Another NITe, another NITe. It’s like they always say.
The first round is over, and what a buzz it was. Thanks to everyone for your continued participation. I don’t know how you would withdraw your name from this, now that we have your info, but I appreciate that no one tried hard enough for us to notice. Also, thank you to the contestant who flew to Austin to perform stand-up comedy for me and a few thousand of my closest friends while I watched the Iona/Florida game on my phone. I can truly say that no one has ever done that for me before.
A few notes, before we give you the same link we gave you last night:
- When looking at the scoreboard, please note that “Scoreboard – Celebs” is in a separate tab from “Scoreboard – Everyone.” This is done in honor of airplanes. If you’re having trouble finding your bracket on the scoreboard, we suggest using a computer and going to the Everyone tab.
- With all the 1-seeds and 2-seeds surviving, only 15% of brackets are championless. This is far and away the lowest rate of unbusted brackets we’ve seen through the first round, making it even harder for our three celebrities (Fargo—our dog; Ethan—our favorite CBI/CIT bracketologist; and PFT Commenter—co-host of the number one sports podcast in the world these last six years) who’ve seen their champions eliminated already. PFT, I’m sure there’s a joke in here regarding the duration of Rick Pitino’s stay in the tournament, if you haven’t made said joke already.
- Our good friend James Boswell (we never touched a mellophone, but we do own a French horn) is the only contestant who picked a perfect round. Keep that up, James, and you’ll be on the Celeb tab of the airplane come 2023.
- Anthony Barone, manager of the Milwaukee Milkmen, is still in the lead among celebrities, but Paul Oren, who covers Valparaiso athletics in The Victory Bell, has tied him up. In the “maximum possible score” category, Mike Rutherford of Card Chronicle has the lead. It’s all about potential, guys.
- No games today or Friday, as society takes a break from meaningful college basketball to do things like lustily boo their TV when they go to watch a rerun of The Big Bang Theory and find Yale playing Purdue (this might happen to my mom, so do not dare laugh at this horror). The second round starts on Saturday, and if you aren’t thrilled at the locales, you’ve clearly never been to Norman, Denton, Highland Park, Cincinnati, Winston-Salem, College Station, Provo, or a little place we like to call Nashville, Tennessee. Confused reading that list? Me too. Dayton’s still on the road because of the Ohio high school state tournament superseding the NIT. Fair is fair.
Here’s the link to the scoreboard. Keep listening to The Killers, everybody.
