Tournament Thoughts: Early Thursday

First game of the tournament was a doozy, Ohio State vs. Dayton.

We started off by learning that Thad Matta won't play in-state schools in non-conference. I guess it's win and you were supposed to lose and they use it against you in recruiting. Does Jim Boeheim know about this?

Bill Raftery and Verne Lundquist doing the game with hottie Allie LaForce on the sidelines. They showed pictures of them from 1988. Raf and Verne looked much as they do know. LaForce was an infant.

Raf was on his game, dropping a great Irish accent for Cavanaugh, and then doing a great whine to imitate Jim Boeheim.

Aaron Craft almost cost his team the game with a stupid intentional foul. But he hit a 3-point play to tie it back up at 55, then made a great pass to give OSU the 57-55 lead.

Ohio State's Shannon Scott committed an even dumber foul, fouling the 3-point shooter with a 2-point lead and the shot clock winding down.

Craft is one of those players who gets too much credit. He isn't all that talented but he gets a lot of credit because of his style of play and skin color. He should have gone to Duke.

He did play a great game though, and hit what could have been the winning shot.

Great play by Vee Sanford. First game, first exciting game winner. A great start to the tournament.

American took a 17-10 lead over Wisconsin early. After that Wisconsin went on a 56-11 run. I'm not kidding. American scored 4 points in the first 12 minutes of the second half. Wisconsin scored 28.

The Pitt-Colorado game was a similar blowout. 46-18 at halftime? For Pitt?

Talib Zanna had 16 points in the first half. Colorado had 18. Pitt had 13 assists. Colorado had 0. Colorado attempted 17 field goals. Pitt made 18 field goals.

Cincinnati got a weird administrative technical for using a player who was not in the book. Not sure how the hell that happens. Did they just forget to write a player's name in?

Harvard does it again. Big upset for the second year in a row. If you include Cornell in 2010, the Ivy League has pulled off first round upsets in 3 of the past 5 years.

I wanted to pick this as my 12 over 5 upset but I was talked out of it by people who said Cincinnati was too physical. But this game comes down to shooting. Harvard can shoot, Cincinnati couldn't.

Cincinnati plays a physical brand of defense but Harvard never let it affect them.

Oregon can really score. BYU got within 3 then Oregon just blew their doors off.

That will be an interesting matchup against Wisconsin. Every year a 2 seed loses in the second round (almost every year) this could be the one.

Not the start you wanted to see if you picked Florida to win it all, but they eventually pulled away and booted Albany back to upstate New York.

I wouldn't take anything from this performance and project forward as to what it means for Florida's ability to go to the Final Four or win it all. It was 20 bad minutes and has no bearing on what will happen next.

But I am surprised it happened. Florida has so much size and athleticism that I wouldn't expect a team like Albany to be able to keep up with them.

Albany acquitted themselves well in this tournament except for those ugly shorts, purple in front, yellow in back.

Even though Michigan State didn't blow out Delaware you can see why so many people are picking them for the Final Four, and to win it all. Adreian Payne was absolutely dominant, and they have a bunch of other good players as well.