Outta Here!

We got the first COVID-19 casualty but it wasn’t a team (who all reported they were good Saturday night to be selected for the tournament and for the tourney teams, all reported good by the 4 pm PDT deadline today) who will go home, but six referees. So, sorry Louisville who was the first on the waiting list. #6E-BYU also won’t go home as the NCAA will swap the Midwest and East Sweet 16 dates so that BYU won’t have to play on Sunday, as per their religious principles. But first, BYU has to win 2 games this weekend. This will reduce the East rest period to just 4 days which is tenuous since a positive COVID-19 can play havoc on the 7 days of negative testing requirement for contact traced players.

We have 35 entries thus far (Enter Now!), which is our 4th highest at this point in time (55 in 2017) and we do get one extra day (deadline 9 am PDT Friday, instead of Thursday). It’ll be interesting to see if people modify their picks based on Thursday’s First Four results or who #3W-Kansas or #4W-Virginia, both who withdrew from their conference tournament due to COVID-19, bring to their first game (Virginia won’t fly in until Friday and then quickly need Friday & Saturday negative tests in Indianapolis). Can you imagine if those teams both get a COVID-19 hiccup, that would mean #1W-Gonzaga’s biggest challenge could be just #5W-Creigton in the Sweet 16.

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