MANHATTAN BEACH/CERRITOS, CA (smt)- #13MW-Cleveland St. made quick work of #4MW-Wake Forest, never trailing, to advance to the 2nd Round.  There were five other upsets with #11W-Dayton, last at-large in #12MW-Arizona, and #10MW-USC also dominating their games while #9MW-Sienna (2 OT) and #12E-Wisconsin needed overtime and survived buzzer beater attempts to advance.  Both #1's struggled as E-Pitt and MW-Louisville pulled away late in the game. 

#3S-Syracuse, #3MW-Missouri, #4E-Xavier, #6S-Arizona St. (close, but never trailed), #3MW-Kansas (pulling away late in battle of 30-point scorers), and #2MW-Michigan St. rolled to wins while #8E-Oklahoma St. and #6W-Marquette went down to the wire for victories.  

Three #10 and three #12 seeds advanced among the 10 lower-seeded teams who won in the first round, the most since 2001 when 13 upsets occurred.  The Big 12 conference went a perfect 6-0 while the Big East went 6-1 and the Pac 10 went 5-1 (hmmm... reminds me of how people thought Pac 10 football was down and they went 5-0 in bowl games).  The ACC lost three times today and are 3-4 with the Big 10 at 4-3.

OK, so what's the point of being the home of the NCAA tournament (AM 710) if you don't broadcast any of the late games which featured the two overtime finishes?  Coming home from the IEEE meeting, I was hoping to at least hear the finish, but to no avail.  What a rip!

Buckeye Mike continued his record-breaking perfect streak, winning the first 6 games but Dayton's win put the blemish on his record which allowed Silver Surfer to tie him.  Both lost three more times to remain tied for first with 56 points (28-4).  Sarge, Bama G 2, and Sugar Mama are close behind with 54 points.  Hot for Chief went a best 14-2 to go from a tie for 62nd place to a tie for 6th place (52 pts).

Presidential Picks and Krispy Kremer are last with 38 points (19-13).  They are not doing as bad as What's Up (Florida St.) (Tied-12th, 50 pts), Slamjam51 (Wake Forest) (T-92nd, 42), and Wake Up (Wake Forest) (T-6th, 52) who became the first three entries to lose their champion while Teddy's Teams (T-103rd, 40) who has just 9 Sweet 16 teams & 5 Elite 8 teams left. 

You can now go and see the Who's Who of the pool and find out who is The Heels Toe Hurts and the other colorful nicknames.  You can post the reasoning behind your nickname (like why Tenawesome T?) on our discussion forum.

    Tids & Bits:  If you want to see how every entry is doing, you can view the Worksheet webpage (or download the pdf) which shows how many Sweet 16, Elite 8, and Final Four teams each entry has alive... True to his name, Die with SEC (T-51st, 46) is indeed falling with the SEC as Tennessee's lost left the conference with just LSU and him with just 5 of 8 Elite teams... only Slumdog (T-12th, 50), Soccerbix (T-12th, 50), and Sarge have all 16 Sweet 16 teams alive... TrojanDan went a record-tying 7-9 for the day to fall from a tie for 26th to a tie for 103rd... everyone has at least 3 Final Four teams still in the tournament... just 24 had more than 11 wins today... the 23.1 win average basically matches our average over the past 14 years (23.0)... Pride of TROY! and Buckeye23 (both T-12th, 50),were the only ones to pick Cleveland St. (and both have them in their Elite 8, a possibility since they play #12 Arizona)... 22 each picked Dayton and Wisconsin while 30 picked Sienna (surprisingly low for a 8/9 matchup) and 41 picked the popular Arizona upset... a clear majority (74) picked #10 USC over #7 BC...