Ottumwa, IA—The NCAAs are off and flying! How did yesterday’s 1st round games go down?Well…Are we all supposed to feel good about Yale “upsetting” Baylor in the first round of this year’s NCAA college basketball tournament? I don’t. If you look at the “pedigrees” of some of these Yalies, you’d see what I see.
The Yale team is mostly a bunch of pampered, suburban well-off white boys. Their Bios read like those of the Trump boys. Choate, Harvard-Westlake, Parsley Sage, Rosemary & Thyme. These are the “elite” prep schools of America, where captains of Industry send their boys for finishing. These are your Yale Bulldogs who dumped the Baylor Bears in round one. If Yale played Duke, it would be a wet dream for Aryan Nation at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
I’m not interested in that or in seeing Yale advance. I loved watching the kids from Arkansas-Little Rock take Purdue out of the mighty Big Ten (12?-I’m still calling it “Shea”) to double overtime before putting Purdue away for good. I haven’t seen Boilermakers go down that easily since Short Matt rode herd at the Steer on Main Street in Buffalo.
Florida Gulf Coast University, where admissions requirements include having purchased a full tank of Unleaded in the past 30 days, fell to the Blue Bloods of Tobacco Road. North Carolina, who should win this damn tournament but probably won’t-introduced reality to FGCU after the Eagles bombed Fairleigh Dickinson in the “play-in” round two nights earlier.
Names like Yogi Ferrell, Georges Niang and Nathan Adrian will supply the headlines over the next few days of this Big Dance. Iona‘s own AJ English showed he could personally hang with anyone in the country, but his supporting cast couldn’t help him overcome a strong Iowa State squad.
Seton Hall was predictably dispatched in the initial round by Gonzaga. FSA had this one pegged since Sunday. In spite of The Hall being the superior team, the NCAA Selection Committee sent them to the Mile high air and certain defeat at the hands of Gonzaga. I haven’t seen guys from Jersey disappear that fast since Sam Rothstein surfaced in Vegas. 
The University AT Buffalo, alma mater of several of us here at MtM, went toe to toe with Da U in Providence last night. The UB kids played tough and hung in for the entire game before falling to Miami. When you consider that UB’s Khalil Mack is now the NFL’s best Defensive player, and that Green Bay just re-signed James Starks, you’d feel as I do. This is the golden age of UB sports.
So there’s your quick roundup from the 1st day’s action. Today we’re certain to see upsets from the likes of Northern Iowa, and UNC-Asheville who will topple the poorly coached Villanova team.
I can’t wait…got my popcorn ready. Yesterday and today are two of the best days of the year for college hoops junkies like me and Leonardo DiCaprio.
