CARSON/CERRITOS, CA (smt)- All higher-seeded teams won setting up the East and South with all four of its top seeds for the Sweet 16.  For the fourth straight day, the most exciting games were the last ones of the day, with #3MW-Missouri (thanks to #6MW-Marquette's Lazar Hayward stepping on the line during an inbounds play with 5.5 seconds left), #2MW-Michigan St., and #1MW-Louisville (using a 9-0 late run to negate #9MW-Sienna's 12-0 run) survived in the final minutes.  This came after relatively easy wins by #3S-Syracuse, #4E-Xavier, #3MW-Kansas, and #12MW-Arizona.  Only #1E-Pitt had a rough outing in the earlier games.

Syracuse, Pitt, and Louisville winning gave the Big East 5 teams in the Sweet 16.  The Big 12 has 3 and the ACC and Big 10 have 2 each.  The Pac 10, Conference USA, WCC, and Atlantic 10 each have one team in.  This is important for the Bonus Prize, which will be announced later this week.  Stay tuned.

SilverSurfer finally broke away from Buckeye Mike when Xavier won but Mike caught back up when Missouri beat Surfer's Marquette.  They are tied for first with 98 points (out of a possible 112), a record after the 2nd round (97 was achieved by DC944 and Thai Spice (coincidentally, Mike's wife) in '07).  Twenty-one went 7-1 for the day, most losing Arizona, who was actually picked by 6 entries.  A record-tying 14-2 Round 2 was achieved by 28 people (only Loser Who Didn't Pick UCLA in '95 and Snoop's Dogs in '07 went 14-2 previously).  Presidential Picks went from a tie for last (to begin this round) to a tie for 77th (80 pts) thanks to a 14-2 record.  Sugar Mama who was tied for 3rd after Round 1 now is tied for 27th (87). 

Everyone still has at last 3 of their 4 Final Four teams left and because of that, after two rounds (some painful), just 8 entries can't win money (1st-5th place).  Included in that eight is our defending champion, Cliff T, whose Belucky2 (Tied-100th, 75) bit the dust.  To add insult to injury, his other entry (Spencer&Me (T-103rd, 73)) was also eliminated.  The Mighty Mobelfakta sits tied for 31st (86) but can't win first while Dr Fun is tied for 77th (80) and is eliminated.  Teddy's Teams, who was the only person to go 6-8 for Round 2 (everyone else was 8-8 or better) and is sitting in dead last (58), can still win 4th place.  The Heels Toe Hurts sits tied for 100th place but can still win first!

Percentage-wise, no was has a better than 12% of winning first nor a 31% or better chance of winning money since only Arizona is seeded lower than #5.  SilverSurfer is atop both at 11.5% and 30.8%, respectively.  An eye-popping 74 entries can still win the first place prize, which will be announced later this week.

While the first two rounds were relatively predictable, now is where all entries start diverging (in fact, the top 6 in the standings feature six different champions).  Let the fun (part 2) begin...

    Tids & Bits:  Silver Surfer had won 13 straight games before the Arizona-Cleveland St. match (he picked neither)... Got Snow had won 12 straight games (including 11 before today) before Wisconsin lost... the 2nd round average of 12.1 wins (out of 16) shattered the previous record by 1 full win ('95)... the eight eliminated is the fewest after Round 2 since 2001 when only six couldn't win money; the 7% of entries eliminated is, however, the lowest percentage ever (previous, 8.3% in '95).  In 2005, we had 28% of entries eliminated, so count your lucky stars you're still in it (well, except for 8 entries)... Scott T (moi), aka, Ides of Fabone (T-58th, 83), is barely still in it, which makes it the 15th straight year he hasn't been eliminated after the 2nd round (though in 3 of the past 4 years, he was eliminated midway through the 3rd round)... Batman had a horrible round and went from a tie for 6th to a tie for 83rd (79)!... Cleveland St. missed their first 10 3-point attempts and were 1-for-18 at one point; the Vikings also never led (opposite of their game vs. Wake Forest where they never trailed)...