NCAA Tournament - Day 1

Admittedly, things could have been more exciting, but not a bad start to the Tournament. There was some well-played basketball, but other than about 2 games, things were generally anti-climactic.

But on to the best game of the day, VCU upsetting Duke. For the most part, this game went exactly how I thought it would go... the pressure of VCU was very much disrupting Duke, but they were playing through it, knocking down shots, and had a lead for most of the ballgame. In the end, I thought Duke will be able to grit out the game. As it turns out, Eric Maynor was just a bit too quick for any of the Duke guards, and he was able to get off any shot he wanted, especially in the last couple of minutes when Duke was tired. In the last 2 minutes he scored twice right at the basket, and then of course got himself a great look to seal the ballgame and send VCU into the second round.

But other than that, the highlight of the day involved Dick Enberg... at one point he was doing a promo for the Evening News with Katie Couric, and you could just tell he was cringing as he had to say it. The transcript must have been something like:

Dick Enberg (cringing): How long would you wait for love? Tomorrow on the CBS Evening News, hear about a pair of soulmates who waited over 60 years.
Jay Bilas: That seems to be taking "playing hard to get" to a bit of an extreme.

Oh gosh, I laughed. Enberg's reluctant "do I really have to read this?" voice, coupled with the perfectly timed Bilas line. Sadly, this was one of the highlights of the day for me.

As a side note, guys like Dick Enberg and Keith Jackson are really old and sometimes screw stuff up, but there's never a game they announce that I don't enjoy (at least before Jackson retired). I could listen to Dick Enberg commentate paint drying and I would be entertained. The fact that he's with Jay Bilas (who I really like), and well needless to say I greatly enjoy that duo.

One more note, and that's to say that [obvious comment] the amount of commercials is just absolutely ridiculous. I mean, I know the point is to make money, but there's a point in time where enough is enough. For example, this sequence of events.

- It's halftime of Indiana/Gonzaga, so they switch over to Wright St/Pittsburgh.
- Halftime is about over, so they cut from Wright St/Pittsburgh to tell us that we'll go back to Indiana/Gonzaga after a commercial break.
- There's a long commercial break.
- Then they come back, flash the score, and say that the half will start after another commercial break.
- Then there was another long commercial break.

I can understand one commercial break (even though they did cut away from the game while it was right in the middle of the action), but 2 in a row? Is that really necessary?

But anyway, that was the story of day 1 in the Tourney... 2 good games, no real upsets (VCU over Duke wasn't all that shocking), and a lot of commercials. Hopefully Friday will be a little better.

Also, I'm not really a Duke hater by any means, but this video is hilarious. It's even better after you turn up the sound to hear the laughter after this Greg Paulus flop is shown in slow motion. Found over at The Big Lead.

dan

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