Alright…life is briefly good again. We’re live from TMC Mission Control. I’ve got some diet 7-Up, about 15 brackets that I’ve filled out, and a grumpy labrador retriever who doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. MARCH MADNESS!
Live blogging after the jump. Feel free to comment at your leisure.
Be sure to hit REFRESH for the latest updates
12:30 PM: Got a little bit of a late start, thanks mostly to the fucking traffic in Coral Gables. They started us off here with the Xavier-Georgia game…and of course, just as it was getting good, we get switched to Michigan State - Temple. No matter, that’s what MMOD is for.
12:35 PM: Alright…first things first. We need to start identifying the commercials that are going to drive us NUTS for the next three weeks. The early money is on the AT&T commercial with the stuffed monkey.
In other news, Temple is off to a good start, posting an early 7-4 lead on Michigan State.
12:40 PM: We haven’t learned much so far. Georgia is sticking with Xavier early. Temple and Michigan State are playing in Denver…it’s only 10:30 there! That might explain why Gus Johnson sounds so mellow. We have determined that (thankfully) those schmucks who sang the Gilligan’s Island-themed Applebee’s commercials are not back. Elsewhere, Kansas is handling Portland State early on. Also…I’m not sure if it just choppy audio on MMOD, but Bob Wenzel sounds drunk already. I’m envious.
12:44 PM: Rut roh…Georgia doesn’t seem to be missing much. 19-15 now in D.C. Xavier needs to step on the gas and crush UGA early…otherwise we might have our first major upset of the tournament.
Bob Wenzel got really giddy when they threw a lob pass to 5′6″ Drew Lavender. I guess I would too in that instance.
12:50 PM: Alright, Xavier is officially in some trouble. Their defensive game so far has not been what it needs to be, and Georgia is capitalizing off of turnovers. We’ll keep a close eye on this one, and not just for the game — the Wenzel/Bolerjack broadcasting crew is easily the most entertaining so far. I feel bad for Gus Johnson — this Temple/MSU game has been stodgy as hell.
1:00 PM: Georgia continues to lead Xavier…27-24 now. Although that would be a major upset, it’s still early. And so far, I’m kinda nonplussed. None of these games have been “on fire” to start. Hopefully things pick up.
1:03 PM: Alright, I’m scared — CBS Sportsline is stalking me. I just went to my Facebook page, and CBS Sportsline has announced the following to the world:
Galen enjoyed an NCAA® Championship game live online with NCAA® March Madness® on Demand at www.ncaa.com.
Listen, CBS…I know you like me. And I think you’re really cool and all, but…facebook stalking is NOT funny. Now get the hell away from me before I start posting stuff about you on JuicyCampus.
Elsewhere, Michigan State has pulled away a bit from Temple (24-17), and Georgia is causing Craig Bolerjack to talk like Harvey Fierstein. 31-24 UGA.
1:05 PM: An odd development. In the Xavier-Georgia game, Ed Hightower is giving Sundiata Gaines tips on how to deal with baldness. (Thanks for pointing that out, Ink Jet) 33-24 Georgia. Somewhere, network executives are smiling.
1:10 PM: Alright, halftime in Washington…it’s Georgia 35, Xavier 24. Ink Jet, who is a big fan of Xavier in real life, had this to say:
they CANNOT lose to these douche bags
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Elsewhere, Kansas has blown the Vikings out of the water (49-26), Michigan State is up 9 on Temple, and Gus Johnson needs an espresso. Welcome to the Big Ten, Gus!
1:15 PM: Far be it for me to praise ANYONE in the advertising industry, but so far I’ve been impressed with the lack of repeats in the commercials. I don’t think I’ve seen a commercial more than once on any game, and I’ve got two of the three games going constantly. I will, however, confess to missing the roller-skating Diet Coke girl from a couple of years ago.
Incidentally…for those of you watching on MMOD…what is the deal with this studio crew? I keep expecting the guy on the right to start talking about his role as the treasurer for Sigma Chi or something.
1:21 PM: Alright, I’ve been told by Ink Jet that the guy on the MMOD halftime show is none other than…Jason Horowitz from Dream Job 2! Oh, and guess what…he’s a Syracuse grad. That means we hate him.
1:29 PM: If I’m 28 years old, am I allowed to be completely sick and tired of Will Ferrell? I mean, is that acceptable, or do I have to turn in my union card?
1:35 PM: Just in case the games are boring you…check this out from BracketMaker. Honestly, I don’t think Patrick Swayze has a chance against Hurricane Katrina, but don’t sleep on River Phoenix upsetting The Tsunami in the 2-15!
Georgia up 41-30 on Xavier. Bolerjack continues to be giddy and semi-coherent. Beautiful. Incidentally, I just realized that Kevin Harlan is doing the Kansas game…so CBS has their two most excitable play-by-play guys (Harlan and Johnson) on games devoid of any excitement whatsoever. Great way to start the tournament off.
1:46 PM: Well, someone at CBS just woke up and switched all the non-constant national feeds over the the Xavier-Georgia game. Glad to see you’re alive, guys!
1:49 PM: Ink Jet notes something interesting. The last 3 seed to lose was Iowa…when Steve Alford was a candidate for the IU job. They lose, and Alford loses what little support he had.
This year? Xavier is in danger of falling…and yes, Sean Miller has been mentioned as a serious candidate for the job. Proving once again that IU basketball is cursed.
1:51 PM: Maybe I just haven’t watched enough Big Ten basketball this year, but since when did Ed Hightower start taking classes at the Ted Valentine School of Demonstrative Officiating? UGA leads 46-40. Temple is dead.
1:57 PM: Comment from below:
Ok, MMOD is great, but the only game that’s interesting - XU/UGA - is on my tube. The other two games blow.
Not that CBS can do anything, but I can still blame them.
I dunno, I think we can safely blame them. Didn’t they set the schedule in the first place? It was predictable that Kansas-PSU was gonna suck, and anyone who’s watched Michigan State this year had to know that they were capable of turning a game into a pile of shit very quickly.
Meanwhile…does anyone remember when Chevy unleashed “This is our Country” on an unsuspecting world? The days before then seem so hopeful and innocent in retrospect.
2:05 PM: Kansas is just 8 minutes away from being the first team to advance in the field — they’re throttling Portland State 66-39, and I can proudly say that I watched a grand total of 2 minutes of that game. Who says Bill Self can’t win the big one?
2:07 PM: Welcome back, Sean Miller! You’re a candidate again! Xavier just stormed back to take a 52-49 lead.
2:13 PM: In a rare mixing of NCAA Tournament Basketball and old-school Star Trek…Dave Bliss for Georgia looks like Finney from “Court Martial”.
Xavier’s on quite a run here, now leading 56-51. Michigan State continues to bore Gus Johnson…he actually got excited about Drew Naymick dunking the ball. That’s a sign that you’re reaching. Spartans up 59-45.
2:21 PM: Alright, if you’re got MMOD…you HAVE to press the “Boss Button” and take a look at what pops up. Here’s a sneak preview:
2:36 PM: Xavier survives! That may be the best game we have all afternoon.
SECOND ROUND GAMES
2:42 PM: Alright…second round of games have started. Kentucky is leading Marquette early on, 10-6.
2:50 PM: Just flipped the sound on…Jay Bilas on the UK-Marquette game! Sweet.
So, to recap the first round games…Kansas and Michigan State faced no opposition, while Xavier saved nervous bracket pool managers everywhere.
Is anyone else disturbed by these Holiday Inn Express ads?
2:54 PM: Who the hell is Carter Blackburn? Oh great, another Syracuse grad.
UNLV-Kent State just started. Marquette leads 16-12. You know, Jay Bilas really knows how to make a player sound inadequate.
3:07 PM: Sorry about the space between some of these updates — having problems with this MMOD software. Anyway, Kent State looks like they’ve forgotten to play baskeball — already down 9-2 to UNLV. Oh, and UNLV has a player named “Wink”, and a guy who looks like the bastard child of Rick Fox and Doug Christie.
3:13 PM: Alright…THIS is March Madness! Four games on, simultaneously. UK-Marquette is finally starting to pick up, UNLV is still in control against Kent State, and Oral Roberts is leading Pitt (did Bob Knight mislead us???), and Purdue is tied against Baylor.
3:19 PM: Someone needs to tell Carter Blackburn that when he gets excited, his voice is nearly indistinguishable from Pam Ward. Poor kid.
Purdue looks like they’re going to be able to keep up with Baylor’s athleticism (so far, at least). Meanwhile, UNLV just isn’t taking any crap off of Kent State. I haven’t tuned in to this ORU-Pitt game yet…might be time for a live look-in of my own.
3:27 PM: Marquette nails a 3 to close the half — they lead Kentucky 33-29. Elsewhere, Kent State HAS STILL NOT SHOWN UP. For god’s sake, they’ve got 6 points with 5:20 left in the first half! That’s 5 points in almost 15 minutes. Pitiful. What do they think they are, a Big Ten school?
3:30 PM: Incidentally, for the stat heads out there, it was just brought to my attention by Special K that Kent State has 6 points in 34 possessions. That’s a whopping 0.17 PPP.
3:37 PM: Hooray for Kent State. Way to break into double figures guys! It only took you 19 minutes.
Halftime — UNLV 31, Kent State 10. 21% shooting, only five field goals, which ties the all-time record for NCAA tournament suckage.
3:47 PM: Alright, I’m getting disillusioned. Three of these four games are absolute blowouts. Purdue is killing Baylor…er, wait. Bad choice of words. Pitt went on like a 27-7 run and has put Oral Roberts away. Kent State never showed up. Only UK-Marquette is a game, and it’s poisoned by the presence of Mr. Pam Ward on play-by-play. So far this has been a disappointing afternoon.
3:52 PM: The no-research comment of the day so far, courtesy of Bob Wenzel:
“Of course, (Matt Painter) played at Purdue…he was an excellent player there.”
By that definition, does that mean that Lyndon Jones was “an excellent player” at IU? Good lord. Anyway, Purdue leads 46-27 at half. Pitt is up 47-24 over Oral Roberts at the break.
3:57 PM: Oh, good lord. They just brought Norm Roberts (the suddenly tenured coach at St. John’s) onto the MMOD halftime show, and in referring to Pittsburgh, he said something along the lines of:
“I don’t want to say they’re a fungus…they cling to you!”
I appreciate CBS doing something extra for MMOD, but could they improve the production values a bit? We just got the wonderful sound of Norm Roberts coughing into his microphone…twice.
4:10 PM: Kentucky has apparently not seen dribble penetration yet this year…Marquette should be up more, but Crawford’s three has brought them within 5. I’m sure this is all Tubby’s fault somehow, though.
4:20 PM: Kentucky has managed to keep it in the 5 point range, but just doesn’t have the scorers to get any closer than that. This really hasn’t been a very good game, but it’s the only game worth watching.
4:26 PM: Marquette continues to score, but UK is just not going away. Alright, just as I type that, Marquette takes an 8 point lead with 2:11 left. This one may be over.
4:41 PM: Alright, looks like Marquette has finally buried Kentucky. With the other games having been killed off due to noncompetitiveness, we’re gonna close this edition of the live blog. I’ll be back later with more.
Georgia is trying to screw me thrice
Georgia wants to kill us all!
Seriously guys…nice story winning two games. But you’ve already screwed over Hokie nation by taking their bid. Now you want to screw over college basketball fan brackets everywhere?
From a poster on a message board (anonymous no doubt):
RE: Georgia…
“Georgia making turn around fall away J’s again.
Makes you wonder if they just woke up one day and said ‘you know, I think I’ll not suck at basketball anymore’”
i will start beating up midgets if Xavier loses
A question — even though Georgia beating Xavier would be a 14-3 upset, would it really be considered in the same vein as UNI-Arizona or even Indiana-Cleveland State? I mean, it’s not like Georgia is operating off of the same talent deficit that, say, Cornell is facing against Stanford today.
No, it wouldn’t. The gap is still great - Georgia doesn’t have the scorers Xavier does. But with Drew Lavender’s bum ankle, this would be closer to 6-11 upset.
Easy on the midgets.
Circus freaks have an honor code that the commoner must follow.
Besides, Xavier’s PG is a midget, so you won’t want to eat your words later.
All of this, unfortunately, is so true. And with Lavender’s bad ankle, it won’t be tough to catch him. Sigh.
26 was unlucky in the first half
All three losing teams (I’d call them losers, but it’s too early in the day for that) had 26 points at halftime.
Xavier and Temple losing - especially in this fashion - would poke serious holes in the A-10’s argument it deserved Dayton or UMass in the field.
I can proudly boast, that while I’m a Minutemen fan, I didn’t pimp the A-10 for another bid. Quite honestly, I felt Saint Joseph’s was a stretch, although beating Xavier twice in the final week I guess made it a no-brainer.
Someone PLEASE tell Bollerjack the team playing is pronounced “Zavier” not “Eggs-avier”.
And congrats to the Holocaust for bumping off Barbaro in the first round of the March Sadness bracket. Quite honestly I thought Barbaro was severely underseeded, not your typical 16.
I’ve just been thinking of the Eggs-avier announcers like Timon & Pumba.
It adds entertainment to the telecast.
Ok, MMOD is great, but the only game that’s interesting - XU/UGA - is on my tube. The other two games blow.
Not that CBS can do anything, but I can still blame them.
Why does CBS even offer a 1 vs 16 game to anyone outside of the respective cities that those teams are from. 98% of the time, the games are horrible. And the fews times they are close, they always jump to them. Yet for the first 90 minutes of today, all of St. Louis got the Kansas game.
A moment of silence for those with dial-up and can’t get MMOD!
I guess the MSU team that can play decided to show up.
Hey, why doesn’t anybody mention that Georgia played twice last Saturday and once on Sunday.
I feel for you, Scottie. Gonna send you my Mom’s Commodore 64.
I just hope Georgia doesn’t turn into this year’s version of Duhon’s Rib.
CBS did Georgia no favors making them play the very first game of the tournament. And making them play in front of a crowd bigger than 300 fans? Just brutal.
Could someone please get the silencer for Wenzel and Bollerjack? Craig can’t even get Xavier’s name right, Wenzel keeps getting players names wrong (”credit the steal to Burrell” when it’s Derrick Brown).
Guys, this team is the the THREE seed (unlike Mike Davis’s four seed). You might wanna do some research.
Well, the way Xavier is playing now (61-53), there will be no midget toss (today).
I love seeing the programming note that As the World Turns is being preempted by the tournament and that no story material will be missed.
I’m sure all 6 housewives will be happy to know that. Serioulsy, they get daytime TV 51 weeks out of the year. Guys get it for 2 days.
Don’t mess with the Soaps.
I’ll admit it, when I was a teen, I used to like coming home and watching Guiding Light.
Instead of Duhon’s Rib, I think that John Lucas’s son was a worse theme.
Looks like the X is going to solve that problem for us.
I used to watch Hey Dude.
I guess that is as close as I came to soaps.
Hey InkJet, I wasn’t saying that I have dial-up.
I am rolling High Speed, and have 2 computers rolling with MMOD.
I was joking about those without high speed. Sorry that came out wrong.
But I will take your old Atari if you still have it.
Hey Dude is a soap opera?
BTW, how does one settle on the name Sundiata?
Alright. we have some time to kill, and I need lunch. Where should I go to pick stuff up? I’m leaning toward Subway, but I’m ready to hear your arguments.
Also, does Sean Miller look a bit like Jimmy Kimmel?
Today’s a day to eat shit. Go out and find some Rally’s. Or perhaps you can find some White Castle. Mmmmm, White Castle.
I could go for Rally’s, but sadly there the closest one is pretty far away.
Never been a fan of the Castle.
Maybe Arbys?
The midgets are saved! Way to go Xavier!
And the award for the uniforms most likely to be confused with a 1970’s ABA team goes to…………Marquette
http://graphics.fansonly.com/photos/schools/xavi/sports/m-baskbl/auto_headshot/217287.jpeg
http://www.avclub.com/content/files/images/Jimmy-Kimmel.article.jpg
Anyone else notice multiple UK misses where it looked like they forgot the rim was ten feet? Don’t worry AJ Stewart and Perry Stevenson: The rim shall lower!
Ok, Al McGuire has been dead for seven years. It’s time to take “Al” off the front of the jerseys. Nice tribute, keep his name on the court, but, come on: It’s been seven years.
Why you gotta be hatin’ on dead guys?
Things I had no idea: Kent State has 36k students. THIRTY SIX THOUSAND?!?!?! Good lord, Ohio has a ton of big schools.
And Dominic James is from Richmond, Indiana. How did he not go to IU?
Oh yeah: Mike Davis was recruiting. Sigh.
James was actually set to go to Ohio State over Purdue until Jim O’Brien got canned. I saw James in person several times in AAU and that kid can sure get up for a small guard.
I’m tired of these Coke Zero ads, but I do enjoy this:
“Ron, the head of Coke Zero, is from Canada. Could we have him deported?”
Catchiest fight song: Gotta be Marquette.
The BW3 ads where everyone hides when the boss walks in, holds up. Even though I have seen it a few hundred times, I still like.
I took Ink’s advice, and decided to eat crap today. So I went with Grade F dog meat………Taco Bell!
Congrats on your crapitude, Scottish. You’re quickly become as lame as the rest of us.
Of course, not as lame as Kent State. Ten fucking points in a half?!?!
If the lead gets any bigger in this Marquette game, I think it’s fair to say that this round of 4 games sucks donkey ass.
Don’t knock Lyndon Jones! Next thing you’ll tell me is Richard Mandeville wasn’t a first team All Big Ten guy!
My lord: Jerrel McNeal has 6,000 points. Catspause.com ready to go nuts in 3 … 2 … 1 …
What’s sad is that without looking it up, I know for sure that Jones wore #4 and Mandeville wore number #21 while at IU.
Worthless Long Term memory!
“Joe Crawford is playing like 2 and 1/2 Men!”
Thank you Jay Bilas. Maybe the most stiff product placement this side of Bob Knight.
“A tradition unlike any other.”
Commericals for the Masters on CBS during the Tournament.
http://kentucky.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=1383&tid=112553592&mid=112553592&sid=888&style=2
And the UK fans are now calling conspiracy. Surely it’s not because McNeal has 206 points.
I’m suprised that they have Internet down in Kentucky. Can you run information over a can and string now?
http://kentucky.rivals.com/showmsg.asp?fid=1383&tid=112553725&mid=112553725&sid=888&style=2
Thread title: We’re in Deep Doo next year. Second response?
“Thank you Tubby”.
Mark that as 4:26 p.m., March 20, 2008: The first “2008-09 is all Tubby’s fault” comment on Cats Pause. Let the water flow!
Let’s check the Bulldog blog, and see if the Georgia fans are blaming their loss today on Tubby also.
I don’t think Kentucky has lost in the first round since ‘87 (Ohio State beat them. Can you imagine how annoying the fans would’ve been at that game?).
Don’t worry: UK fans will blame that on Tubby, too.