Send a bouquet to your McNeese State Cowboys this a.m., on account of they saved America from the complete absence of lovely chaos yesterday. Woulda been sheer Dullsville without 'em.
This is because the Cowboys got to the finish line ahead of Clemson on the first day of the NCAA Tournament, meaning Da Tournament scored its requisite 12-over-5 upset right off the hop. It also redeemed, sort of, a chalky day of disappointing adherence to form and heavyweight-flexing snoozers.
Houston, one of the four 1-seeds, led the latter by mashing16-seed SIU-Edwardsville by 38. Auburn, another of the 1-seeds, narrowly escaped another of the 16-seeds, Alabama State, by 20. No. 2 seed St. John's erased Omaha by 30 to avoid the 15-over-2 upset; another 2-seed, Tennessee dismissed Wofford by 15; 3-seed Wisconsin Big Sky-ed Montana by 19.
Heck. Even Purdue, a favorite of bracketeers to succumb to first-round Madness, refused to go off script.
The Boilermakers have lost in the first round to double-digit seeds two of the last three years -- two years ago they became only the second 1-seed in tournament history to lose to a 16-seed, Fairleigh Dickinson -- but this time, nah. A 29-win High Point team hung around and hung around, but Purdue used its Big Ten size, strength and depth to pull away late and win by a dozen, 75-63.
On another day when the 4-seed Boilers bricked it up from the 3-point arc (5 of 15), they paint-balled the Panthers into a coma, outrebounding them 45-24 and outscoring them 20-8 on second-chance points. Trey Kaufman-Renn led the charge with 21 points and eight boards; Cam Heide put up a double-double (11 and 10) off the bench; and point guard Braden Smith finished with 20 points, six assists, three rebounds and two steals despite sputter-y 6-of-19 shooting.
Now Purdue gets McNeese to go to the Sweet Sixteen, and, hey, let's talk some more about those Cowboys. A 28-win team facing a 27-win ACC school should have meant see-ya-later, but McNeese held the Clemsons to 13 points in the first half, led by an astounding 18 at the break, and needed every bit of it to survive a frantic second-half comeback by the Tigers.
The final was 69-67, and Clemson alums will argue all day that if the game had lasted 41 minutes, their guys would have upheld the form chart and made it an even duller Day 1. Unfortunately for them, the college basketball rules are pretty clear on the matter: Only 40 minutes need apply, excepting ties.
"But Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "What about 11-seed Drake knocking out 6-seed Missouri by 10? Doesn't that count as lovely chaos? Ditto 9-seed Creighton blowing out 8-seed Louisville, whom everyone thought was criminally under-seeded?"
Sorry, no dice. Drake came in 31-3, so beating a 12-loss Missouri squad by 10 hardly qualifies as chaos, lovely or otherwise. Creighton blackjacking Lull-ville by 14 comes closer, but, come on, it's still just a 9 beating an 8. Robins in spring are rarer.
Today?
Well, lovely chaos is still waiting for its curtain call. Cross your fingers.
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