Day 2 Recap

The 1st round has come to a close in a favourite filled Friday as any whiff of a Cinderella was snuffed out in spectacular fashion.

The highlight was during the opening game as after a last second Santa Clara three, Otega Oweh levelled the score with a half court buzzer beater (due to a missed timeout by the Broncos) leading to a Wildcat win in OT.The rest of the day was very benign. The darlings of college basketball the Miami Redhawks dream season came to an end at the hands of Tennessee. Villanova’s coach Kevin Willard threatened to fire his entire coaching staff mid-game and then proceeded to lose to Utah St as every 9 seed moved onto the 2nd round.

There were some close calls from our favourites Wright St, Hofstra and Furman all put up good fights while Florida, Purdue, Iowa St stoped Cinderella dead in road with big blowout wins. Trent Walker and Kale Smith both go 15/16 to take command at co-lead after the 1st round of action.

The 2nd Round starts tomorrow and with games worth two points and a tight leaderboard each game with be pivotal for those looking to separate them from the rest of the pack! Take a deep breath the madness (or lack thereof) continues tomorrow!

FADER'S THOUGHTS

• It might be over for the madness part of March Madness. Perhaps I am being dramatic, but the needle shifted over to chalk in extreme fashion. This is the least amount of double digit seeds to make the 2nd Round since 2017. If we look at seeds 13 to 16 to win their opener over the last few years it is even more worrying

  
  

  

Now 2017 was a very very entertaining tournament so it not a requirement to make an entertaining tournament but we can all agree that small schools and mid-majors making a splash on the first weekend are what really makes this tournament special.

• With all the favourites advancing, it's tough to really tell who's real and who is fake. Florida and Arizona might not be as good as we think, and UConn and Duke might easily bounce back. Perhaps the chaos will find us on the weekend.

  
  

• If there is any saviour to this tournament it will have to be High Point. The last true Cinderella at the dance they definitely have the tools to make it to Regionals. For those unaware, this school is absolutely nuts. Steakhouse for campus dining? A mock up of a private jet to practice networking? The WSJ says it best here

  
  

• For the first time in over a decade there were no brackets busted in Round 1. Will everybody survive tomorrow? My gut says no.

  
  

• My Twitter algorithm is almost exclusively College Hoops but holy what a disaster the Bachelorette is. Bobby Knight would be very proud but what a blunder for the ABC producer that thought the casting was a good idea