Devin, for you an Omen: In 2003, Kansas barely survived an opening round game to Utah State, a tough 15 seed. That Jayhawk team, you'll remember, went all the way to the championship game (of that game we Shall Not Speak). So there's that for you.

For me, there's...nothing, really. Not yet. Kansas rolled, as every 1 seed in this tournament ever does, now and forever, amen. Not to disrespect the Vikings or anything, but Portland State, along with the other #16 seeds, is almost certainly not one of the top 64 teams in the country. Seth Greenberg, I feel your pain, and as a basketball fan, I'd much rather see a Kansas-Virginia Tech first round matchup. As a Kansas fan, of course, I'm happy Tech spent Thursday beating up on Morgan State in the NIT. On the other hand, Kansas was up 13-3 before the game was 5 mins in, and it was all downhill from there--when I saw in the game update that Tyrel Reed, the 10th man in Bill Self's 7-man rotation, had entered the game in the first half, I moved on to the Georgia game. When your first round game is so routine they don't even show highlights on Sports Center, it makes you start to wonder if it really happened at all...

Other than the Duke-Belmont excitement, the night pretty much went according to form. Only two lower-seeded teams advanced, both from the Big 12, and neither was a major upset; Texas A&M, to my mind better than a 9 seed anyway, won what's essentially a tossup, the 8-9 match, over Brigham Young, while Kansas State, playing only a couple hours from home, beat USC, mainly because K-State's two one-and-dones, Bill Walker and Michael Beasley, were better than USC's one, O.J. Mayo. Wonder if Tim Floyd still thinks one year of O.J. resulting in a first-round tourney exit was worth the complete loss of his dignity. 

On to day two, though before we go, in honor of Baylor's first-round exit and A&M's first-round success, we look back at what was the year's most exciting game before that Duke-Belmont barn-burner: Bears over Aggies in 5 OTS: