March Madness, Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

11:54 – After a short 11 ½ hour break, we’re back in action here on the blog.

Not only am I pumped up for another full day of tournament action, but I got a bonus 15 minutes ago when I turned to CBS. Since I haven’t been home sick from school in over a decade, it’s been forever since I’ve watched more than a few seconds of The Price Is Right.

Hands down, the most entertaining show not named The Simpsons to ever go on the air. Even skinny Drew Carey hasn’t been able to ruin the show. It’s my lifelong dream to get on contestants row, then make one of the other players want to murder me as I bid one dollar more than him every single time.

Anyways, looking ahead to the action, I’m psyched that Duke has the first game. As the only team other than Georgia Southern that I root for in college basketball, I’m hoping that the Blue Devils can get past that little first round hiccup from last season that I’m probably never going to mention again. If they lose to another 15 seed, we might have to end this live blog early.

12:17 – Not having TruTV is finally starting to pay off. Ole Miss is playing on that channel, which means that I get to miss out on watching the insufferable Marshall Henderson. He has easily run away with the 2013 “most punchable person in the nation” award. I don’t even like half of the teams that Ole Miss beats, but I find myself siding with them when Henderson goes into his antics.

I think yesterday’s article on deadspin.com put it perfectly. There are a lot of star players who accept and embrace the bad guy persona as they take the heat from rival fans. Not Marshall Henderson. That guy was a total antagonistic asshole waaaaayy before anyone realized that he was good at basketball.

12:24 – Watching 16 tournament games play out in one day is a lot like watching a presidential election as the states are being called for one candidate or the other.

You’ve got buzzer-beaters that are too close to call. You’ve also got those states where there is a strong lean to one side throughout the day, but thanks to an athletic or sharp-shooting low seed (or one of those pesky third party candidates), we end up waiting a little longer before making the call.

Then, there are those states where one guy is named the winner with one percent of precincts reporting. That’s a game like Syracuse-Montana last night, and how the Duke-Albany game looks right now. When one team comes out and drills three contested jumpers, pulls down five of the first six rebounds, then gets its big man wide open in the lane for an uncontested dunk, you’re tempted to call the game before the first TV timeout.

12:35 – I really hate the one-and-done players that come through college. I know that you’ve heard it a million times already, but it cheapens the game so much. I think that there is more overall talent that has led to some of these upstart mid-major teams, but another big part of the trend is that these teams like Butler and VCU are featuring four or five upperclassmen who have played together for a couple of seasons.

Teams like Kentucky will still have better talent, but there is something to be said for being comfortable and familiar with the other four guys on the court with you.

My wacky solution to this is to create a sort of trial run for all of the guys who want to go straight from high school to the pros. They shouldn’t be eligible for the draft out of high school, but they should be allowed to play one year in the NBA D-League, with all of these first-year guys getting only their meals, hotels and travel paid for.

After one year of playing better competition than they would have faced in college – and thus, getting a better idea of how they’d stack up in the NBA – they should be able to make the choice to either enter the draft or go to college as a sophomore.

12:52 – Less than 14 minutes into the game and Plumlee already has three dunks for Duke.

Albany is playing the part of Rocky in the first movie of the franchise. The Great Danes are just standing there on defense and getting pummeled with haymakers. They’re just barely hanging in there with a floater every other trip down the floor, but I don’t know if they’re going to make it to the final bell.

12:58 – Florida Gulf Coast tips off in a little while. Yahoo! had a feature story the other day about how one of the dorms (or maybe a student housing complex? I just skimmed it) is sitting right on the beach in Fort Meyers. It’s no wonder that these guys are rising so quickly after making the leap to Division I.

It’s really unfair though. I work hard most days and can barely afford to take a three day vacation to the beach, but these guys are getting a free ride to college and LIVING on the beach.

The Eagles are stuck in 30-something degree Philadelphia for their first round game. I wouldn’t blame them one bit if they mailed it in and got back to their perpetual spring break party as soon as possible.

1:12 – Albany goes on an 8-0 run and pulls within 35-26 at halftime. It just doesn’t look like they have enough scoring options to keep it going, but it’s just close enough to make me a little nervous.

Meanwhile, Ole Miss and Wisconsin are tied up at 15-15. Marshall Henderson has just two points so far, but in all fairness, that’s mostly because he’s been walking through the crowd trying to hook up with the mothers and sisters of Badgers players.

1:29 – I wonder what the per diem is for players at the tournament. I know that the NCAA covers team travel and lodging for postseason games, but I would assume that teams are left to fend for themselves when dinner time rolls around.

That’s a double-whammy for some of these smaller schools like Albany. They’re probably going to lose a double-digit game to end the season, pack into their team vans, then stand in line at one of Philly’s cheesesteak joints while watching the Duke charter bus pull into an upscale steakhouse.

1:36 – Let me take a quick moment to thank everyone who is following this blog throughout the first two days. This is easily the most traffic my site has ever seen. Keep telling your friends and don’t forget to come back next week for my MLB previews.

1:45 – Jacob Iati is striping his 3’s for Albany. Unfortunately for Iati, he’s the only one on his team capable of doing so. Duke just drove that point home as the Devils watched him drain another long bomb, then trotted down the court and had Seth Curry – one of their MANY shooters – bank in a 3 to answer. It was almost as though they were trying to spite Albany for continuing to make shots.

FUN FACT: Jacob Iati is from my home town and played his high school ball at York Catholic, my dad’s alma mater

1:53 – The ACC has really taken a step back when it comes to overall talent. The conference is still good for producing one or two teams that can compete for the national title each year, but most of the depth is gone.

It used to be that the top 6 or 7 teams in the conference were a threat to win the ACC tournament and that most of them were locks for at-large bids to the NCAA tournament if they didn’t win the conference. This season, Miami and Duke are solid title contenders, but N.C. State was wildly underwhelming and North Carolina needed a strong last month of the regular season to get into the tournament.

Those are the only four ACC teams in the field and there really isn’t a good argument to be made that any of the other teams got snubbed. Maryland and Virginia had some high profile wins, but also some awful losses. The rest aren’t even worth discussing.

At least things should change when Syracuse, Louisville and Pittsburgh join the party.

2:01 – Mason Plumlee has spent approximately half of the Duke-Albany game hanging from the rim.

2:16 – This Duke game really is just like the first Rocky movie. Albany doesn’t have a knockout punch, but that isn’t stopping them from throwing all of the jabs and body blows that it can.

The Great Danes have certainly won over the crowd.

On a less positive note for Albany, Great Danes is a pretty crappy nickname. I mean, at least they don’t use ‘Mean Green’ or ‘Big Red’, but it’s still a poor effort. It’s certainly no ‘Italian Stallion’

I need to watch a Rocky marathon after the games wrap up tonight.

2:26 – Miami and Pacific are underway in what has to set a record for the biggest distance between schools competing against each other in the tournament. Has Hawaii ever been in the big dance? If so, I guess they would hold the title.

Anyways, this matchup has to have the lowest number of family/friends/fans from the schools in attendance. Miami is as southeast as it gets and Pacific is out by the San Francisco Bay. The location for this game, you ask? Austin, Texas. Because that’s the obvious choice.

2:43 – Marshall Henderson catches fire in the second half as Ole Miss gives the 12-seeds their third upset of the tournament. The most impressive part of this performance is that Henderson was able to drop 19 points on the Badgers whilst firing off profanity-laced tweets at Wisconsin fans.

You just know that he’s the guy that gets smashed at parties and talks to girls about naming his junk. 5-to-1 odds that he goes with “Colonel Reb”

2:52 – The hits keep coming for the ACC. N.C. State had a nice run in last year’s tournament, making them the trendy pick to win the conference this season. The Wolfpack came up well short and are getting throttled by Temple near the end of the first half.

This is why I don’t have Duke or Miami anywhere near the title game. Watching them play, I firmly believe that they’re both top-10 (top-5, maybe?) teams. But they’ve also both lost a handful of games to the crud that made up the majority of the ACC. I think that the Devils and ‘Canes are capable of beating anyone in the country. What concerns me is that they’ve proven that, on the wrong night, they can also lose to pretty much anyone.

2:58 – Did I just hear singing at the Temple-N.C. State game?

That was more that just a normal rhythmic chant coming from the crowd. It sounded more like the singing of an alma mater than a fight song, and there weren’t any instruments playing.

I could totally get down with singing – a la European soccer fans – at basketball games. Having a designated victory song would be a pretty cool way to wind down the last couple of minutes of easy victories. The only thing about these songs is that you can’t go for quality. There should be a three-drink minimum required to participate. The whole thing should sound like a melodic, rambling mess until you hit the chorus.

3:06 – Jeep is using Al Pacino’s speech from “Any Given Sunday” in a commercial. I don’t know how I feel about that. Listening to the entirety of the speech makes you want to run through a brick wall, punching puppies and kicking kittens as you go. But without all of the swearing, it’s really not getting its message across.

How am I supposed to drive my Jeep Liberty like a REAL MAN if you won’t at least drop a few F-bombs on me?

3:32 - Is there a greater tragedy in this tournament than the fact that Gus Johnson is no longer calling the games? The man’s play-by-play calls could make a high school chess match exciting.

If you’re ever having a bad day, wander over to YouTube and watch a Gus Johnson montage. There is no way that your day won’t be instantly better.

N.C. State is rallying hard, but even if they do come the whole way back, it just won’t sound the same without the cries of “DAGGER!!!” followed by the sound of Gus nearly falling out of his chair.

3:45 – I wonder what it would take to get tossed out of a tournament game? Obviously, taking a swing at someone will get you the door, but I’m thinking more along the lines of what coaches can get away with saying.

Officials won’t be shy to hand out a technical to a coach, but I bet it would take something pretty sensational to draw a second technical and an ejection. Coaches for those really low seeds should use this to their advantage if they’re in a close game. Yell whatever you want. As long as you aren’t storming onto the court or throwing things, it’s the ref who will look bad if he ejects you. If you can break down the ref, maybe you get that whistle when you really need it.

3:57 – Apparently, you shouldn’t mess with Philadelphia basketball. Temple was able to hold off N.C. State and now LaSalle – after taking down Boise State in the Frist Four (reprisal from yesterday: puke) – is all over No. 4 seed Kansas State.

With one upset in the bag and another one well underway, No. 9 seed Villanova could really make it a party with a win over North Carolina.

Just think of how good Philly hoops could be if a certain ‘Fresh Prince’ hadn’t been driven out of town all those years ago.

4:11 – I love my job as a sports writer, but I think that it would be awful to have to cover the NCAA tournament. Sure, you’d get to see some of the best teams in the country, but you’d also miss out on the vast majority of the action.

It would be incredible to get to interview players from a No. 15 seed after they shocked the world in an upset, but it’s much more likely that you’ll get the short end of the stick. Four games get played at each venue in the first round. You’re there from 11 in the morning until almost midnight and for every 1 vs. 16 snoozer that you have to sit through, the out of town scoreboard is flashing up buzzer-beaters and huge upsets that you aren’t able to watch.

I’d much rather be holed up in my living room with a two TVs, a case of beer, and plenty of free time.

4:21 – La Salle doing an absolute hospital job on Kansas State. The Explorers (come on, La Salle. You can do better than that) are up 44-26 at the break.

Have to credit fellow gsufans.com member (and hopefully, a devoted reader of this blog) ‘GSUfanforever’ for this gem:

La Salle – French for “Whipping your fanny”

4:31 – Are any of you readers in or around the Dayton area? If so, could you be on the lookout for the James Madison basketball team? This game is already four minutes in, but I haven’t seen them yet.

4:40 – Just now tuning in to the Creighton-Cincinnati game. What in the hell is going on with Cincy’s uniforms? It looks like they all got hit by the Harlem Globetrotters’ bucket of confetti.

Those things are beyond awful. At least the Blue Jays are doing their best to make sure that we won’t have to watch these sartorial nightmares run around the court much longer.

4:55 – Regretfully, I’m going to have to take a break for a few hours. I’ve got to go cover the Portal baseball team. Normally, that would mean that I’d be back in an hour after they lose by 20 and the game is called off after three innings, but they have managed to find an equally awful opponent today, so there’s no telling how long it could drag on.

You guys talk amongst yourselves. I’ll be back as soon as I can.

9:17 – Sorry about that. I severely underestimated how suspect the pitching in that game would be and it takes a while to recount all of the action in a 13-11 ballgame.

But now I’m back for the final bloc of games and we can ride this thing out together

9:29 – Man. I step away for a couple of hours and everything goes to hell.

Had anyone ever even heard of Florida Gulf Coast before today? At least No. 15 Cinderellas like Lehigh and Norfolk State from last year had been to their share of tournaments before.

The Eagles have literally no basketball history. Seriously. Half of the entire Wikipedia entry on the team is the sentence describing FGCU’s win over Georgetown. The Hoyas have disappointed in the tournament plenty of times before, but this year’s group has set the bar at a new low for future teams to trip over.

9:37 – La Salle blew its 17 point lead, but managed to upset K-State at the wire. Unfortunately, Villanova couldn’t complete the aforementioned Philadelphia sweep as the Wildcats bowed out to North Carolina.

Normally, I’d be all for the Tar Heels getting bounced early, but now a showdown is set with Kansas. Aside from the fact that two of the three most historically successful basketball schools in the country are meeting in the tournament, this is big because Roy Williams now has to coach against his former Jayhawk team.

The awkwardness of the interview where reporters asked Williams if he was leaving for Carolina mere minutes after his Kansas team lost in the 2003 title game is still lingering over Lawrence.

9:57 – The President’s bracket took a pretty big hit with Wisconsin (had them in the Elite Eight) bowing out in the first round. But considering shockers like Harvard, La Salle and FGCU, his picks still are looking as bad as most peoples.

I wonder what would happen if Obama picked a perfect bracket. Would conspiracy theories arise about the highest office in the land fixing games? Would he automatically qualify for a third term? Would Fox News use it as proof that he is the Antichrist?

These are important questions that need to be answered, people!!!

10:04 – No. 10 seed Oklahoma is looking sharp early on. I’m surprised that the Sooners don’t make deep runs in the tournament more often.

The state has all of the early 19^th century Dust Bowl traits as Kansas, yet basketball fever didn’t quite catch on to the same effect. I’m sure that the Sooners are quite content with their decision to save all of their bat-shit insanity for football, but how awesome would it be to watch the Sooner Schooner stampede across a crowded basketball court?

10:22 – Kansas goes off in the last bloc of games as the final No. 1 seed to see action.

The Jayhawks are going up against Western Kentucky, which is a complete mess, no matter how you look at them. As the number 6 seed in their own conference (the not-so almighty Sun Belt), you know that their credentials are suspect.

Then, there is the name. Western Kentucky is the Hilltoppers. What is that supposed to be? I was bagging on La Salle for being the Explorers, but at least those guys have a sense of adventure. WKU seems content to mount the biggest hill in town, see what there is to see, then call it a day.

And don’t even get me started on their amorphous blob of a mascot. He’s supposed to be a red towel, which is another weird and baffling story about WKU history that I won’t bore you with. Maybe the announcers will get around to that factoid when Kansas is up by 40 in the second half.

10:37 – Did you know that there are now 160 Division I teams that make the postseason? The NIT was always a nice consolation for some of the major conference teams that didn’t quite have a good enough year or for mid-major teams that can play with the best, but who screwed up in their conference tournament.

A few years ago, the CBI began play. This was nothing but a shameless money grab for schools who had no pride, but plenty of fans that would buy tickets if they were given a few more games to host.

Now, there’s something called the CIT. I haven’t looked, but I’m sure that whatever teams are making up this fourth-tier tournament are an affront to the good name of mediocrity. Any guesses on who won last year’s CIT? It was Mercer, who I wouldn’t have even been sure had a basketball team if I hadn’t been to one of their games before.

I can only assume that the championship venue for this clash of titans is a random YMCA gym, provided they can get a good time slot to rent out.

10:47 – Those Hilltoppers came to play! A 24-21 lead for WKU late in the first half has our second No. 1 seed of the tournament sweating out its first game.

If Western wants to pull the upset it’s going to half to go on a big run. Not that Kansas is bound to go on a run of its own (although it probably will), but No. 16 seeds that stay close until the end always seem to have all of the cards fall against them in the waning minutes.

Not only do they have to beat one of the best teams in the nation, but all of the whistles tend to favor the top seed. I don’t think that refs are trying to dictate the outcome of the game, but they probably subconsciously defer to the No. 1 since no top seed has ever lost its first game. When the fateful day comes that a No. 16 seed wins, I imagine it will be a game like the Florida Gulf Coast upset where the underdog comes out firing, gets a comfy lead, and never slows up.

11:04 – The United States leads Costa Rica 1-0 at halftime in their World Cup qualifier. This concludes my blog’s entire 2013 soccer coverage. We’ll see you at next year’s World Cup preview!

11:09 – Iowa State and Notre Dame were close early on, but the Cyclones have now run out to a 15 point lead early in the second half.

The Fighting Irish are becoming notorious for this sort of behavior. They always play well enough to pop into the top-25 once or twice during the season and the name/conference recognition is usually enough to give them a respectable seed. They’re never seeded – or thought of – so highly that an upset makes for a huge story, but you can almost always count on them to fall to a lower seed.

Other offenders of this nature: Vanderbilt, USC, Maryland, Michigan, Iowa

11:28 - San Diego State is trying to pull away from Oklahoma. The Aztecs are another one of those mid-majors that is sticking around as a force instead of fading away once one core group of seniors departs.

All of these teams seem to follow the same rise to prominence before becoming a mainstay on the national radar. They usually make one or two uneventful tournament appearances and gain a reputation in their own conference, then have that one HUGE win in the tournament that captures everyone’s attention. A few of these teams – like San Diego State – have even taken the next step, bringing back a handful of players from the team that pulled the big upset, posting an incredible regular season mark the next year, then challenging for a high seed and winning a few more tournament games.

The blueprint has been set, and I think that teams like Butler and VCU making annual deep runs is going to become the rule instead of the exception.

11:36 – Western Kentucky has only scored two points in the first six minutes of the second half. Luckily for the Hilltoppers, Kansas isn’t faring much better. But I’m sticking to my prediction. WKU is now down by two and it’s running out of time to build the 10 point cushion that it would need to hold off a top seed through the last few minutes.

11:46 – I think that I’ve found a practical use for that CIT tournament. We should take the winner – which I am dubbing “The Undisputed 129^th Best Team In America” – and put them up against whoever wins the women’s NCAA tournament. Not to sound chauvinistic, but I bet the dudes win by 60.

11:54 – San Diego State rolls into the round of 32.

Is anyone still keeping tabs on schools that are deemed to have offensive nicknames? What have the Aztecs never made that list?

I don’t consider simply naming yourself after a former Indian tribe to be offensive, but that never stopped a bunch of other people from getting their panties bunched up about it. The Washington Redskins are constantly under fire. The Florida State Seminoles have been picketed and boycotted despite working with – and having the approval of – the still-existing Seminole nation. The North Dakota Fighting Sioux face legal action from the NCAA despite the fact that nobody actually lives in North Dakota.

I just don’t get it. I’ll admit that some of the cartoonish logos and overly flamboyant mascots previously used by some teams could easily upset people who take their heritage seriously. But I don’t think that anyone could sit there with a straight face and say that any team with an Indian-related name is abusing or sullying the namesake in any way nowadays.

12:05 – How fitting that midnight marks the end of Western Kentucky’s Cinderella bid. Give them credit though. They gave it one hell of a run.

P.S. – Hilltoppers is still a ridiculous nickname.

12:23 – After that sort-of close call with Kansas, it seems anticlimactic that there is still one more game going on. The Minnesota-UCLA game isn’t necessarily a bad one (plenty of drama since the losing coach might be fired despite multiple career trips to the Final Four), but I would have thought that the NCAA would end the night with something stronger than a 6-11 matchup where neither team is a big name or even a potential sleeper.

While they slug it out for a few more minutes, I’m going to reflect on what I’ve learned during this whole live-blogging fiasco.

-         I’m not filling out a bracket the next time I do this. If I do, the bracket won’t be in a money pool. So many times, I wanted to hijack 30 minutes of this thing to vent on one of my top seeds that was playing like crap (I’m still not talking to you, New Mexico), but I’m sure that all of you have your own bracket problems to worry about.

-         I’ve got to hydrate better. With relatively little work to do during this grand experiment, it was inevitable that a non-small number of cocktails were going to work their way into this thing. I don’t think that they made my observations worse – although the swearing did increase – but it made my workout and 10 miles on the stationary bike this morning really, REALLY suck.

-         I need to get a new laptop. Mine has a battery that is shot, giving me all of about five minutes away from a power source before everything shuts down. Laundry went unfolded, dishes went unwashed and pets went unfed because I have been tethered to this couch for 80 percent of my waking hours for two days. Based on the looks I’m getting from the girlfriend – who I have also had to neglect – I might be spending some of my sleeping hours here as well.

-         Eat less food. Fair warning – I’m about to talk about pooping… OK. I’m not going to lie. I got VERY invested in this thing. I’m keeping tabs on my time tags for each post and I’ve been getting anxious every time I thought that you guys had been waiting too long for an update. That said, eating the ‘inferno’ hot wings for lunch today was a bad idea. I don’t want to be stuck in the bathroom while you guys are clicking refresh and getting nothing new.

12:30 – Wow. While I was getting all of that out of my system, Minnesota went ahead and took UCLA behind the woodshed. I know that the Bruins were a little banged up, but I would have thought that they would have given the Big Ten version of N.C. State (read: vastly overrated at beginning of season and doing nothing to convince detractors otherwise) a little bit more of a fight.

I wonder what would happen if UCLA put John Wooden’s coffin at the end of the bench? I bet they’d win at least 20 games.

12:38 – Even if some of these upsets hadn’t developed, you’d have to admit that the lower seeds fared very well in the first round and that it’s obvious that parity is steadily marching onward in college basketball.

Those 1-16 matchups used to have scores like 103-52, but no top seed scored more than 83 points and two failed to make it past 70. Even more telling – the average margin of victory was just 16.25 points. Not bad for a bunch of 16-seeds that used to lose by several touchdowns each year.

12:46 – Aaaannnnnd, that’ll do it. Minnesota wraps up a win to finish off the first round of the tournament, and with it, my 36 ½ hour long running account of the action.

Let me take another moment to thank everyone who has been checking in over the last couple of days. As I said before, this has been my blog’s most successful post BY FAR and that’s all because of you guys constantly checking in every hour to see if I had gone completely insane yet.

It’s been 10,302 words of scoreboard watching, vile insults, and hopefully not-totally-awful jokes. I’ve enjoyed bringing you every one of those words, but if you don’t mind, I’m going to watch the second round in peace and without a laptop surgically attached to my hands.

Thanks again for tagging along for the ride. Don’t forget to come back next week for my preview of the MLB season.