Three down. Twenty-nine to go. The games are:
• Tennessee vs. Winthrop
• Florida vs. South Alabama
• Nevada vs. Montana
• Marquette vs. Alabama. (Late start.)
Full live-blog is after the jump. Hop in with all your comments as well. Let's do it.
You're all once again encouraged to tips@deadspin.com with your own thoughts and observations, by the way.
6:00 p.m.: And that's gonna take care of Alabama-Marquette too. Big East 0-2, SEC 2-0. Alabama 90, Marquette 85. And that's our first day. They get a Bruin next. Will it be a cute Bruin, or an angry Bruin? We shall soon find out!
And that's us. Signing off on live-blogging until tomorrow. Thanks for hanging out.
5:57 p.m.: Oh, Montana 87, Nevada 79, by the way. Grizzled!
5:52 p.m.: Golden Warriors — which is what we're going to call them the rest of their time in this tournament, which very well could be about 19.2 seconds — have the ball down by three with precisely that amount of time left. No timeouts either.
5:50 p.m.: Yipes. Marquette down by one, with the ball. Where's William Gates? Hoop Dreams, darlin'.
5:47 p.m.: That happened very, very fast: Marquette drained two threes to bring it within one. Alabama got a basket back, but Eagles are on the line, down two, with less than a minute left.
We've been doing this for six straight hours, which is why we just used "very, very."
5:43 p.m.: A Montana reader!
"Montana appears to be out Nevada-ing Nevada. Too bad no one in Missoula actually thought it would happen and picked against the Griz, damn it!
—Brad
P.S. that s only 24 words because Nevada-ing isn t really a word."
Marquette still hanging in, actually. Alabama's tendency to Brett Favre inbounds passes right to the Golden Eagles/Gold/Warriors isn't helping. Still, Tide up by seven with 2 1/2 left.
5:38 p.m.: All right, we might feel comfortable in starting to do the obnoxious "This Conference Sucks!" maxim if Marquette loses this game, which is looks like they're going to. That's Seton Hall being drilled, and now this.
Meanwhile Nick Fazekas' career is just about over. He doesn't seem like a pro to us. Sorry. He doesn't.
5:36 p.m.: Tom Crean is such an odd name, isn't it? Well, not the Tom part. The Crean part. OK, maybe we've been doing this too long today.
We love the idea, by the way, that Jay Bilas grew up wanting to be Bill Raftery. He's doing an excellent job at it. Not the worst thing in the world.
5:29 p.m.: Montana up six on Nevada. We're gonna ask anyone actually in the state of Montana right now to email us. We'll let you say 25 words on this here live blog, whatever you want. If they win, you get 50. We're very generous here.
5:27: We're legitimately depressed by that Winthrop loss. That kind of broke our hearts a bit. Anyway, apparently that Florida game ended an hour ago. We completely hadn't noticed. Florida 76, South Alabama 50, as if it matters. Dicks.
Sorry. We're taking our Winthrop frustration out on you.
5:23: RIDICULOUS shot by Chris Lofton — not James' son — gives Tennessee the lead. The team that's favored is not the one who is supposed to hit that shot; the underdog is. Aw, Winthrop. You were almost so charming. Tennessee 63, Winthrop 61.
5:21: While we were tied up with that game, the other games inched somewhat closer. Montana is up seven on Nevada, and somehow, Alabama and Marquette are within one of each other.
5:18: Yipes. Still tied. Less than 10 seconds. Yeah. This game has been kind of sloppy. Still fun, though.
5:17: Sixty-one seconds left. Pearl calls timeout and oozes onto the floor. Tie game. There are WAY too many Bradshaws in this game. Bet they're still all better actors than Terry, though.
5:14: Under a minute left! Rock!
5:12: A couple people have pointed out that this Winthrop game hasn't necessarily been the most well-played game, and that's probably true. But it has been close the whole way through, and that's enough.
5:10: Well, we're gonna type anyway. Winthrop and Tennessee tied up with 2:4 left to go. Lots of damp, aromatic business happening on the Volunteer bench.
5:05: We were just informed that our Movable Type server is down and we're not updating. Perfect timing!
5:01 p.m.: Some poor bastard is stuck watching the Florida-South Alabama game. He reports:
"This dog of game between UF and USA is being overhyped by the announcers while we watch the score of the Winthrop-UT score slowly tick above.
So far:
-The coaches are friends! Really! Close, personal friends!
-Bill Belichek spoke to the Florida team! Really! Visiting Urban Meyer! Wow!
-At one point, the number of shots made by USA (12) was less than their turnovers that moment (13). That's right after one JAX announcer kept harping on how USA is "hanging around" when they went down by 12."
4:58 p.m.: An ad for CSTV just encouraged viewers to "get your degree in Madness." That had to have been a Judas Priest song, at some point.
4:54 p.m.: Florida is pulling away; they're up by 15 with eight minutes left in what has without a doubt been the most boring game of the day. (We've watched it for about 35 seconds today.) Montana's back from halftime, and Winthrop ... up by two with 7:48. Like clockwork, we tell you.
4:50 p.m.: Excellent point on a MMOD problem that's coming up:
"So here's a slight problem with MMOD. My local CBS is supposed to be showing the Marquette game, but after showing it for a little, they cut to the Winthrop game because it's clearly better. However, MMOD still thinks I'm seeing Marquette and is blacking me out..."
4:44 p.m.: This Winthrop game is completely awesome, and we're not just saying that because we're so goddamned hip. We don't think a team's been leading by more than three points in an hour. Honeslty, if we didn't know either one of these teams, and there were no uniforms ... well, that would be a bunch of naked players. We don't want that.
What we mean is that we would have no idea which is the No. 2 seed and which is the No. 15 seed had someone not told us. Volunteers up by one right now, going into the 11-minute TV timeout.
4:37 p.m.: Since we're not really gonna update the front page of the site until these games are over with, here's a couple fun links for you:
First: A Google Map of all 64 teams. We don't know what this means, but we like maps.
Second: The Mighty MJD on Randy Moss' agent: "Randy Moss To Agent: You Are My Ambassador Of Crack, Man"
4:30 p.m.: The Alabama-Marquette game has hit that "we're going to do about a five-second look-in here" point; Marquette's down 12, and it's not particularly attractive either.
Not to take away from Deadspin reader favorite Winthrop, but we're kind of crushing on Montana right now. They're like Nevada if Nevada were an underdog and didn't have a best player whose grandfather fought for the Axis Powers.
4:26 p.m.: Nothing is more amusing to us than being called a hipster. Realize, we own every book Andy Rooney has ever written. Anyway, a "lifer" Winthrop watcher writes in:
"I go to a Big South school (Liberty), so unlike the rest of the nation, I've seen Winthrop all year. I just want to say that all you prick hipsters better hope your luck keeps up, because trust me, THERE ARE TWO WINTHROPS. The Winthrop we're watching right now is the Winthrop the shitkickers picked to upset, but there's another Winthrop that...well, let's just say got their ass handed to them by a couple of the worst teams in the conference. Good luck hipsters!"
Actually, compared to Liberty students ... yeah, maybe we are kind of hip. Of course, so is our dad.
4:22 p.m.: We know the updates have slowed slightly it's because there's just so many games going on. It's making us really dizzy. The Winthrop-Tennessee second half has tipped off; honestly, if Winthrop wins, we're gonna do a whole post just calling out the Deadspin commenters who got the game right — and emphatically so.
4:16 p.m.: You know what? We think we've figured out how the people behind the MMOD Boss Button think they're fooling with that fake Excel spread sheet: People who work for CBS Online and have therefore never used a spread sheet.
4:09 p.m.: It's beginning to look kind of ugly out there for the Big East. Seton Hall went down big, and Marquette is down nine early to Alabama. That whole conference is this confused mashup anyway.
South Alabama is hanging in with Florida, and Montana — they're grizzled! — is up 11 on Nevada.
3:59 p.m.: Here's one of the better things we've heard today: "Dear CBS: On behalf of everyplace that isn't California right now, it is not what we would refer to as a 'hardship' if you have to stand outside in San Diego weather for two hours waiting to watch college basketball, so try not to present it as such... thanks."
3:56 p.m.: For the first time today, there are four games on. IT's starting to get stressful in here. You Winthrop boosters — of which there were many on our comment boards — can feel smart; they're only down by two with 40 seconds before halftime.
3:54 p.m.: Not to be assholes here, but ... well, this is ESPN's Mobile-optimized tournament scoreboard right now. Well worth the cash, we think.
3:50 p.m.: As the Marquette-Alabama comes close to starting, Jay Bilas and Dick Enberg appear on our screens for the first time. We like both these guys — not just because they were the crew for the Illinois-Arizona game last year — and we'd like to remind you of one of our favorite posts of all time: The horrifying similarity between Bilas and G.O.B. from "Arrested Development."
3:45 p.m.: We know, we know, we're biased. But seriously now: What the hell is wrong with Bruce Pearl. One would legitimately think it impossible to sweat that much. Imagine if he actually played. He just wiped his face of with two towels, both of which immediately turned to plasma-like substances.
3:42 p.m.: OK, we finally used the bathroom. We were probably a bit overdue there.
Back to the mailbag: "I'm at work, using a Mac. Cant get MMOD from here, so I'm following the game via ESPN.com Scoreboard, with live updates (Shoot me now). I'm not sure whats worse, though. Trying to follow the games like this, or reading the following line on a repeated basis: [Players name] made Two Point Dunk Shot. "
3:35 p.m.: Ladies and gentlemen, your new least favorite Deadspin reader:
"it is a really great feeling being logged in to mmod on my computer...not because im watching it, im watching all i need here on my television. i just like knowing that i am stopping some poor sap at work right now from watching the tourney, all so i can listen to clark kellogg while playing internet poker."
Ha. That's so evil.
3:32 p.m.: From a reader:
"i havent watched a single Tenn. game all year, and just after watching them for 20 seconds i already hate them. this hatrid is purely due to the fact that they have two white players on the court who are wearing the shorts longer then scotty thurman used to."
3:26 p.m.: Another reason we love the NCAA tourney: That there's a "trendy" No. 16 pick (Oral Roberts) and a "trendy" No. 15 pick, Winthrop, who is beating Tennessee by two right now. Honestly: None of you know anything about Winthrop, yet you're telling all your friends that you "saw this coming." Once again: The NCAA tourney RULES.
3:21 p.m.: We know that it's tourney time, because we got a variation of this email 27 emails in a span of 76 seconds — and that's an exact figure:
Fucking CBS! They just cut from the double overtime game with the start of some other game. I will fire bomb their offices and make their children into our slaves!
3:12 p.m.: The double-overtime game with BC means we're heading right back into this one. Tennessee-Winthrop. Bruce Pearl is not transparently sweat-stained yet. We still think the guy freaks us out, and as an Illinois fan, we're certain he'll be found out someday.