Waited until the first four play-in games of the NCAA Men's Tournament were complete before filling out brackets on various websites late into the night. I felt confident that some were good brackets, and went to sleep excited about the tournament starting late in the morning the next day.
The games started with Dayton playing Ohio State, and I had the Flyers upsetting the Buckeyes. I also had Harvard upsetting Cincinnati. Two key correct predictions down.
Things were going great as the morning and afternoon games finished up. My bracket was perfect, and I only had to make it through the evening games to finish day one without a loss.
But then, things went downhill and kept going.
North Carolina State couldn't hit free throws, blowing a big lead to Saint Louis. At nearly the same time, North Dakota State upset Oklahoma.
Just like that, my bracket featured two losses. Things did not get better as the weekend progressed.
The state of North Carolina kept kicking me while I was down, with Mercer upsetting Duke. Stephen F. Austin knocked out VCU, and just like that, my bracket was all jacked up.
On Saturday, Dayton went from being a first-round upset pick I was proud of to busting my bracket even more by upsetting Syracuse. Connecticut took out Villanova, which really killed my Sweet Sixteen in the East and South brackets.
On Sunday, the tournament went on to crush what spirit I had left.
Things started off with Kansas getting upset by Stanford—another Sweet Sixteen team gone.
Kentucky ripped the hearts out of small-school fans everywhere by beating Wichita State, taking out another Sweet Sixteen team.
Baylor finished the weekend by taking out Creighton and destroying more of my Sweet Sixteen. I have just one bracket with all my final four teams still alive.
The SEC has had the best showing in the opening games of the tournament—the conference sent three teams to the tournament, and all three are in the Sweet Sixteen. That ties the Big Ten and the Pac-12 for most teams in the Sweet Sixteen, but the Big Ten and Pac-12 each started out with six teams in the tournament.
This weekend's worst conferences have been the Big-12, ACC, Atlantic-10 and Big East. The Big-12 got the most bids into the tournament, but by the end of the weekend only two of those teams were still standing.
The ACC and Atlantic-10 got six bids each to start the tournament. Both conferences have just one team still in the running.
Wanting to be a basketball-only conference, the Big East basketball schools split from their football-playing members. Of the new Big East's four bids, none are into the Sweet Sixteen. The American Athletic Conference got two teams in the Sweet Sixteen out of four overall.
My billion dollar-winning bracket will have to wait until 2015. Until next season, college basketball players better practice those free throws.
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