint the paint again. It’s become so trendy to not have the key painted and not have the out of bounds painted. I don’t think that’s a bad look, I just wish you didn’t see that everywhere these days. For places that do have the key painted, another thing I don’t like that you see in college is having the key outlined in the same color as the paint (like at the Big East Tournament, for example). You end up with this noticeable gap between where the key is painted and where the outline is. Paint the key a dark color and outline it in white or black or black or dark blue. I don’t like the gigantic halfcourt logos that you see in a lot of college arenas. You know who has a nice looking floor? Notre Dame. Blue paint out of bounds and in the key with white lines, a reasonably sized halfcourt logo (yes, they have the big shamrock that’s stained a different shade, but I think it works for Notre Dame), nothing weird going on. Seton Hall is another school that has a nice design. I could even go for some wacky 1990s looks where everything inside the three point line is painted except for the key and the free throw area. It wasn’t a great look, but at least it was something different rather than these courts that aren’t painted at all that all look the same. One thing that I do like that you see is when they put a city’s skyline on the court in different shades of wood. George Washington and Xavier have that. But I wouldn’t want to see everybody do that.
As far as the NBA, there’s a trend there that I don’t like either. So many teams have taken the lines for the college lane out. Sure, those lines are completely unnecessary for the NBA game, but I think the key looks better with those lines in there.
2:06- Another Texas A&M run has them up 59-52. Come on, Providence. They did play three overtime games in three days last week. That could be catching up to them.
2:08- They just showed a Bud Light commercial on one of the tournament channels. But you can’t get a beer at these games.
2:11- This article says that “preliminary talks are already underway to serve beer and wine throughout every round of both the men’s and the women’s hoops tournaments.” Here’s how those talks should go:
Arena guy: Can we sell beer?
NCAA guy: Of course, this is America. Wait, did we really not let you guys sell beer before?
Arena guy: Yep.
NCAA guy: Yeah, that was stupid. What moron was responsible for that? We’re sorry. I will immediately let the other arenas know that they can serve beer now and apologize to them also.
(End of talks)
2:14- Texas A&M is pulling away here. Purdue is up by 21. That’s unfortunate.
2:17- Wichita State is on an 11-1 run at the end of the first half, but they’re only up by three.
2:18- The only game not in commercial is the uncompetitive Purdue game. We were close to having a quadruple Urkin.
2:20- Wichita State misses a three at the buzzer. They lead 37-34 at halftime.
2:21- A blocked Providence three led to a Texas A&M dunk. Game over. Georgia State is up on Purdue about halfway through the first half. Purdue is up big. And Marshall-Wichita State is at halftime. I’m taking a break for a little while.
3:30- I’m picking up with Marshall up three on Wichita State with 44.1 to go.
3:31- Wichita State blocks a shot out of bounds. They’re reviewing to see who it went off of. It looks like it’s off Marshall.
3:32- TNT needs to give us more looks rather than showing us players and coaches huddling or referees looking at the replays. One replay made me think it might be Marshall’s ball.
3:34- Still no decision. I think you have to stick with the call on the floor, which was that it was off Wichita State.
3:35- It is Marshall’s ball. They added four tenths of a second to the clock. It’s a new shot clock and 36.2 on the game clock. Marshall has the ball up three. Wichita State should foul.
3:36- Marshall couldn’t get it in. Timeout. We’ll see what Wichita State does. If you let them take 30 seconds off the clock, they might score and end it. Even if they miss, it’s going to be really tough to get a good look at a three to tie.
3:37- Marshall gets a dunk on the out of bounds play. They’ll review the clock.
3:38- Marshall’s coach is wearing a blazer with a t-shirt. He looks pretty silly. But I like the way Marshall’s team looks. Green is way too good of a color to be this uncommon in the NCAA Tournament. What is this, the Big East (where just about everybody wears blue)? They’re still reviewing the clock and which players are on the floor because the teams can’t sub.
3:41- Four minutes after the last basket, we finally resume play. Wichita State is going to get one and one.
3:42- Wichita State missed the front end and then two threes after offensive rebounds. The ball goes out of bounds and they’re going to review again.
3:43- Wichita State keeps the ball with 15.9 to play.
3:44- Marshall gets a steal and a timeout with 11.6 left. Georgia State-Cincinnati was competitive, but Cincinnati is up 14 with less than two minutes to play.
3:46- This is the first time since 2008 that two 13 seeds won in the first round. It’s Marshall’s first NCAA tournament win ever. And it took 16 minutes to play the last 44.1 seconds.
4:57- I had to leave to pick up my car from the shop. Cincinnati won, North Carolina is going to beat Lipscomb (I haven’t watched a second of that game, which is nice because I despise North Carolina), Butler is up nine on Arkansas, Texas is up five on Nevada, and West Virginia is up eight on Murray State.
5:00- We don’t have another game starting until 6:50. This reminds me of the old days when the entire tournament was on CBS. You’d have an hour or two where there was only one game going on out west and they wouldn’t show it on the East coast. They would put news on. If I wanted to watch news, I could watch lots of other channels. I wanted to watch basketball. This hasn’t been a problem in years, but I’m still complaining about it.
5:17- Butler is up 12 on Arkansas. The other two games are at halftime with nine-point leads. I’m going to take it easy until things get interesting.
6:12- We have Texas up 62-59 on Nevada, who just hit a three. Maybe we can get a good finish here.
6:13- Another Nevada three makes it 64-62.
6:16- West Virginia leads 64-53 with 7:00 to play. There’s still time, but Murray State has to start cutting into this.
6:23- I got distracted, but Nevada just scored to cut it to one. Less than a minute to go. And Nevada just wasted 15 seconds before fouling. We’re down to 18.3.
6:24- One and one for a 65% free throw shooter. He misses the front end. Nevada gets a shot blocked, gets the ball back, and draws a foul with 3.8 left. Two shots coming up for Nevada down one.
6:25- Jordan Caroline is at the line. He’s a 72% free throw shooter.
6:27- After a timeout by Texas, Caroline misses the first and makes the second.
6:28- Texas turns it over on the inbound pass. Nevada takes a timeout with 1.6 left.
6:30- Nevada misses a three at the buzzer. We’re going to overtime.
6:33- Texas leads by three, but Nevada ties it.
6:34- Texas hits a three and has a chance for a four-point play. And the free throw is good. Three minutes to play. Nevada answers with a big slam.
6:35- West Virginia is going to win. Nevada just hit a three to take their first lead since 5-2.
6:36- Another three for Nevada! They’ve gone from down four to up four. Texas cuts it to two, but Nevada gets it back to four.
6:37- We have 46 seconds left and Texas is going to the line for two. We get a horn as the foul shooter had the ball because the Nevada player fouled out. We’ll see if they can get these 46 seconds played in less than 16 minutes.
6:38- One out of two at the line. Texas fouls with 38 seconds left. That’s the right decision, but it’s two shots for Nevada.
6:39- One out of two for Nevada. It looks like Nevada had a steal, but the ball goes out of bounds. They’re going to review it.
6:41- Texas has the ball with 27.6 left. They miss and have to foul after Nevada gets the rebound. It’s looking good for Nevada.
6:43- I thought it was over, but after Nevada only gets one out of two, Texas answers with a three to cut it to two.
6:45- Nevada has two shots with 14.5 to go.
6:46- Nevada makes both, Texas misses a three, and Nevada runs out the clock. And now I have to wait four minutes until the next game tips off. But I want it now!
6:50- Kansas State-Creighton is underway. Finally. That was a rough four minutes. By the way, I’m going to see these two teams play in baseball in a couple of weeks. Somebody will be looking for revenge, baseball style. Yes, I’m going to Omaha. I’ll get to see the stadium where the College World Series is played. I’m sure it will be a much smaller crowd than you get at the College World Series. I’m also hoping to cross at least two states off of my beer list. I have nine states left to go: Indiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, West Virginia, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Alaska. Nebraska is guaranteed, Omaha is right across the border from Iowa. Maybe I’ll be able to get another one as well while I’m there. That’s stop number two of four on my pretty much annual Easter vacation trip. Past Easter vacations:
2013:
Los Angeles Part 1
Los Angeles Part 2
Milwaukee
2014:
Los Angeles
San Francisco
2015:
Salt Lake City
Albuquerque
Dallas
2016:
New Orleans and Biloxi
2017:
Trenton- I had to look this one up because I didn't remember it.
7:45- I took a little break. Kansas State is up six at halftime. Michigan State is up two. I have Michigan State going to the Final Four, but I don’t really want to see that (even though it would definitely be more tolerable than Duke or Syracuse winning that region). Auburn has an early lead against Charleston. Texas Southern and Xavier just started.
7:50- Xavier just hit a three to go from down one to up two early on. I did some math yesterday. If we say that every number 1 seed has a 0.99 probability of winning in the first round, it’s about a 50/50 chance that 1 seeds would be undefeated over the course of 17 years. They have only about a 25% chance of being undefeated over 34 years (this is the 34th tournament since they expanded to 64 teams). Of course, now that they’ve gone 134-0, it would be a 98.01% chance that they make it to 136-0 if Xavier and Virginia both have a 99% chance of winning tonight.
7:59- Bucknell is only down one with less than a minute left in the first half. We’ve had two 13 seeds win. Can a 14 seed get a win?
8:01- After getting a three-point play and a stop, Michigan State hit a three, but it came right after the shot clock expired. We’ll go to halftime with Michigan state up four.
8:03- Xavier had gone on a little run and looked like they were going to run away with it, but Texas Southern has climbed back and taken a four point lead. We’re still not halfway through the first half, though.
8:07- Kansas State just missed a dunk. Creighton goes the other way and scores to cut the lead to two.
8:13- Xavier went on a big run. They’re up six. I want a 1 seed to lose, but I don’t want it to be a Big East Catholic school (unless they were playing some other Catholic school).
8:31- Michigan State is up nine, Kansas State is up seven, Xavier has opened up a big lead, and Charleston-Auburn is tied at halftime.
8:33- Mike McGuirl just made a three and got fouled for Kansas State as we go to a TV timeout. He has 12 points. Jim Nantz tells us that he’ll match his point total for the season if he makes this free throw. McGuirl wears 00, which is a number that really should be worn more. It seems like there are a lot of 0’s, but not many 00’s these days. I prefer 00. This year, one of the girls on my basketball team had a choice between 0 and 35. She did not want to be 0. Like I said, I prefer 00, but I would have taken 0 over 35.
8:37- Kansas State is up 11 with less than seven minutes to play. Can Creighton make a run?
8:39- Creighton just threw the ball away. It’s not looking good.
8:48- Kansas State is in control with just over two minutes to play.
8:49- We could get Clemson vs. Auburn on Sunday. Tigers vs. Tigers.
8:53- Michigan State leads by ten with just over nine minutes to play.
8:54- And the lead is now 15 for Michigan State. These early evening games haven’t been great. Maybe we can get a good finish from Charleston-Auburn.
8:57- Xavier is up 12 at halftime. When I saw them against Providence, it seemed like they were in complete control of that game. Maybe there’s hope for Texas Southern.
9:00- Bob Gibson played basketball at Creighton? How did I not know that? Anyway, Creighton can’t beat Kansas State in basketball. I’ll see what happens in baseball next month.
9:11- My first beer of the night is a Sam Adams Irish Red. It’s my St. Patrick’s Day Eve/Notre Dame women’s basketball victory beer (even though I didn’t watch any of their game). I’m more interested in the NIT. If Notre Dame can make it to Madison Square Garden, I definitely want to go.
9:24- Charleston is up two with five and a half to play. It would be nice to see them pull off this upset.
9:26- Auburn just got an extra chance to make a free throw on a lane violation, but they missed that one too.
9:27- Michigan State won by four. I didn’t watch the end of the game. I don’t know how it got that close. Xavier’s up big. This Charleston-Auburn game is the only other game going on right now. Hopefully it will be a good finish.
9:28- We go to the last TV timeout with Auburn up one.
9:32- Notre Dame beat Florida State in baseball so that’s nice.
9:33- UMBC goes mantaman in Bill Raftery’s last game of the day.
9:34- 100 seconds left to play in Charleston-Auburn. Charleston has two free throws with a chance to tie and take the lead.
9:35- They make one out of two. Auburn comes down the floor and makes a three.
9:36- Charleston misses the front end of a one and one. They foul and Auburn will shoot one and one with 46.8 to go. I like fouling, but apparently they fouled the wrong guy.
9:37- Auburn only made the front end and now Charleston will get two shots as they’re in the double bonus with 37.7 left.
9:38- Charleston only made one out of two.
9:39- Auburn will get another one and one with a three point lead and 29.3 to go.
9:40- After one out of two again for Auburn, Charleston will get two more free throws. Can they make both?
9:41- Nope. They get one. They’re three for their last seven. They give a foul with 14 seconds left.
9:42- Auburn gave Charleston chances. They missed another free throw. Charleston took a terrible three (it would have tied it) that wasn’t close. Auburn will survive.
9:46- My second beer is Sam Adams Chocolate Bock. It’s so good. I have a few left to get me through the rough three-four months without Summer Ale. I drink them on special occasions (Christmas, my birthday, the first Friday of the NCAA tournament, etc.). The only games we have going on now are 1-16 games. I’d like to see all the play in games be for the 16 seeds. That would elevate the teams at the bottom of the tournament slightly. You’d have two at large teams as 12 seeds or whatever instead of being in the play in games. You’d have two teams playing play in games instead of being 15 seeds. They’ll never do that because people will watch Syracuse in a play in game. People are not going to get excited about watching four games where the winner of each one is most likely to be a sacrificial lamb for a 1 seed.
9:51- UMBC has a 9-7 lead. It would be wonderful if they could pull off an upset. I’m putting it in the “extremely doubtful” category until they have a lead at halftime (when it could get upgraded to just “doubtful”). We have three games left to tip off tonight. They all have the potential to be good games.
9:59- We are all TCU fans now. I accidentally typed that sentence with Syracuse in it instead of TCU. I promise I’ve only had less than a beer and a half so far. It would take a lot more beers than that for me to not catch that egregious mistake. I’m taking a break for now until things get interesting.
10:16- UMBC missed a three at the buzzer that would have given them the lead at halftime. We’re tied at 21. I’m upgrading the game to very doubtful. But this could be one of those games where Virginia scores 44 points. The problem is that could be enough in this game.
10:22- After a Chocolate Bock, my final beer of the night is a Kentucky Vanilla Barrel Cream Ale. Some googling revealed that it was available near me. I bought a six pack to cross Kentucky off my beer state list. Kentucky was number 41. I will not drink it on any night that Kentucky plays because, you know, Kentucky basketball is everything that is wrong with college basketball. That reminds me, I was talking to my friends about who my least favorite person in college basketball is. The candidates are John Calipari, Roy Williams, Jim Boeheim, Mike Krzyzewski, and Grayson Allen. It was Rick Pitino, but he’s not in college basketball anymore. I think it’s Boeheim. Coach K is redeemed by USA basketball. Grayson Allen hasn’t been part of college basketball nearly as long as the coaches and he won’t be around much longer. Calipari and Williams don’t have any redeeming qualities, but the love that the media has for Boeheim is what puts him number one, I think. That makes me think about my least favorite players in other sports all time and currently. In college football, Pete Carroll is easily the all time leader. I think currently it would be Jimbo Fisher, but Jim Harbaugh is right up there (it could be Lane Kiffin, but he's nowhere near successful enough for this dishonor). In baseball it’s Barry Bonds/Ryan Braun (Madison Bumgarner merits a dishonorable mention). In the NBA it’s Kobe Bryant/LeBron James. And in the NFL it’s Tom Brady both all time and currently.
10:41- I just went back to UMBC-Virginia for the first time in the second half. Virginia has two foul shots, but UMBC is up six. I guess we have to upgrade this game to just doubtful.
10:43- UMBC is up seven. Timeout, Virginia!
10:47- This is starting to get interesting. Virginia could end up winning this thing by 15, but we have a game on our hands.
10:50- I missed the fact that TCU took the lead. That game is at halftime. I despise Syracuse much more than Virginia (I actually don’t dislike Virginia at all), but Syracuse will have other chances to lose. The 16 seeds are down to their last chance in this tournament. Of course, there’s no reason why Syracuse and Virginia can’t both lose tonight.
10:52- Jim Nantz just went through the history of 16 seeds that came close to winning. There’s still a lot of basketball left to play.
10:53- After three free throws, Virginia faces its biggest deficit of the season (14). I’m upgrading this game to highly questionable.
10:54- Virginia answers with a three-point play.
10:56- Kyle Guy is not my buddy.
10:58- Virginia just picked up a loose ball foul. Something to keep an eye on though: UMBC has five team fouls already, Virginia only has three.
11:00- UMBC leads by 16 with 11:39 to play. I’m upgrading it to questionable.
11:03- UMBC has already scored more points in this half than they did in the first half. I was worried that 44 points could be enough for Virginia, but not anymore. How many points does UMBC need? I’m going to say 65 (it might not be that much, but I think 65 would be safe). They’re at 45 with just under 11 minutes to play.
11:05- This guy Jairus Lyles on UMBC is impressive. I watched him hit the game winning three with 0.5 left on the road to beat Vermont to get into the tournament. He had 27 in that game.
11:09- Timeout, UMBC. They lead by 12 with 7:12 to play.
11:10- Syracuse is losing by three, which is nice.
11:12- Lyles is dealing with cramping. That could be a problem.
11:13- Lyles is back in. Hopefully there’s no issue.
11:14- Virginia blocks a shot out of bounds with three seconds left on the shot clock. UMBC misses a shot as the shot clock was expiring.
11:15- Virginia picks up their sixth team foul, but UMBC is still at five.
11:16- Lyles hits a runner to put the lead back to 14. They call a foul on UMBC on the other end. It sounds like the crowd has gotten behind UMBC. It’s in Charlotte, which isn’t all that far from the Commonwealth of Virginia, but any neutral fans are definitely rooting for UMBC.
11:18- After a turnover and a basket for Virginia to cut it to 12, UMBC calls a timeout with 4:07 to play.
11:22- Lyles just scored again. And then UMBC gets a stop and a three! Timeout, Virginia, with 3:29 to play. 61-44. It’s time to upgrade it to probable!
11:25- ESPN has UMBC with a 99.9% chance of winning. 2:51 to go.
11:27- I said 65 would do it. UMBC is at 65.
11:29- UMBC calls timeout up 17 with 1:51 to go. This is happening.
11:31- Apparently UMBC lost to Albany 83-39 this year.
11:32- UMBC is up 20. Game over. It’s finally happened. Virginia will have to live with the infamy of being the first 1 seed to lose to a 16. UMBC is dribbling out the clock, but they’ll have to take a shot clock violation.
11:33- It’s over. I’ve wanted to see this for so long. I didn’t want it to happen to Villanova or Xavier. Ideally, it would have been Duke, North Carolina, or Kentucky, but I’ll take it. Lyles had 28. It seems like a good time to post this.
11:54- We have less than three minutes to play in Syracuse-TCU. The forces of evil lead by one.
11:56- Syracuse by five. TCU is in trouble.
11:57- TCU just let Syracuse run 30 seconds off the clock when they were trailing by five. What are you doing?
11:59- Syracuse has one and one up four with 26.2 left. It looks like we’re all going to be Michigan State fans soon.
12:00- TCU did not handle the last two minutes well. I don’t like having to root for Michigan State, but here we are.
12:01- The forces of evil went 5-0 in the first round. Hopefully we can get rid of at least two of them in the second round.
12:12- I have a strong rooting interest in seven of the eight games tomorrow (which is technically today). I don’t really care about Florida-Texas Tech, but I’m definitely rooting for Villanova, Rhode Island, Buffalo, Loyola, Seton Hall, Gonzaga, and Houston.
12:17- Clemson is going to win. Florida State is up by 13. So the ACC has that going for them.
12:28- I’ve been watching basketball for over 12 hours with only brief interruptions. That’s a pretty good day. I would close up shop, but Missouri is hanging in there. They’re down seven with 9:29 to play.
12:32- Florida State has the lead back up to 13. I’m shutting this down unless Missouri makes it interesting again. If you made it this far, thanks for reading. It was fun. I randomly picked this year to do a running diary and I got the biggest upset in the history of the tournament. There are lots of interesting games tomorrow, including Notre Dame in the NIT (I know, nobody else cares). Go Irish!
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