Ready for Day 2?

Okay, let's make no mistake here -- that was a terrible shot selection by Ali Farokmanesh of Northern Iowa. That was the kind of shot Boilerdowd used to take at the co-rec (from the same 25-30 feet) and his teammates would go "Oh, no no no -- okay, yeah, yeah, nice shot..."

I loved the radio call I heard on an update on Fox Sports Radio this morning... the radio guy said Farokmanesh "gets it at the elbow..." The elbow? Yeah, I'll say.

Anyway, that was pretty amazing yesterday. And it's got everyone saying this is the BEST TOURNEY EVAH! But is it? Or were we just starved for an awesome first day? As you may recall, last year was the chalkiest tournament in many years, with practically no upsets, few close games in the first round, and all four #1 seeds making the Final Four.

I also saw some chatter that this kind of "ensures" we're going to see expansion. And to that I say, you don't know that. One could argue this proves how perfect things are right now. But as I've said before, and I should take my own advice, it's not about what's perfect -- it's about making money.

BS Bracket Extravaganza

In the BS Bracket Blowout (which, yeah readers, only 300+ entries?), I absolutely love that after day 1, the guy alone in first place (entry "Hummel's ACL Destroyed Me") has Purdue winning it all. Warms the cockles of my cold, dark, cynical heart.

As for my own bracket, I'm not that bothered by Georgetown or Florida losing, even though I had them going a couple rounds in. No, I'm more mad at myself for picking Texas and Notre Dame, two programs I knew better than to take but for some reason allowed myself to click on. Seriously, I normally would pick against ND out of spite, yet I didn't in our bracket? Hope I did in another one elsewhere.

T-Mill has Syracuse winning the entire thing. Man, they really got to you, eh, Travis?

As always, lots of great entry names.... some faves:

The Epitome of Unpleasant (nice pull)
The three Smooges (this makes me giggle out loud)
Porter Robers (a nice throwback from Timmy)
RyneSmithScholarshipHow? (an op-ed piece and a name, all in one)
DoinThisforBS1 (we're honored)
1932 National Champs (and don't forget it!)
Juan Moore Run 4 Kramer (nicely done)
Herb Dove Love (another throwback)
According Twomey 1 (I see a clever name for a national newspaper column)
Gene's Used Comb
Tom Crean Is Ugly (simple, yet accurate)
Only Irish Fan to Read BS (I'd go further... only Irish fan who can read? Hey-yo!)
Total Hummeliation (simply fantastic, and I plan to steal this)

Boilergal, are you aware that there's an entry out there called Cougar4Kramer? So between yours (Kramer's Cougar) and hers, there seems to be a line forming for ole Chris.

Nice Showing, Big East!

What I am a little bugged at Georgetown for is paving the road to at least the Elite 8 for Ohio State. Seriously, unless Thad Matta coaches them out of the tourney, they should barely break a sweat getting that far, where Kansas should be waiting to show the Bucks the folly of only playing six guys.

As we noted yesterday, Notre Dame also did what Notre Dame does. And really, nice job showing up Harangody. Four points? All in the final minute? Nice putback at the buzzer when your team was down three, by the way. Worked perfectly with your trademark, mouth-breathing, dumbass expression that immediately followed.

Marquette also continued to show that the Big East was overseeded like the women of Boilerdowd's skirt-chasing days. Seriously, Marquette was a 6-seed? They weren't good all year, then made a decent run in the Big East tourney and then we give them a 6? While everyone was bashing the Pac Ten, Washington took their 11 seed and, with much the same team as last year's, took down Marquette.

And then, of course, Villanova, who did their best to lose to 15-seed Bob Morris. And if not for some horrible, pro-nova calls down the stretch, RMU probably would have pulled it off. Up 8 with about 4 minutes left? Nova finished 4-6 down the stretch and bowed early from their conf tourney... yet steals a two-seed? Come on.

As I said to Katz on Twitter, I fully expect to see lots of articles at the start of next year about how "down" the Big East is after this performance -- you know, the articles that would be written about the Big Ten if they performed this way after being overseeded. It won't happen, but let's not forget that it should have. Or that the Big Ten had its way with Big East teams this season (5-2).

On We Go

It's time for Day 2. I had that bleary-eyed but happy feeling late last night that I get on these opening days every year. 12 straight hours of hoops overload. And on those occasions when CBS is doing it right, you see the final five minutes of game after game after game. The typical lull is at dinner hour, when they pitch you to your local news and then come back for the start of a game in your region. Which makes loads of sense, CBS -- just as everyone's coming home from work, turn your coverage into a snoozer. Awesome!

Oh, and on that subject of local teams. I get that you think people in Texas want to see all of the Texas game. However, I'm willing to bet that the vast -- vast -- majority of viewers are like me. Yes, I want to see my team, but if another game is in the final minutes and it's close, I would be willing to forgo hearing Verne Lunquist's opening ramble and a panning shot of my team in their warmups doing a shootaround in order to see the end of the close game. Seriously, who watches the tourney but only wants to see their team? Is this sort of thing that hard to figure out?

Judging by CBS, yes it is.

Football Jambalaya!

So I wanted to make some comments about random football happenings over the past week and hadn't gotten around to it so you're going to get them in jambalaya format, inspired by the LSU Tigers two-loss national championship season. Way to go, Tigers. Yipee.

Jim Tressel was very excited just to be near the trophy last night, as you can see from this picture, which continues to be one of our favorites.

Anyway, on to my thoughts...

LSU Convinces Nobody -- College Football Limps Home

Okay, so LSU pounded on OSU last night. Did that prove anything? No, it didn't. And Georgia and USC look like scary-ass college football teams that, when healthy, could certainly hang with LSU, if not beat them. It would also be neat to make some of these SEC teams travel once in a while. They never seem to leave the southeastern part of the country. Granted, biscuits and gravy and grits aren't served everywhere in the country so I don't know what they'd eat, but they should have to travel, too.

The thing is, college football is so great and then we have this lame-ass ending every year. We've all stopped caring about it and even when Georgia and USC win their BCS games in blowouts, it means absolutely nothing. NOTHING! NCAA, we don't care that you adorn their bowl games with BCS lettering -- it means nothing to the fans. It only means money. And quite honestly, most of us have spent enough money on our colleges and universities. Come up with a better way to end the season or people will continue to care less and less until it starts to affect the regular season. And then you're screwed.

Way To Go, Hawaii! Boise State Hates You Even More Now

Hey, remember how Boise State got the WAC some respect last year by beating Oklahoma in one of the best college football games we've seen in quite some time? And remember how people were trying to make a case that Hawaii belonged with the big boys because of their supposedly prolific offense and Colt Brennan? Well, you know what we remembered here at Boiled Sports? We remembered that last season, Purdue traveled out to Hawaii and almost took down the Rainbow Warriors in their home stadium. And if Purdue can almost take down Hawaii and Hawaii needs overtime to beat Louisiana Tech and San Jose State... well, it isn't too hard to figure that Georgia might be able to not only hang with the Hawaii offense, but maybe even stop it! So basically, arrogant Hawaii got smoked by a team they didn't even belong on the same field with. The Rainbow Warriors should be out of the Top 25.

Chargers Squeak By A Bad Team -- Prepare To Be Curb-Stomped By Colts

On to the pros, now. The San Diego Chargers stormed out to an 0-6 hole at halftime of their HOME playoff game against the Tennessee Titans over the weekend... the Titans led by a guy who can't really throw and whose legs were hurting. Speaking of Vince Young, am I the only one who thinks his career arc is a lot more likely to mirror Kordell Stewart than Randall Cunningham? Remember how Kordell went the playoffs several times with the Steelers but really was the weak link? Running QBs who can't throw accurately don't last in this league... and sometimes they go to jail for killing doggies.

I just found it very telling when the Chargers eeked out a home win against a not-very-good team and then they showed Norv Turner dancing on the freaking sidelines with his players. Can you imagine Bill Belichick doing this? Oh, hell, Tom Coughlin? Or Tony Dungy? No matter a coach's success history, I can't imagine any of them literally dancing and celebrating a win that looked shaky, especially with the defending champion Colts coming up. And further evidence of the Bolts having no idea what they're in for was Phil Rivers in his postgame press conference saying they did a lot of things right and it got them ready to play the Colts. Uh, no sir, no it did not. You're going on the road to play in the dome against a FAR better team than the Titans. I think it's gonna be real ugly. Get ready for the many faces of Norv.

Sean Taylor's Ghost Has Seen Enough -- So Has Gibbs

Hey, remember how when the Redskins beat the Cowboys by 21 to get into the playoffs and all those clowns started barking about how "it's no surprise that we won by 21," attempting to overforce more emotion relating to Sean Taylor (Taylor wore number 21)? While it was a tragedy that Taylor was cut down so early in life, they 'skins (and the league) paid him a very nice series of tributes back when it happened, so it's time to stop trying to connect everything. Because if Sean Taylor is up there making sure you make the playoffs and just for kicks arranging it so you win your playoff-deciding game by 21, what was he doing this weekend? Deciding his boys have had enough fun and causing Todd Collins to throw two interceptions and turn back into a nice mixer (oh, wait, that's Tom Collins)? And just to put the icing on it, did Taylor cause the Skins to lose by 21 this week? Man, who knew Sean Taylor had such a sick sense of humor? Oh, or maybe it has more to do with the fact that 21 is one of the most common numbers associated with football since it's, you know, divisible by seven.

Joe Gibbs has also seen enough and is retiring.... again. Gibbs was hailed as a savior in Washington and he really coached like the gap between 1992 and now was instantaneous... like he skipped over those minutes to instantly arrive at this moment in time. It was definitely time for Joe to dodder back into retirement before he pooped himself on the sideline or something.

Giants Shut People Up -- For Now

Hey, did you know that Eli Manning has more postseason wins than Tony Romo does? Bet you haven't thought about it that way. And the Giants have already lost twice to the Cowgirls this season.... it's pretty hard to beat an NFL team three times in one season, wouldn't you think? I think the Giants might surprise some people this weekend. Their defense looks good and Eli has had no trouble lighting up the Cowgirl defense. Plus, Jessica Simpson went to Mexico with Tony Romo and hopefully rode him like the Cowboy he is, so much so that Tony might be tired out. We'll see.