An uneventful day 2
Day 2 was a rare day when the higher seeds held serve except for the #11 Dayton Flyers moving past Providence. There were a few close games including the hometown Terps sneaking past Valpo (Go Terps!) and Louisville surviving UC-Irvine, but other than that it was a pretty uneventful day by March Madness standards. #1 seeds Duke and Wisconsin flexed their muscle in comfortable wins ensuring that this would not be the year when a #16 seed finally beats a #1. Onward.
Wyoming Update
In some not so good news for our Wyoming contingent Fales Family, the Wyoming Cowboys did not advance past Northern Iowa. This is quite a blow for some of the Fales brackets. In fact, Jesse and Vickery had Wyoming going ALL THE WAY and winning the National Championship. Admittedly, that was quite the homer pick by sisters Jesse and Vick. But, I love them for it. Go with your heart I say, even if it means your bracket goes belly up before the weekend. Besides, I hear Jesse and Jason are expecting their first child later this summer! Congrats Fales Family, that’s something pretty amazing for you to celebrate. A Wyoming tourney loss and some sunken brackets are nothing. It’s all about perspective.
The Rise of Ellie
As we head into the weekend the top of the RI leader board is graced by the youngest Radcliffe, Ellie who will turn 4 this summer. I will have to try to conduct an interview with her later today. I’m sure she’ll have some insightful comments about the tournament thus far and about what we can expect over the weekend. A photo of our leader here seems appropriate.
Tied for second we have Richard Era, Celia Milam, Emily Kund, and Laura Clark. A great group here, off to a strong start. Let’s see how their brackets hold up through the weekend.
Rounding out the top ten we have John Weaver (no bracket from Drew again, I can see I really need to harass him) who is still reeling from the Butler loss to Duke a few years back which left him just shy of RI glory, Marcia Milam (strong start for the Milams), Martha Clark, Bruce Welch, and expectant parents Jesse and Jason (although a bracket separation may be looming as the Wyoming loss may become a lead weight that pulls down Jesse’s bracket as the tournament progresses).
Some of the rest of the field
Brandon Hesson — Our Cambridge Main Street Director who gained notoriety this winter for his mustache and his crab basket Christmas Tree. Brandon is off to a strong start, currently tied for 12th in his RI debut. And I still say there was Easton Bias at play in this year’s Cover Your Chin for Charity Competition.
Allow me a self indulgent moment as I share a few pics of the tree, Brandon’s ‘stache, and my near award winning beard from this winter.
I know, right? Clearly bias. We we’re robbed Brandon, we were robbed.
Anne Gustafson — An RI veteran, also tied for 12th. I wonder what Eagle Fan Anne thinks about all the NFL offseason moves. The Eagles have a new QB and a bunch of new RBs. Should be interesting Anne, should be interesting.
Heather Carkuff — Currently tied for 23rd. Is it worth it Heather? Heather is enjoying a good start for her bracket, but is it coming at the cost of her Blue Devil soul? Heather was caught almost celebrating the UNC win on RI Day 1 and I have to believe that’s a violation of the Cameron Commandments. If you are a Duke Alum and you sell your soul to the devil for bracket glory is it worth it? Or is this just common place because you are a “Blue Devil”. I don’t know, this is all very confusing. We’ll have to wait and see how it all plays out for Heather and Duke, but if you’re into placing cosmic karma bets then go lay down some money on a Duke vs. North Carolina finale with the Tarheels coming up victorious. And Heather, you may shake off this notion of cosmic karma, but what happened the one year you didn’t pick Duke to win it all in your bracket? They won it all and it costs you the RI title. When are you going to learn you can’t have it all?
Mindy Black-Kelly — Also tied for 23rd. Another former RI Champion off to a great start. Keep it up Mindy, keep it up.
Chris Mann — Our reigning champion isn’t going down without a fight, but I feel like the near Harvard upset of UNC that didn’t happen is going to come back to bite Chris’s bracket.
Nancy Marcus — Oooh, my Aunt Nancy had Iowa State winning it all. That’s going to take her out of the running. If a Marcus family member is going to finally break through and win this thing this year then it’s going to have to be someone else.
Alright, we’ll continue to delve into more of the brackets as the tournament progresses, but that’s going to have to do for this morning.
The RI leader board and tournament landscape are sure to change a lot over the next 2 days. As I sit here sipping my coffee on a much needed lazy Saturday morning, CBS Saturday morning is on in the background and they just threw out a stat saying March Madness will cost employers 1.9 billion dollars this year due to drop in employer productivity during the tournament. Interesting, but I think this is a surface level statistic that doesn’t tell the whole story, as is the case with most statistics. March Madness is good for the soul. Although a temporary dip in workplace productivity is to be expected the depressing malaise that would settle in if we were deprived of such joys would lead to a far greater drop in productivity. Duh.
CBS Sunday Morning also threw one more stat out there for the fellas: Doctors report a 50% spike in the # of vasectomies scheduled early in March. Apparently guys plan it for then so they can watch a lot of basketball during their down time. Well, while I don’t think the decision of whether your fathering days are up should be governed by your desire to watch March Madness, if you’ve come to this decision any way for other reasons then scheduling your procedure for early March just seems like smart planning. Okay, on this weird note let’s call it an update and I’ll leave you with a quote and a jam of the day.
Quote of the Day
How about a quote from a great Maya Angelou poem:
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I rise.
Here, as a bonus, here’s the whole thing:
Perhaps we should all start watching this every morning.
Jam of the Day
Enjoy the weekend and the games!
Cheers,
Greg