So how's your bracket?

[leigh.bess.toad]

What a wild and wonderful day of basketball. But a lot of brackets have sustained some serious damage. Before today, a #15 seed had beaten a #2 seed only 4 times in the 27 years since the tournament expanded to 64 teams, and none since 2001. Yet today we had 2 do it in a matter of hours.

 

Of course, I'm proud of my hometown school, VCU who won yesterday. VCU now holds the record for the most number of years with wins in the tournament by a mid-major conference school, at 7 different years. Yesterday's win put a bit of distance between them and the mid-major school that is second on that list (at 5): their cross-town rivals, University of Richmond. Of course Richmond is the only school in NCAA tournament history who has one as a #12, #13, #14 and #15 seed. With VCU, Richmond, George Mason, Hampton (who won as a 15 seed in 2001), Old Dominion, and now Norfolk State, I don't think teams would want to face a mid-major team from the state of Virginia.

 

So with Duke, Missouri and Michigan out, (and Syracuse looking awfully weak), and only the East Regional going strictly chalk, how's your bracket doing?

[justaguy]

VCU played its collective ass off yesterday. They make for exciting bball. I'm hoping their run continues for a long time. Like everybody else, my bracket took a beating. Who would have seen the Mizzou loss? They were outplayed fair and square. I felt bad for them. Duke? Not that shocking to me, even though I didn't have them losing this early. This year's team just doesn't have the raw talent of years past.

 

If this keeps up, this year will put the Madness in March Madness in a way that hasn't been done for a while.