I wrote yesterday about how happy the Selection Committee must be with the lack of first-round upsets.
Well, one of the most significant measures of the committee's work was just realized with Southern California's 77-60 win over Arkansas. For the first time since 2000 and only the second time since the field grew to 64 teams in 1985, no 12-seeds beat 5-seeds.
I've gone on and on already about how bad a job I think the committee did in seeding teams this year. You and I both knew Long Beach State wouldn't beat Tennessee, and that Virginia Tech and USC were definitely better than Illinois and Arkansas. The Illini almost pulled it off but blew a big lead late, and Arkansas proved why it shouldn't have been in the field in the first place.
I thought Old Dominion would get a Butler team that hadn't been playing well coming in, but the Bulldogs got back to their good form and hit their shots when it mattered.
So that's it for the first round. Lots of big names advancing, but was it really all that fun? I don't think so, and I say that independent of Penn and Villanova's losses. There were some good games today, especially Creighton-Nevada, but it's not a hard case to argue that the only really resonant moment so far has been Eric Maynor's shot to beat Duke.
Winthrop-Notre Dame and Creighton-Nevada were decent, and made my afternoon at the office more lively than it would have otherwise been on a slow news day. Maybe if I had seen the end of Miami (Ohio) vs. Oregon, which the Ducks won by two points, I'd think differently, but I was on my way home from work when the game ended.
I mean, I'll be as happy as anyone if North Carolina plays Georgetown and UCLA plays Kansas and Florida plays Wisconsin. But the real buzz in NCAA Tournaments, the stuff that gets people who otherwise wouldn't care to talk about it around the water cooler the next morning, is caused by the upsets and the victorious players who celebrate them.
It just doesn't feel that way this year.
