203

A few notable trends from the first round of the NCAAs:

• Teams that make surprise runs to win their conference tournaments seem to hit the wall when the real tournament arrives. Iowa, Kansas, Syracuse, Wilmington, and Southern Illinois were all quickly dispatched while other teams from their conferences continue to dance. This seems to happen every year, and I plan to make a lot of money betting against these teams in the future.
• The two shocking at-large selections made by the committee, Air Force and Utah State, both fizzled and didn't appear able to compete against the major conference teams they matched up against.
• The jury is still out on the Missouri Valley Conference, with two impressive wins and two uninspiring losses. George Mason's win validates them as a solid selection, but calls Hofstra's absence into question.
• It's hard to judge tournament performances based on what conference a team is from. Cal and Arizona clearly had comparable seasons in the Pac-10, but for some reason Arizona played their best game of the season in round one while Cal laid an egg. The same can be said comparing teams like Bradley and Southern Illinois, West Virginia and Seton Hall, Arkansas and Alabama, etc.
• The biggest reason 1 seeds never lose to 16 seeds is that 1 seeds are the best teams in college basketball. When a 16 starts looking like they might be able to win - like Oral Roberts or Albany this year, or Fairleigh Dickinson last year, or Holy Cross four years ago, the 1 seed almost always goes on a monster run to put the game away. They're 1 seeds for a reason, and they have that extra gear for when they need it. Oral Roberts and Albany played well enough to beat a lot of teams, but not Memphis or UConn.

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I bowled a 203 last night, a personal best. Gamblegambel was throwing nonstop 230+ games.