The calendar says March 20th which means it’s the first day of Spring, but when I made the mistake of rolling down my window as I was leaving the house this morning an avalanche of icy snow fell in on my lap. A tough start to the day, just like yesterday was a tough start to the tournament for anyone who advanced Baylor and Iowa State deep into their brackets. But this is just the beginning, the skies may soon clear revealing a little sun to warm your life and raise your bracket. The bottom line is this: suck it up! At least you filled out a bracket. You got yourself in the game. That’s what it’s all about. Sure, you may have pie in the sky dreams about taking home the RI title and the highly coveted mystery prize this year, but the results are really secondary. At least for the moment be grateful. Embrace the tradition. Embrace life. All of it! Thanks for taking part!
North Carolina and Notre Dame headlined a number of high seeds that were able to narrowly escape upsets in a Day 1 that featured a ton of close games (many that I worked or slept through) with the shot of the tournament thus far coming from Cincinnati’s Troy Caupain who sent the game to overtime with this miraculous effort that somehow went down and sent the game to overtime where the Bearcats eventually prevailed. That was a Dave Miller bounce if there ever was one.
But perhaps the best moment of the tournament thus far came when Georgia State’s R.J. Hunter hit a DEEP three to help lift his team to the upset victory over Baylor causing his father and coach Ron Hunter who is suffering from a torn achilles to fall out of his chair. Even if you watch no basketball the rest of the year, it’s hard not to enjoy March Madness. Let it in.
What will Day 2 bring? We’ll find out soon enough. Most likely it will mark the start of the steady climb of my bracket up the leader board to glory.
With the Day 1 dust still settling Dennis Pool finds himself atop the RI leaderboard (not Mary Beth Heiskill who was celebrating earlier in the day when she was atop the RI leader board after like 3 games. Now she’s tied for 78th place with yours truly and Chad, Jessica, and Mike. Chin up gang, it’s early.). Nipping at his heels just a half point back we have our former RI Champion (and always champion of awesomeness) Amy Welch. Then it’s a group of 4 including Jason Dzikowicz who has seemed to sidestep the Fales trap of picking Wyoming to advance WAY too far (like all the way….Jesse, Vickery), my Mom Jackie Radcliffe who everyone knows is College Basketball Guru (you did know it was basketball, right Mom?), Kevin Marcus who has stepped out on a limb picking Louisville to win it all (I hear the limb cracking), and former HPL knuckle baller Dave Miller who is still waiting for Wake Forest to return to glory. Rounding out the top of the leader board is a group including Marcia Milam, George Radcliffe, Heather Carkuff, Warren Wood, Tricia Kimmel, Jim Welch, Ellie Radcliffe, Rebecca Fox, Dave Kimmel, Griffin Makovsky, Anne Gustafson, and Dr. Shave Trimmel, otherwise known as Adam Spear.
Other Brackets of Note
- Anna Priester — tied for 19th. A solid start for this Duke Alum, RI first-timer who is currently privileged enough to share an office with yours truly. Her bracket did take a significant hit with one of her Final Four teams, Baylor, going down, but I thought I should give Anna some praise before her bracket totally goes down in flames since a few weeks ago she did surprise me by printing out and putting up lots of great pictures of Melissa and the kids up on the wall above my computer. I mean, really, who does that?! Anna does.
- Richard, Laura, and Tate Era — Good to see some of the Era Family getting in the mix. I hope Jean, Myra and the rest of the Era clan will get on board in future years. Shame them if you have to. So far Richard is leading this family challenge, but it’s still early.
- Andrew and the Milam Family — Well, if Wisconsin wins you may have it surrounded. Such is the case every year, but with Wisconsin as a #1 seed this year it should be interesting to see if the Milams can make their own deep run in this year’s RI.
- Ahmad Dajani — Another first timer. Good to see a Dajani in the bracket, although it’s noted that Muhammad was apparently too scared to fill out a bracket. To be fair he did send me a message about making a donation to Andy’s Scholarship so I’ve gotta give him props for that, but what about filling out a bracket? I guess he’ll fill one out when he’s allowed to pick Nadal to the Final Four.
- Chris Mann CC — A nice start for our reigning champion, but since he picked Kentucky to win it all nice may not be good enough. A LOT of us picked Kentucky. I feel the chance of a repeat already slipping away. It’s sort of like when the Bears have a 10 point lead, but then Cutler throws his first interception..you can feel the fall coming.
- Bryant Hall — How could you let Vickery pick Wyoming all the way? Bryant has Wyoming to the Sweet 16 which seems a little more sensible, but I guess you NEVER know what’s going to happen in March.
- Joel Shilliday — What, no bracket from Liz or the kids? What about my buddy Ryan, how come he didn’t fill out a bracket? Well, there’s always next year. Joel was last seen outside of Sam Goody receiving compliments on his stellar jean jacket.
- Brian Roche — I’m shocked Brian filled out a bracket. He always donates, but is resistant to filling out a bracket. So he’s probably going to win this year. And it’s noted Brian, that you have a Wild”cat” showdown in your bracket. I get it.
- Laura Patterson Hoffman — 10 lousy points in day 1 Laura? I scored 10.5. In your face! 🙂
Well, I’d love to make fun of some more of you, but I’ve got a lot to do and it’s going to be a long tournament so let’s pace ourselves here. As always, thanks for taking part and enjoy the Madness. I’ll leave you with my quote and my jam of the day.
Quote of the Day
Jam of the Day
Cheers,
Greg