Day II - Last 4 games profiles

There’s a little break in the late games.  It looks like Washington may pull off a slight upset over Utah State.  Liberty is giving Mississippi State all they want.  Duke was only up 4 on North Dakota State at the half, but I see now that is double digits, so maybe I’ll go 0/4 on the t-shirt in the first round this year.

Here are the details for the last set of 4 games in the first round:

Picks for North Carolina: 227

Picks for Iona: 0

Vegas Line: North Carolina -22.5

I honestly had to look up who North Carolina was playing in this game.  That’s how far off the radar this one is for me.  It’s hard to see Iona making this one competitive.  I mean Iona is only 17-15.  I know they won their conference regular season and tournament, but 17-15 is pretty uninspiring.  North Carolina has been getting better and better as the season has rolled on, so I expect this one will be relegated to one of the smaller monitors.

Picks for UCF: 125

Picks for VCU: 102

Vegas Line: UCF -1

It’s the alphabet game.  For some reason UCF is UCF and not “Central Florida”.  My guess is that it’s some kind of branding nonsense.  Kind of like KFC no longer stands for “Kentucky Fried Chicken” and the YMCA is now officially “the Y”.  Anyway, this game features maybe my favorite player in the tournament.  UCF’s 7’6” center Tacko Fall.  You may have gathered from earlier posts that I am a bit of a sucker for huge human beings.  I think they are odd combinations.  If they could move like someone 6’6”, they would be totally unstoppable, but virtually none of them can.  Occasionally, you see a flash of how dominant they can be, but it’s so hard to maintain that dominance.  Most the time, they wind up with knee or back problems and have short careers, like the human body isn’t supposed to be that tall.  I find people like this fascinating.  Anyway, go Knights!!

Picks for Iowa State: 176

Picks for Ohio State: 50

Vegas Line: Iowa State -5.5

You may notice that the total picks here doesn’t add up to 275 like the rest of the games.  That’s because one person left this game blank.  I reached out to them to fill it in, but never heard back, so they lose a point to the field.  Just a reminder that I run some quality checks on everyone’s bracket and will respond back if I find an error.  Make sure you correct those before you lose points.

Anyway, Iowa State consistently breaks my heart.  It seems like every year, I watch Iowa State and fall in love with them.  I then pick them to go far in the tournament, and they almost always underperform.  I curse them out, and then do the exact same thing the next year.  I also do this with Baylor, but not this year.  I put my foot down.  No Iowa State runs to the Elite 8 or even the Sweet 16.  I do think they’ll win this game though.  Ohio State probably wouldn’t be in the field if I was seeding the tournament.  I really don’t like them.

Picks for Virginia Tech: 195

Picks for Saint Louis: 32

Vegas Line: Virginia Tech -10

So, the ACC was pretty top heavy this year, but Virginia Tech managed to get 5^th place, which isn’t too bad.  I watched a few of their games, and they seem like a totally different team at home vs away from home.  I’m not sure how they will do on a neutral court, but I’m prepared to not be surprised if they lose.  The only thing I know about Saint Louis is that Rick Majerus used to coach there and that I used to think that their mascot was a bird, when it actually is a mysterious charm doll called a Billiken.  Fun fact – I am full of them.

I’ll be back once the first games go final.  In the mean time, I’ll be updating the score spreadsheet after every game.  Good luck!!!!!