Rebuilding Rob

And just like that… Our 64 team tourney is now down to 32 teams. for the first round, I went 24–8. Here are some notes and observations:

Once again, highlighted teams are the ones that I originally picked to win in each round. The X denotes games that I picked wrong; the checkmarks denote games that I picked the correct winner.

• 24–8 is not bad for somebody who did not watch a single men’s college basketball game this season! I know nothing about the game to know the teams who are historically contenders. So I think that kind of helped my pics for the most part.
• As I mentioned on my day 1 update, the 6/11, 7/10, 8/9 pairings are almost too close to call. One could call some of these games upsets, but really not.
• Every year, I try to make a point of picking a few Cinderella teams. Some of them obviously backfire spectacularly. But in some cases I come across looking like a some kind of basketball savant. Of course, I don’t take all of the underdogs, so there are a few that I miss out on every year as well.
• Speaking of Cinderella stories, James Madison beat Wisconsin last night, and Duquesne beat BYU; two upsets that I’m sure broke a lot of brackets last night!
• Going into the round of 32, there’s only one game that I am completely locked out of, as neither of the teams who actually made it were my first-round picks!
• I’m now CONVINCED that not taking Michigan State in the first round is going to bite me in the rear end. But right now it’s all good because …
• I’m in FIRST PLACE in my work’s espn.com bracket group! I’m fighting off the urge to send out a group email to my coworkers.
• I was thinking about resetting my pics for this round. However, for the espn.com challenge, I have to stick with the pics I have. And since my picks, by and large, look pretty good right now, I think I’m going to ride them out.

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The article “Rob’s Mens’ March Madness Update – day 2” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.