Round 2 Day 1 Update

A busy day in this Madness that is March on Saturday, and we have a completely new picture at the top of the leaderboard in Jabin’s March Madness Charity Pool.

NoNova and MamaBruce took over in a tie for the lead after Saturday’s play with 42 points.  Simon the Cat is in second place with 40 points, and then it gets crowded. Six players – Poppy’s Dad, Winner winner chicken dinner, Aunt Da, Lynn’s Bracket, Lpansini, and Wineguys are all at 38 points, and another 10 players are tied at 37.  As I’ve said, Second-Round games are worth 2 points each, so look for more movement after Sunday’s 8 games.  It sure is getting interesting.  Head to the site for complete standings after Day 1 of the second round.

As much as I bust on the Selection Committee, they know what they’re doing.

There’s really no better tradition for March Madness than beginning a sentence with “What the heck was the Selection Committee thinking when they…” It’s a rite of spring, and most years they invite that reaction by some head-scratching decisions. However, you have to give credit where credit is due – going into Sunday’s play, all four #1 seeds are still alive. If Florida and Duke win on Sunday, all four #1 seeds will advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2019. In fact, it’s only happened 15 times in the entire history of the tournament. Kind of weird, but all those upsets is why we call it March Madness. (But just we’re clear, I’m still sore about that UNC “First Four” nonsense.)

Zags’ streak ends

Houston shot 50% on 3-pointers and looked good doing it to beat Gonzaga in one of the late games Saturday night, throwing off some interesting streak-related results. For Gonzaga, their loss ended a streak of 9 straight appearances in the Sweet 16, which is a pretty amazing run if you think about it (pro tip – it’s still pretty amazing even if you don’t think about it).  In an ironic twist, Houston’s win over the Zags gave them their 6th straight appearance in the Sweet 16, which also happens to be pretty impressive.

Luke, I mean Richard, I *am* your Father (works better in a Darth Vader voice)

Both Arkansas and New Mexico advanced to the Sweet 16 on Saturday, and a history-making matchup is still a possibility.  But first, Saturday’s matchup featured the two active coaches with the most career NCAA wins, Rick Pitino and John Calipari.  I’m not smart enough to calculate the odds of that happening, but it’s pretty cool. But the even cooler outcome of that game is that it sets up Rick Pitino’s Razorbacks against New Mexico, which is coached by Richard Pitino, his son. They are in different brackets (the Razorbacks are in the West, and Lobos are in the South), but two more wins would set up a father-son coaching matchup in the Final Four. This has never happened before in March Madness, although the Pitino’s have already made history this year by becoming the first father-son duo to win games in the same March Madness tournament. Pretty cool, and happy early Father’s Day.

OK, so we are halfway through the second round, and still lots of roundball to be played. I’ll be back to you with an update late Sunday night, when we will have our Sweet 16

Yours in hoops,

Jabin