Friday, March 17, 2017 
Issue # 3.1.2 "Rolling 11s"
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CERRITOS APT/CYPRESS, CA (smt)- If not for the 11 seeds, the tournament has produced very few surprises, and even some of the 11s were not surprises to our pool participants.  For the second time in the tourney and 13th time overall, #11E-USC rallied from a double-digit deficit to win, stunning #6E-SMU.  SMU led 53-43 before losing 66-65 missing a last second buzzer-beating floater.  #11MW-Rhode Island won making it 3-for-3 for the 11 seeds but #6S-Cincy prevented the sweep beating #11S-Kansas St. #10S-Wichita St, by far the most popular upset pick, struggled but won as did #9MW-Michigan St.  #7MW-Michigan St squeaked by while #2S-Kentucky, #3S-UCLA, and #7E-South Carolina used late game spurts to prevent an upset.  #3E-Baylor, #3MW-Oregon, #2MW-Louisville, #1S-UNC, #1MW-Kansas, and #2E-Duke advanced as well. 

Another so-called controversial ending as #9S-Seton Hall intentionally fouled #8S-Arkansas in the final with 18.3 seconds left except, the player pushed instead of trying for ball resulting in a flagrant-1 giving the Pirates two shots and the ball.  While most of twitter and TNT host Casey Stern is a complete idiot, ignoring the experts repeatedly stating the trip was NOT part of call (it's like those political pundits who only focus on a small part of the issue, not the real or big issue, just to make their point), if the player only TRIED for the ball (hit the arm), there is no issue here, even if the Arkansas player tripped and fell hard.  He had plenty of time to adjust and didn't.  IMHO, this was worse than the intentional foul Vandy committed yesterday since it put Arkansas up two possessions with the ball while the former left a lot of time and still down by one basket.  And as the experts also stated which idiot Stern continued to ignore, the reason the officials called the common foul is that they can change a common foul to a flagrant-1 but they CAN'T change a flagrant-1 to a common foul, so in a game this important, the refs wanted to make sure they got the call right.

Air Fabone 23 kept on winning, eventually getting the first 30 games correct before South Carolina turned up the D and the O turning a close 3-point game into a 20-point blowout in the last ten minutes.  The original records were the first 22 games (Buckeye Mike '09) and 23 games in a row (The Flying Elvi '15).  He also went 31-1 for the round breaking the previous reocrd of 30-2 shared by two and leads with 62 points.  Sandit and King Kobra are second with 60 points.  With most favorites winning, Quinnsanity (8th-Tied, 56) went a perfect 16-0 (was tied for 100th yesterday) with 7 others going 15-1.  But three did go 9-7 and three are tied for last with 40 points. 

With most favorites winning, only the two who had Maryland lost their champ (picked by locals).  It was worse for Bobbydoonigan (113th-T, 48) who also lost Seton Hall and Marquette in his final Four while Terp Fan (143rd-T, 46) only lost Maryland (and they'll be plenty more losing their champ as the tourney roars on).  Three others lost a finalist.

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   Tids & Bits - USC's win meant every year since the tourney expanded to 68 teams, a First Four team has won a first round game... Arizona, UNC, and Kansas hit the 100 point mark... the ACC got 6 teams into the 2nd Round, the Big 10 five, and the Big 12, SEC, and Pac-12 with four... not quite upsets:  142 picked Wichita St, 100 picked Middle Tennessee, 89 picked Michigan St, 83 picked Rhode Island, and 68 picked Xavier; only USC was only picked by 37... every other game was picked by at least 100 entries except for Northwestern (86)... #11 seeds now 13-11 since 2002 while #12 seeds are now 11-13... this is 13th straight year a #11 has won... 111 expect Kansas to make the Final Four with Villanova (93) and Arizona (90) next... ...

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That was fun while it lasted, 30 in a row was nice...
Scott