With the first round of the 2005 NCAA tournament completed, I couldn’t have asked for better games. I knew it was going to be a great year for March Madness, but didn’t know it was going to be so special. I won’t go into too much detail because anyone who cares would be watching the action anyways, but here are a few highlights:

• Coach K of Duke tied Dean Smith for the most coaching wins in the history of the NCAA tournament with 65.
• North Carolina was the only #1 seed to completely control their first round game over a #16. Every other #1 looked to be in trouble for a good portion of the game. I’ve never seen this before. Usually the #1 vs. #16 match-ups are 20-30 point blowouts.
• No team scored 100 points.
• Upset specials included:
  • #14 Bucknell over #3 Kansas
  • #13 Vermont over #4 Syracuse
  • #12 Wisconsin-Milwaukee over #5 Alabama
  • #11 UAB over #6 LSU
  • #10 NC State over #7 Charlotte
  • #9 Mississippi State over #8 Stanford
  • #9 Nevada over #8 Texas
  • #9 Iowa State over #8 Minnesota
• Many other teams came back from 15+ point deficits to make the end of their game interesting.

College basketball is a true joy for me to watch. The power of confidence really shows during the games and this year, no team is safe from an upset. College athletes don’t get paid to play, so they are on the court playing for the love of the game. Just watch the emotions at the end of a game when the senior players from the losing team realize they’ve just participated in their final game.

My brackets are doing all right. In my main bracket I successfully picked 5 of the 8 upsets above and I swear that I wanted to pick Vermont over Syracuse, but just couldn’t do it. Now I wish I had. The problem with my brackets is that I chose too many upsets. Next year I’ll have to remember that about 2 upsets per region happen in the first round. I’m looking forward to the rest of the tournament.