Forget the First Four farce: March Madness begins Thursday with 32 "second-round" contests taking place during the next two days. In terms of game action, that’s nearly half the entire tournament. Here is a primer to get you prepared.
Most popular upset picks (11 seeds and lower)
No. 11 Gonzaga over No. 6 St. John’s (Thursday): The Zags have been to 14 straight tournaments, while no player on St. John’s has been dancing. Gonzaga enters on a nine-game win streak while the Red Storm have split their past four, including a squirrelly win over Rutgers.
No. 12 Richmond over No. 5 Vanderbilt (Thursday): The Spiders have won 11 of 12, the lone defeat coming at No. 7 seed Temple. The Commodores have lost four of seven and their fate usually rests on the shooting touch of mercurial marksman John Jenkins.
No. 13 Belmont over No. 4 Wisconsin (Thursday): Someone said the single-most important statistic by which to evaluate teams is margin of victory. The Bruins have won 12 straight by an average of 20 points. Bucky, beware.
No. 12 Memphis over No. 5 Arizona (Friday): The Tigers had to win at UTEP in the Conference USA championship to earn this bid. That’s road-tough. Besides, 34-year-old coach Josh Pastner is an Arizona alum who spent six seasons on Lute Olson’s staff in Tucson.
…and one sleeper upset pick
No. 14 Wofford over No. 3 BYU (Thursday): The Jimmers appear mentally fatigued, having lost two of their past four, each time by 18. The Terriers, meanwhile, are the second-best 3-point bombers in the tournament (40.7 percent), after No. 1 overall seed Ohio State.
Speaking of which…
Only one player in the tournament shoots 50 percent or better from beyond the arc, and that’s Ohio State’s 6-foot guard Jon Diebler. The Buckeyes senior has made exactly half of his 3-pointers, draining 102 of 204 for 32-2 Ohio State. That’s an average of three per game.
Beware of blue crews
Granted, it’s a popular color, but the past seven national champions have worn uniforms whose predominant color is blue (Connecticut, Duke, Kansas, and Florida and North Carolina twice). The last non-blue hue crew to cut down the nets was Syracuse in 2004. The No. 1 overall seed, Ohio State, could break that trend.
Frequent flyer specials
Penn State and Temple, two Pennsylvania schools located less than 200 miles apart, will meet in Tucson, Ariz., some 2,400 miles to the southwest (but it’s warmer there).
A potential second-round matchup would pit UCLA and UCSB, two California state schools located 95 miles apart on the Pacific coast, in Tampa, 2,500 miles away on the Gulf Coast.
Least fortunately named player
Jason Brickman, Long Island University: The Blackbirds’ 5-foot-10 point guard is far more accurate than his surname suggests. He shoots 44.3 percent from the field, 40 percent from beyond the arc and 87.5 percent from the free-throw line.
Most curious scheduling
How much do Chicagoans love St. Patrick’s Day? They dye the river green. So mark it down under intriguing that the No. 2 seed Fighting Irish of Notre Dame, whose campus is located just 90 miles east (and whose alums saturate the Windy City), play the early game in Chicago, 12:40 p.m. local time, on Friday.
Jimmer déjà vu
In three games vs. San Diego State this season, BYU guard Jimmer Fredette averaged 29.3 points. On Thursday the Aztecs face another sharp-shooting guard from the Rocky Mountain region, Northern Colorado senior Devon Bietzel. The Big Sky MVP, Bietzel averages 21.4 points and shoots 38.4 percent from beyond the arc. Don’t foul him: Bietzel is the most accurate free-throw shooter (90.4 percent) in the tournament.
Best matchup if it were a battle of the bands
No. 1 Kansas vs. No. 16 Boston: Kansas may have the advantage on the hardwood, but "Carry On Our Wayward Son" and "Dust in the Wind" do not quite measure up against "More Than A Feeling," "Peace of Mind" and "Don’t Look Back." Then again, KU’s mascot name is the Jayhawks, and our alt-rocker demographic might suggest they’re the best of the three bands.
Good hands people
When Belmont meets Wisconsin in the Southeast regional, it will feature a matchup of two top 10 point guards in terms of assist-to-turnover ratio. The Badgers’ Jordan Taylor leads the nation (4.20:1) in that category. The Bruins’ Drew Hanlen (2.91:1) is seventh.
Standing out
The tallest player in the tournament is UCSB’s 7-foot-3 backup center Greg Somogyi, a native of Budapest, Hungary.
Something to prove
No. 12 seed Utah State (30-3) is one of only six schools in the tournament with at least 30 wins, but the Aggies have lost nine straight NCAA or NIT first-round games. They meet No. 5 seed Kansas State on Thursday in Tucson in the Southeast Regional.
