No buzzer beaters, no major upsets, nothing. That was the worst opening day of March Madness in a long long time. The only “upset” was that of Duke by VCU but most people thought that Duke’s seeding was by reputation and they didn’t deserve a 6 seed anyway. Sure, Xavier and Michigan State pulled off 9 over 8 upsets but that’s pretty much a coin flip. So everyone drowned in chalk. Jason Campbell must be ecstatic.
For the rest of us, we got to celebrate a Duke loss and wait for Coach K’s announcement that his back hurts after he loses a couple of players to the draft. Other than that, the only “did you see that?!?” moment was a gruesome injury to Idong Ibok. Ibok landed awkwardly, stuck out his hand to brace himself and dislocated his elbow. CBS must have show the replay 5 times and you can see his arm flailing about. It was reminiscent of Shaun Livingston‘s dislocated knee.
Here’s the video of the play but it unfortunately (mercifully) cut short of the entire CBS coverage as they don’t show his forearm flailing about. However, you do see the huge dent in his elbow where no huge dent should be. Ibok was back on the bench in the second half but his college career is over.
Yes, the fact that the higher seeds mostly won is an indication that the selection committee did their jobs (except for letting Stanford in and watching them get blown out) but that’s not what makes the tournament great. If there are a lot of upsets, no one blames the committee, they just talk about what a great upset it was. Let’s hope we get a better Day 2.
