The ball is tipped . . .
Posted by kj on Thursday, March 19th, 2009
In my book, this is the best day of the entire year for pure sports fandom. The Big Dance kicks off at 12:20 with LSU-Butler. Big Ten games today:
- Purdue-Northern Iowa at 2:30
- Michigan-Clemson at 7:10
- Minnesota-Texas also at 7:10
- Illinois-Western Kentucky at 9:55
Here’s the place to talk about it all. Enjoy the first-day action.
P.S. There’s still time left to enter our unconventional bracket contest. Get your picks in before the first game tips off.
P.P.S. At long last, Goran Suton has earned himself a pure fluff piece.
Filed in open thread33 responses so far
33 Responses to “The ball is tipped . . .”
Seeron 19 Mar 2009 at 3:10 pm 1Purdue is looking strong in the first half.
Also, I am very glad I only took Memphis to the Sweet 16.
Mark in DCon 19 Mar 2009 at 3:22 pm 2Congrats to Suton. I didn’t realize the Free Press let anyone but Mitch Albom write fluff pieces. No one does it like he does it.
Purdue looking good. BYU went down – not good for my unconventional bracket.
Spartalyticalon 19 Mar 2009 at 4:24 pm 3Purdue looks great today. UNI is tough and won’t go away, but the Boilers look good. A really great game.
Oh, and I hate Memphis. With a white-hot passion. Crying and griping over not getting a one seed for having strung together so many wins, romping through their high school of a conference, then stumbling for 38 minutes before deciding the game against a 13-loss team. Then Calipari’s all grins and laughing on the sideline. Seriously dude, you want some of that respect you’re always moaning over? Get yourself in a real conference. You put them in the Big XII or SEC, and they triple their losses on the year.
Spartalyticalon 19 Mar 2009 at 4:31 pm 4Nice win Purdue.
Mark in DCon 19 Mar 2009 at 4:32 pm 5Purdue squeaks by. Few!
Seeron 19 Mar 2009 at 4:32 pm 6Whew, Purdue almost choked that one away.
Spartalyticalon 19 Mar 2009 at 4:33 pm 7Although I was pulling for Butler, their game with LSU was a really good one first thing this afternoon. I think they were down by 13 and climbed right back into it and made it a game.
kjon 19 Mar 2009 at 5:08 pm 8Another tournament-picking methodology under which MSU does pretty well–courtesy of SW reader Tom:
http://www.ecollegefinder.org/.....Brawl.aspx
Sadly, this is being posted too late to have helped us with our individual picks.
Seeron 19 Mar 2009 at 5:47 pm 9I just can’t agree that a lumberjack would beat a Spartan. Then again, I’d put a guy with a blow torch ahead of that. He also discounted that a real Musketeer would have, y’know, a musket rather than relying on swords.
Mark in DCon 19 Mar 2009 at 8:22 pm 10If Michigan could hit the defensive boards they’d be clobbering Clemson.
MooTheKowon 19 Mar 2009 at 8:32 pm 11Michigan not hitting boards and still clobbering Clemson… life is good
. Goooo Big Ten!
Mark in DCon 19 Mar 2009 at 8:40 pm 12Now if Minny can get it in gear and beat Texas we’ll be looking pretty good.
MooTheKowon 19 Mar 2009 at 8:44 pm 13Abrams is on fire.. Minnesota totally done.
Mark in DCon 19 Mar 2009 at 8:45 pm 14They were down only six a moment ago. Go American!!! and Akron!!
kjon 19 Mar 2009 at 9:20 pm 15Manny Harris is a remarkable basketball player.
Mark in DCon 19 Mar 2009 at 9:31 pm 16It shouldn’t have been that close, but it’s all about surviving and advancing.
Seeron 19 Mar 2009 at 10:33 pm 17Gah, Minnesota. But that’s why I didn’t take you on the pick 16 contest.
Adamon 19 Mar 2009 at 10:55 pm 18Illinois is getting kicked early by Western Kentucky.
Add in a Purdue win by 5 and the Big 10 isn’t looking so strong.
I picked MI to get to the second round though so I’m happy.
kjon 19 Mar 2009 at 11:02 pm 19I’d really like to see Demetri McCamey assert himself more. He can get his shot whenever he wants to. I understand he’s trying to play within the team concept, but they’re going to need to score more points with Frazier’s defense out of the equation.
Seeron 19 Mar 2009 at 11:12 pm 20Illinois is looking awful, yet they’re still in it.
SpartanDanon 20 Mar 2009 at 12:06 am 21VCU making a run at UCLA; Illinois rolling over and playing dead against WKU. If UCLA can hang on, I’ll go 13 for 16 today, but one of the three will be a Sweet 16 team (Illinois).
Adamon 20 Mar 2009 at 12:13 am 22Ouch, SpartanDan. Illinois going down hard.
Adamon 20 Mar 2009 at 12:15 am 23That guy has the longest arms of anyone I’ve ever seen his size. Sanders on VCU.
Just forced a shot clock violation. CAN VCU OUST UCLA WITH JUST 11.6 SECONDS TO GO?!?!
That would be awesome.
Adamon 20 Mar 2009 at 12:18 am 24And no. Dude should have driven to the basket.
SpartanDanon 20 Mar 2009 at 12:19 am 25UCLA survives, Maynor missed at the buzzer. Not a good final-seconds play, they had 13 seconds and wasted almost all of it. No second-chance opportunity.
Illinois has cut it to 7, and Western Kentucky’s been missing free throws all day and turning the ball over at the end. This might get interesting if the Illini can actually make a shot.
SpartanDanon 20 Mar 2009 at 12:26 am 26Down to 3 after a goaltend by WKU, 32 seconds.
Adamon 20 Mar 2009 at 12:33 am 27Dang that was a weird last four minutes.
SpartanDanon 20 Mar 2009 at 12:43 am 28Contest standings after day 1 (record of chosen teams in parenthesis):
1. DP99 49 (9-1)
2. Chris 46 (7-3)
3. rook34 45 (8-0)
4. Mark in DC 41 (6-4)
5. Alex 40 (7-1)
6. Mark in Chicago 36 (8-2)
7. Jackson22 34 (6-2)
8. Tommy 30 (5-2)
9. Seer 29 (5-0)
10. SpartanDan 29 (5-2)
11. TMadison25 29 (5-3)
12. gbbound 26 (6-2)
13. Otto 25 (7-1)
14. Ground Zero East Lansing 25 (6-2)
15. dougieb 24 (6-2)
16. kj 23 (5-3)
17. Sparty in Badgerland 18 (7-1)
18. EB 16 (3-2)
19. spartanproducer 15 (5-2)
20. wife of a spartan 14 (6-2)
21. Kurt 13 (3-4)
22. msufan23 10 (3-4)
Kurton 20 Mar 2009 at 12:20 pm 29I was so close on American and VCU and Akron (oh my!) And yet so far. Doh!
Seeron 20 Mar 2009 at 2:21 pm 30Man, NDSU just can’t get any closer than 6 or 7 points to Kansas.
Spartalyticalon 20 Mar 2009 at 4:17 pm 31Is this the designated chatter thread for the whole tournament? Could we make it a sticky up at the top?
Disappointing to see Illinois go down the way they did last night, but I did make that pick in my bracket. Of course, I also picked Syracuse to go down today too. I’m smart.
Big Ten not looking that great right now, I agree. Minnesota jumps out big early, then Abrams went nuts I think. Purdue looked good throughout most the game, but sort of farted away toward the end against a tough UNI squad. Michigan hangs on like grim death and wins a game they wouldn’t have had it been 41 minutes long.
Lots of folks picking Siena over Ohio State for the upset, but I don’t see it. (FWIW, anything closer than an 11 over a six should not be considered a true upset.)
As for today’s games so far, Utah State/Marquette was a great, great game. The outcome was unfortunate as you just had to pull for the Aggies. Brian Gregory’s Dayton team is looking good against WVU. I wish I could be seeing some of Cornell/Mizzou and East TN State/Pitt.
kjon 20 Mar 2009 at 4:27 pm 32No sticky. I’d say just use whatever the latest post is on a given day. I’ll post an open thread for tonight’s game a little later.
Not enough upsets so far. Let’s hope Robert Morris doesn’t help things revert to the mean in terms of wins by double-digit seeds.
SpartanDanon 20 Mar 2009 at 6:19 pm 33Odd. Most years I have a knack for hitting the upsets, but this time the only two that have happened so far have KO’d two of my Sweet 16 picks. USU came close, and NDSU made a game of it the whole way until Kansas finally figured out that they weren’t going to be able to stop Aldrich at all, but neither of them could pull it off. Hopefully Cleveland State and Wisconsin will reverse that trend.