Welcome back, college sports fans. Yesterday was a crazy day. A double-overtime upset by Virginia (10th seed) over Iowa (2), three one-possession games, three more single-digit games, and all four 1-seed teams blowing out their competition: UCONN over Syracuse 98-45, South Carolina over Southern Cal 101-61, BYU (WBIT) over Missouri 93-75, and UCLA over Oklahoma St (87-68). With 16 games yesterday there are just 43 Women’s teams left alive. 40 more games to crown 3 champions. The Men were off yesterday and have 32 teams remaining, so 29 more to crown their 3 champions.
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Today is a much smaller slate with just 3 Women’s and 2 Men’s games – all NIT. In the tables below, the Conf and Seeds columns are in the same order as the Games column. A “U” in the Seeds column indicates an unseeded team – the Women’s NIT does not seed any team, oddly enough, while the Men’s NIT seeds 50%. There are two predictive metrics in GCR basketball world, the Score and the RPIF. While we don’t show those metrics in the table (we try to keep the number of columns to a minimum for readability), we use them to predict the winner. However, the metrics are based on different algorithms and do not always agree with each other. When that happens, we post “NPre”.
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Yesterday the GCR was 9-6 (.600) missing Virginia/Iowa, Notre Dame/Ohio St, Kentucky/West Virginia, La Salle/Binghamton, Loyola Chicago/Fla Gulf Coast, and Geo Wash/S Indiana. The less than stellar day dropped the total to 173-72 (.706). The Women’s NIT has 48 teams, so Round 1 was 16 games dropping the active teams to 32 and the bye-teams join in Round 2. These three games today finish that round which will give us the NIT Sweet 16, which jumps tomorrow. The games are home games for the second team listed in the Games column.
| Tour/ Round | Time | Women’s Games (All Times Eastern) | Conf | Seeds | Pred |
| NIT/R2 | 6:30 | MD Eastern (20-14/165) / Youngstown St (24-9/73) | MEAC/HOR | U/U | YST |
| NIT/R2 | 7:00 | FIU (21-11/106) / Abilene Chr (23-10/87) | CUSA/WAC | U/U | NPre |
| NIT/R2 | 7:00 | South Alabama (17-18/216) / Fort Wayne (20-13/147) | SUN/HOR | U/U | FW |
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Yesterday was an off day for the Men keeping our prediction record at 178-84 (.679). Their NIT started with 32 teams, finished Round 2 (Sweet 16) Sunday, and are starting their quarterfinals today with 2 games. The other two games of the QF are tomorrow. Both games are home games for the second team listed (higher seed) in the Games column. Note: Wichita St and Tulsa are both in the American Athletic Conference, so AAC is listed just once in the Conf column.
| Tour/ Round | Time | Men’s Games (All Times Eastern) | Conf | Seeds | Pred |
| NIT/QF | 7:00 | Wichita St (24-10/68) / Tulsa (28-7/49) | AAC | 3/1 | TULS |
| NIT/QF | 9:00 | St Josephs (24-11/98) / New Mexico (25-10/48) | A10/MTW | U/1 | NMEX |
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With just 69 remaining over the next 13 days, the number of games per day will be smaller than we have seen so far. But these games are deeper in the tournament with more pressure to keep winning. After today, every team (with the exception of the 8 teams in the Men’s CBC which doesn’t start until April 1) will have at least one tournament win this season. They’ve tasted victory. They’ve seen the defeated looks in their opponent’s eyes. Both Men’s and Women’s NCAA teams are poised for the Sweet 16 – every team feels like they have a realistic shot at the title. The Men’s NIT is starting their Elite 8 today – every team feels they can win. The Women’s NIT, after today’s games, will have their Sweet 16 set – every team that makes it that far feels they can win. The WBIT are about to begin their Elite 8 – every team can win. Even the late-starting CBC only has 8 teams – 3 wins and a title. This is what we as fans wait the for in the cold of winter. This is what the players put the summer practices in for, what they hit the weight rooms at 6:00am for, and what they endure the coach’s wrath for a lapse in attention or execution for. 75 teams remaining, 69 games, 69 lose and go home, 6 get to raise a championship banner. All in 13 days. Keep your seat belts on, because the Madness is just beginning
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That’s it for today. Tune in tomorrow for the six games on the slate. Thank you for reading and sharing with others, JoJo and G.
