The Tournament Has Seriously Been Lacking Magic

By Brian Powell
Spencer and Shanoff already covered the most exciting underdog from last night in the Belmont Bruins, so I’m going to look into the most disappointing one: the George Mason Patriots.
When I caught this pregame speech by Jim Laranaga it instantly took me back to Mason’s 2006 run, and I was excited again after a day of lackluster basketball:

Well that energy was completely sucked out of me within the first four minutes of the game. The reason I’m pointing this out isn’t to rag on Mason, but to point out that once Duke imposed their will after toying with Belmont for 39-plus minutes, Cinderella might be dead.
Quick name me last year’s Cinderella! Too late, there wasn’t one. The lowest seed to make it to the Sweet Sixteen was 7-seeded UNLV and there was really only two upsets in the first round (Winthrop and VCU).
Yesterday, there were none (K-State over USC was not an upset, I’m sorry). The “magic” that Laranaga referred to in the above speech appears to be gone for the moment, and that’s really a shame. I like the magic, I like the mysticism, and that’s probably the reason I got only 10 picks correct out of a possible 16 yesterday.
Hopefully today’s games prove me wrong because I’ve got another three upsets penciled in (Siena, St. Joes and St. Marys, if you must know).
(Video H/T to Hugging Harold Reynolds)↵