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March Madness


Here's an indication of how unpredictable the first two days of this NCAA Tournament have been: of the more than 3.65 milion entries into ESPN's bracket challenge, the best anyone did was record 30 out of 32 correct. In fact, only about 50 people even did that well, and all but seven of the entries have already lost at least one Sweet 16 pick. It will be interested to see if anyone has a perfect Sweet 16 by the time the weekend is over.


One thing that's interesting about this year's tournament so far is that some things are playing out the way a lot of people had predicted, but in a more convoluted way than expected. For instance, it seemed many people had a gut feeling that Connecticut was not primed for a deep tournament run. Lo and behold, the Huskies got bounced early, but everyone assumed it would be Drake pulling off the mini-upset in Round 2. Few people expected upset wins by both San Diego and Western Kentucky yesterday.
Similarly, many folks saw Vanderbilt as overrated as a four seed, and the Commodores' early exit is validation of that. But most fans who picked against Vandy saw the team dropping its second round game to Clemson. Few predicted a Villanova-Siena matchup in the Midwest region.


For what it's worth, I got 24 of the first 32 games correct and now have 14 of my final 16 teams remaining. I'm predicting Purdue, West Virginia and Notre Dame to pull off upsets today, so we'll see if I'm still looking respectable by day's end.


-- Tim Lemke

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