After Thursday was, in my opinion, a rather boring start to the 2008 NCAA Tournament, Friday came through with the excitement that Thursday lacked. #10 Davidson pulled off the first upset of the day beating #7 Gonzaga, but the Wildcats were not the only double-digit seed to advance on Friday. #12 Western Kentucky had a big lead on #5 Drake only to see the Bulldogs force overtime. Drake led in OT before a buzzer-beating 3-point shot gave WKU the win. On the same court in the next game, #4 Connecticut and #13 San Diego faced off. A fan of mid-majors myself, not even I picked this upset on a single one of my brackets as I felt that a battle-tested UConn with Jim Calhoun coaching could not be beat by the team that I felt was, at best, 3rd-best in the WCC. But the Toreros proved to be up to the task as UConn forced OT and led late in the overtime period before a buzzer-beating 2- point jumper gave #13 San Diego the win. In the after-dinner games, another #13 seed suprised the nation as Siena took down #4 Vanderbilt by a final score of 83- 62. Every time Vandy made a run the Saints had an answer, and Siena advances to play on Sunday.
With games complete for the first round of the 2008 NCAA Tournament, we have six double-digit seeds advancing to play the in second round. Two of those teams, #12 WKU and #13 San Diego, will face off in the West Regional while #12 Villanova and #13 Siena will also face off in the Midwest. Villanova & Siena are joined in the Midwest Regionals by #10 Davidson and #11 Kansas State as all will play in the second round in the NCAA Tournament. On the other hand, the East and South Regionals have only teams seeded #1-9 continuing into the second round.

Kim Cloutier
Maria Kirilenko



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