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Saturday, March 18, 2023 

ARKANSAS KNOCKS KANSAS OUT; PRINCETON IN SWEET 16
Jah Lives-2 leads with 70 pts; PopTop1 goes 7-1

DIGNITY HEALTH SPORTS PARK, CARSON, CA (smt) – #8W-Arkansas used an 11-0 run to erase a 10-point deficit and then battled basket for basket in outlasting defending champ #1MW-Kansas, 72-71.  Up by 3 with 7 seconds left, a smart foul forced Kansas to shoot free throws.  Kansas tried to miss the second but accidentally banked it in and Arkansas ran out the last three seconds.  In the only other upset, #15S-Princeton broke open a 6-point lead with a 19-8 run to rout #7S-Missouri by 15.  #5S-San Diego St easily stomped upstart #13S-Furman by 23 and #1S-Alabama won by 22. 

Other top seeds finished strong with #4E-Tennessee’s Olivier Nkamhoua scored 17 of the teams’ 19 points in outlasting #5E-Duke, #1MW-Houston used second half 14-2 and 8-0 runs after #9MW-Auburn got within one, #2MW-Texas’s Dylan Disu scored 10 points in the last 4 1/2 minutes to help beat #10MW-Penn St, and #2W-UCLA hit their last six free throws (last 32 seconds) to nip #7W-Northwestern by five. 

The Big Ten lost all 3 games and they were the last 3 games of the day and has just two teams left.  The SEC went 3-2 and has nine wins in the tournament with Kentucky playing tomorrow.  All four Big East and both WCC teams play tomorrow.

PopTop1 went 7-1 to go from a tie for 39th to a tie for 4th (67 pts).  But Jah Lives-2 was one of 29 to get six correct to jump into first with 70 pts.  Samurai Jack fell to second (69) and Hawkeye 1 is third (68).  Grogu also got six right to go from a tie for 174th to a tie for 122nd.  BulbaGrrrl became the first person ever to go 0-8 on the first day of the 2nd round to go from a tie for 7th to a tie for 168th (50).  That’s Right was the only one to go 1-7 to set a record low of 31 points after 40 games and can’t get more than 74 points.

24 lost Kansas as their champ and FV Locals (122nd-T) lost Duke.  Despite being a #5 seed, Duke was picked by more than half the entries to make the Sweet 16 (109 vs 61 for #4 Tenn).  77 picked San Diego St, 11 Arkansas, and Spoonceer (13th-T, 64) was the only one to have Princeton in the Sweet 16.

After tomorrow’s games, we will know which entries will be eliminated.  As a heads up, there will be 8 money spots (top 8 finishers) as we passed 190 entries.

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   Tids & Bits – Kansas was without its coach Bill Self who underwent a procedure during the Big 12 tournament… Princeton is the second Ivy League team to make the Sweet 16 (Cornell in 2010) since field expanded to 64 teams… for the third straight year, a 15 seed made the Sweet 16 (Oral Roberts 2021, St. Peter’s 2022) and just the 4th team to do so (Florida Gulf Coast in 2013)… just 6 of 40 games were one possession games (3 point margin or less) while 22 were double-digit wins… no overtime games or buzzer beaters (yet)… UCLA has the largest margin of victory (33) while Alabama and Kansas each scored 96 points… the first round saw entries average 21.6 wins (just below overall average of 22.6); 10.4 wins on Thursday, 11.2 wins on Friday… today, entries averaged 4.5 wins… 188 picked Alabama, 180 Houston, 179 UCLA, and 172 Texas…

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So first morning I felt fine; Galaxy score 3 goals but only 1 count in 1-1 tie in home opener…
Scott

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