The Madness Continues...

Just got a call from Ronnie in Vegas. He was at some rat hole sports book and put a couple of bets down for me. I have:

UNLV +2 over Georgia Tech (how a 7-seed is an underdog to a 10 I’ll never know, but I’ll take the points any day. By the way, as I write this, UNLV is up 31-17 with 2 minutes to go in the half)

I also have Long Beach State + 8 over (what I consider to be) a highly overrated Tennessee Volunteers Squad. It should be noted that Ronnie put $50 on his Vols, so this should make for an interesting call from my bro, coming live from the Caesar’s Palace sports book in about three hours.

I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am to see one of the greatest coaches in St. John’s history, live all day on The Score. Not since Sweet Lou Carnesecca were the Johnnies in such good hands, and it was sad to see him go, particularly since his dismissal was absolutely no fault of his own. It’s just not the same tuning into the once-a-year nationally televised Johnies game without seeing Uncle Phil marching up and down the court with his arms crossed, looking like he’s about to strangle Will for getting Carleton a job as a male stripper. I’m seriously considering writing in to The Score to ask him about his year coaching Ron Artest, just to see if we can get that crazed look in his eyes again.


A few quick notes on the first day of the tourney:

A pretty non-descript opening day, especially considering everything that went down last year. I had the VCU upset in my bracket, mainly because love nothing more than watching Duke go down in the tournament. My other upsets didn’t exactly pan out, but Davidson made a game of it, and the mini-Del Curry was absolutely off his ass. He’ll be fun to watch for the next 3 years.

I managed to go 13-16, and only lost one sweet sixteen pick (my long-shot ODU, which looks ridiculous in retrospect)

When I last spoke to Foley (at 9:30 last night), he owed me three beverages to my one. And if I know Foley the way I think I do, chances are he took BYU over Xavier, primarily because he models his game after a young Hoffa Araujo. So it could be up to four heading into today’s action.

If you want to know what March Madness is all about, you have to check out The Sports Guy’s running diary from yesterday’s action. His two buddies flew in from out of town, and when you factor in the 3-hour time difference, his peanut gallery started drinking at 9 in the morning, making for some fantastic reading. Full of basketball acumen, pop-culture commentary, Borat references, and inappropriate Oral Robets jokes. Vintage Simmons.