The Chalk Holds

Well, the first afternoon session of March Madness is complete and so far it’s a pretty dull tournament. Form has held and there have been no upsets as all the higher seeds have won and won convincingly. The best two games so far were #3 Xavier vs. #14 Georgia, where the Bulldogs scared the Musketeers for about the first 30 minutes, including leading 35-26 at the half before Xavier recovered by winning the game at the foul line for a final of 74-61. The only other competitive game was between #6 Marquette and #11 Kentucky in a back and forth game won by Marquette 74-66 for their first tourney win since beating Kentucky in a regional final in 2003. The rest of the day has just been a series of routs, especially in the 2nd half of the afternoon session where Pittsburgh, UNLV and Purdue all won big. UNLV led Kent State 31-10 at the half so that was over quick and Pitt, after trailing early 13-10, used an 18-0 first half run to pound Oral Roberts 82-63. Baylor was a great story entering the tournament after the program was almost shut down two years ago after the shooting death of one of its players by a fellow teammate. The Bears were the final team selected to the field last Sunday but Purdue shot the ball very well and quickly sent the Bears home 90-79. Other winners were Michigan State over Temple 72-61 and #1 Kansas over Portland State 85-61 this afternoon. Stanford leads Cornell 66-36 as of this writing and they will advance to meet Marquette on Saturday. The best two games tonight in the evening session are #7 West Virginia vs. #10 Arizona and #6 USC and freshman sensation O.J. Mayo vs. #11 Kansas State and their super frosh Michael Beasley. #5 Notre Dame vs. #12 George Mason is also worth a look later tonight. Hopefully we’ll see more excitement than the afternoon games produced as the Madness rolls on. By the way, the fearless Final Four picks for me this year are Tennessee, Kansas, Texas and UCLA with Kansas defeating UCLA on Monday night to win the title.