Another incredible day, friends. Dayton’s road show ended. St. Bonaventure’s road show continued. Virginia vs. North Texas lived up to the hype. Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman’s sons each moved on. The (second) Sean Miller era at Xavier began with a win. The favorites went down.
We’ll have plenty more about the games themselves in the morning (afternoon, possibly, we are sleepy bois), but we wanted to pass along the update on the Bracket Challenge, so you can either brag to your friends at work or deflect when they ask you about it. Here’s the scoreboard. Here are the notes:
- We have a six-way tie for the lead at the moment, and all six have the same maximum possible score (though an entry tied for seventh has an even better maximum possible score, so if you’re that entrant, you can probably claim that you’re winning and Alabama will count it as a national title). One of those six is Dairy Farm, the bracket of Milwaukee Milkmen manager Anthony Barone, far and away the leader among our celebrities. Lot of games left, though, and many are still within striking distance.
- Despite Oklahoma’s loss, over half our entrants still have their champion remaining. Texas A&M remains the most popular championship pick. That hasn’t somehow changed over the last week.
- The ACC rolled through the weekend, so anybody bringing up that talking point is referencing Wake Forest and Virginia’s success in the NIT.
- The next games are on Tuesday, and we got our answer to the question: “Who hosts if two unseeded teams play?” The answer is, “You don’t get to know that, but St. Bonaventure and Virginia are playing in Charlottesville.” We respect authority, so we aren’t pushing any harder. Not eating from that tree of knowledge. Had we been in Eden instead of Adam and Eve, the world would be a dumber, more naked, quite possibly happier place. And I would assume the whole population would watch the NIT.
Sleep tight out there, NIT fans. We’ve got a whole seven NIT games left to play.
