Day 372 -- Day one of the tournament...

• And the Perfect Bracket Watch may not even make it out of Day One.  After 15 seed Oral Roberts downed #2 Ohio State, only 2 brackets out of every 500 submitted to the NCAA pool remained perfect -- through six games.
• In the ESPN bracket, 95.2% picked Ohio State.
• 3.5% picked them to win the whole thing.
• As of the end of the afternoon (seven games), only about 91000 perfect brackets remained.
• There were a total of about 14.7 million ESPN brackets this year.  That is about a 15% reduction, even with the extra day, of the number of brackets in that pool from two years ago.  Still don't want to believe there is a boycott of Black Sports??
• And not helping matters in this regard...  The lawyer collating sexual assault lawsuits against DeShaun Watson now says the number of women involved is up to 12!!!  Someone...  PLEASE...  Get this to trial and get people like Roger Goodell on the stand.  Yes, Watson is responsible for his own conduct, but it is FAR PAST TIME that the entire toxic male sports culture of this country is put on legal trial.   
• There has actually been a serious discussion in the British House of Lords that violence toward women is so prevalent in British society that a blanket 6 PM male curfew may be proposed in the British Parliament.  Let THAT process...   
• And with #12 Oregon State downing #5 Tennessee, the number of perfect brackets which made it eight games is down to just 13,232 -- less than one-tenth of one percent.  One or two more upsets tonight may take out the rest!!   
• According to Jay Bilas, it appears one of the six referees who were removed from the tournament earlier in the week to be quarantined now has a rather severe case of COVID-19.
• And down goes #4 Purdue -- and with four games to go on Day One, only 1039 perfect brackets remain.
• By contrast:  Two years ago, over 42,000 perfect brackets made it through Day One.
• One of those final 1,039 brackets was a dog.  Seriously!!

Every year I fill out a bracket for Satchel, the family dog, based on mascots (dogs first, and then other animals.)

It's always funny if he beats someone in our pool.

Anyway, here's the face of someone with one of the 1039 remaining perfect brackets on ESPN: pic.twitter.com/TgBaMu0NCN

— Jay Rigdon (@jayrigdon5) March 20, 2021

• Regrettably, the dog's bracket took it's first error when Rutgers defeated Clemson.
• After that game, we are now down to just 466 perfect brackets with three games to go in Day One.  (Contrast that with the saga of "Center Road" at the last tournament.  Made it to the second game of Day Five before getting eliminated, and that's the longest verified perfect bracket in the history of the major online tournament bracket challenges.)
• And with another upset, #11 Syracuse destroying #6 San Diego State, 205 remain.
• Cal Baptist's perfect D1 women's season continues:  90-85 winners over New Mexico in the first round of the Women's NIT.  They will play the University of San Francisco tomorrow night in Fort Worth, TX.
• Down to 140 as Villanova avoided the 12-5 upset.
• And the final number for Day One is only 108 perfect brackets.  We'll see how many survive Day Two...