Day 1 Review

March Madness has officially arrived. In late March the sports world is all about college basketball. The NBA is on cruise control until the playoffs, the start of baseball season is still 2 weeks away, and the NFL draft is still over a month away. Day 1 of the tournament proved to be well worth the wait. What a day for college basketball.

Three overtime games and countless buzzer beaters made the 2010 tournament start with a bang. Five double digit seeds will be advancing to the second round, one shy of the record (6 double digit seeds advanced in 1991.) The unanimous feeling is that the Big East is the strongest conference in college basketball. They had an amazing 8 teams make the tournament. Day 1 couldn't have gone worse for the powerhouse conference. Georgetown became the first number 3 seed to lose in the first round since 2004, getting dominated by Ohio, a team that finished with a losing record in the MAC conference. Marquette lost on a buzzer beater to Washington, winners of the lousy Pac-10 conference. Though they will never be confused with serious contenders, Notre Dame was expected to defeat Old Dominion. They didn't. Number 2 seed Villanova barely avoided making history as they held off Robert Morris in overtime. The big, bad Big East went 1-3 on Day 1. Their one win took overtime to defeat a number 15 seed. Syracuse, Lousiville, West Virginia, and Pitt, you've been warned.

There was plenty of other heart stopping action as well. BYU-Florida went to double OT before the Cougars pulled away. Murray State knocked off number 4 seed Vanderbilt as time expired. Northern Iowa booked an invitation to face Kansas by defeating UNLV in the final seconds. Last but not least, Wake Forest sent home Texas by hitting a game winning shot with 1.7 seconds left. Tough to believe Texas was once ranked number 1 in the country.

It seems unbelievable to see so many great games on a single day, especially the first of the tournament. Americans are letting out sighs of disappointment as they check their brackets. Nothing has gone as planned and it has only been 24 hours. We'll see what happens going forward but if today is any indication, March Madness 2010 is going to be a very memorable event.

Bracket Update

• Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Marquette, and Texas all lost just as the clock hit double 0. Yes, I picked all four of them to advance.
• Had Georgetown facing Kansas in the Elite 8, ouch.
• Picked Vanderbilt and Marquette to make it to the Sweet 16, again ouch.
• Day 1 ends with 9 correct picks and 7 wrong. At least I'm above .500