NCAA Tournament Opening Day: Your 12 Hour Marathon

Shawn Siegel — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 01:43:08 -0400

With 16 games spread over 12 hours on 4 networks, the opening day* of the NCAA Tournament can be a lot to handle. Here's what to expect throughout the day:

6:45 - Alarm goes off. Damn, you forgot to reset the alarm even though you're talking the day off from work. That's annoying.

8:30 - Your spouse leaves for work. "Really honey? You're going to sit around and watch basketball all day?" Damn right you are.

11:00 - You finally roll out of bed after falling back asleep.

11:15 - Oh crap, you signed up for a handful of contests but forgot to submit all the brackets. Don't worry, late is better than never.

12:00 - Pre-game starts. All you can think is, "Seth Davis still works for CBS? Who did he know to get that job anyways?"**

12:15 - Murray St vs Colorado St tips off. You realize Isaiah Canaan is really good at basketball, but Bill Raftery is better at announcing.

12:40 - You scramble to figure out where TruTV is. Scrolling through the cable guide into the 800's yields nothing, so you go online to figure it out. The connection is slow and you're frustrated.

1:00 - Twenty minutes late, you finally get a peek at Kansas St vs Southern Miss. You can't help but think its a slap in the face to Len Elmore that they assigned Reggie Miller to do color commentary alongside him. They even let Jim Spanarkel go solo.

1:30 - Since you were busy filling out brackets, you forgot to eat. Pizza's always a good call.

1:40 - Louisville vs Davidson starts. You smartly picked Davidson to pull off the upset, so you focus on this game.

2:05 - Dang, that Davidson pick is looking pretty awful, so you flip back to the end of the Murray St game.

2:15 - The pizza you ordered is running late. That place always takes forever.

2:30 - Pizza comes, but they gave you mushrooms instead of pepperoni. And Davidson only has 25 points at half. Why did CollegeHoops.net pick that upset?? You're pissed.

3:00 - It's half-time of Wisconsin vs. Montana and Marquette vs BYU has just started. CBS is recapping how BYU came back to beat Iona. Even two days later, the collapse still seems impossible.

3:30 - Your spouse calls. "You're still watching basketball?" Damn right you are.

3:45 - Bathroom break. Too much pizza.

4:10 - Even without Fab Melo, Syracuse vs UNC Asheville is a blowout and BYU looks spent. New Mexico vs Long Beach St just started. This one has promise.

4:15 - Bathroom break again. Too much beer.

5:00 - Long Beach St is looking pretty damn good. You initially picked them in your brackets, but changed it at the last minute. Yeah, that's about right.

5:45 - Long Beach is going to pull of the upset. And Vanderbilt vs Harvard is looking extremely interesting as well. A real nail-biter. Finally, March is here.

6:15 - Harvard will not go away. The announcers are talking about Vandy's John Jenkins, Jeff Taylor, and Festus Ezeli as potential NBA players, but you just dont see it. The game comes down to the final minute..

6:25 - Your friend calls: Did you see that finish? Holy *&%*%*, I cannot believe that happened. Wow, I love March Madnesss.

6:45 - Shoot, you were supposed to at least do a couple things around the house while you were home. That light bulb's not going to change itself. Or maybe it is, basketball's starting in 5.

7:00 - Kentucky's up 15-2 on WKU. You hate these stupid 1 vs 16 games, but at least Raftery is amusing.

7:15 - A mad rush of games is starting within 15 minutes of each other: Wichita St vs VCU, Gonzaga vs West Virginia, and Baylor vs South Dakota St. You picked both VCU and South Dakota St to pull off the upsets, so this is a major conflict.

7:30 - You settle on the VCU game. Solid choice.

7:35 - You can't get enough of Greg Anthony's March Monotony commercial. Epic.

7:40 - Hungry and thirsty. But you've already had 5 slices and you've finished off the beer. So what, order yourself another pizza. You also ask your spouse if they could please get you more beer. They say no.

7:50 - Studio break. You know Charles Barkley is looking at Davis thinking, this guy doesn't know what the heck he's talking about. And you know Davis is thinking the exact same thing.

8:15 - Anthony Davis has 8 blocked shots for Kentucky. Not a good sign for WKU. Your South Dakota St upset has gone to crap, why was Nate Wolters hyped up as a hidden gem. But at least VCU is giving Wichita St a real run for their money.

8:40 - As good as the VCU game is, your eyes are fading. You run to the bathroom to splash water in your face. It helps, but you need a sugar kick. A couple of regular sodas should do the trick.

9:15 - Alright, so one of your upsets worked. You go online to check your brackets. In your CBS pools, you're right in the mix. The internet is slow though, probably time to stop using a 56k modem.

9:25 - Temporarily bored. You go online again to check your brackets even though you just did 10 minutes ago.

9:35 - You've always liked UCONN's Jeremy Lamb, but you can't figure why he's not dominating Iowa St.

10:00 - Your spouse begs you to get off the couch. At least stretch out or something, they ask. Whatever you do, don't listen.

10:20 - Indiana vs New Mexico St has stolen your attention. The UCONN-Iowa St game is boring and Ohio St vs Loyola MD is even worse. Indiana is your surprise Final Four pick, but they're down by 14 after 10 minutes. Uh oh.

10:40 - Your really tired now, and your muscles are atrophying from sitting around all day. It doesnt help that your stomach is making all kinds of weird noises. UNLV vs Colorado is all tied up, but you're delirious at this point: all you can do is giggle at Spero Dedes' name.

11:00 - Indiana's making a furious comeback. Watford just hit a pair of threes to cut it to 3. Wendell McKines then fouls Cody Zeller going up for a dunk. Wait, that wasn't a foul? Are you #^&*&$ kidding me ref?? Who are these refs anyways? Do they get paid for this?

11:05 - Your spouse just said good night to you but it didn't even register, you're still pissed about that call.

2:00 - Good work, you fell asleep on the couch and missed the end of the game. Did Indiana come back? Time to head online to check the boxscores and your bracket..

The End.

* Yes, I know the Tournament officially started with the First Four. But those games are like animatronics on the line to Space Mountain, just something to distract while you wait for the ride to begin.

first round

NCAA Tournament Opening Day: Your 12 Hour Marathon