By now the coffee stain and crumbs that cover your bracket don’t matter, it’s the number of circles and red marks that come into play. For me, I can say my bracket looks more like a homicide scene than one of the best times of the year for college sports.
Starting the day with 10th-seeded Florida and No. 7 BYU, you had to have a great feeling about the day when that game headed to not only overtime, but double overtime before the Cougars edged out the Gators, 99-92. Past this matchup, the early afternoon games in the first round turned out to be great games, including another overtime affair. Three of the eight games were decided by three points or less, including a buzzer-beating victory for 13th-seed Murray State over No. 4 Vanderbilt when Danero Thomas drained a jumper for a 66-65 victory. Robert Morris tried to pull only the fifth win by a 15th-seed over a second-seed over Villanova, but the Wildcats hung on for a 73-70, overtime win behind 20 points from senior guard Scottie Reynolds (he poured in 15-of-16 from the free throw line).
On the other side only three of the games were decided by double-digits, with the West Region’s No. 2 seed Kansas State embarrassing No. 15 North Texas by twenty points, 82-62, behind a balanced scoring attack of four guys in double-digits.
One theory I had that got mixed up was in the West Regionswhere I assumed either 12-seed UTEP or 13-seed Murray State would win their first round game, but not both. As you can already imagine I picked the Miners and took Vanderbilt. The opposite happened thanks to the incredible buzzer-beater mentioned earlier, and an 18 point win by Butler behind Shelvin Mack’s 7-of-9 from three-point range and 25 points.
Before the nightcap, my record today sits at 4-4 with one of my Sweet 16 teams already eliminated. Let’s hope tonight goes better for yours truly, I hope you all are doing much better.
Justin Lewis
UATV Sports Director