Good Morning, Stumpers!

DAY 1 of the Madness is in the books! Honestly, there wasn’t too much madness! Outside of (12) McNeese State stumpsetting (5) Clemson, nothing too crazy happened! (11) Drake also got a big win against (6) Missouri! We’ll go over those games, all the games, and then a lot more in today’s STUMP! The bracket group ended at 1035 entries! HUGE! May the best bracket win!

🏀 SGS Bracket Challenge 🏀 

🚨 Final Entries Count: 1035

After 16 games…

• We have 11 brackets tied for first place with 150 points! (15/16 on games! Very impressive!) Shoutout to “march20221”, “feelings”, “2”, “Luke meyer”, “Pickin All the Picks”, “Billion From Buffett”, “PURDUE”, and “john gilleland”

• Quick fact for you: With 1035 entries our bracket group was in the top 3% of bracket groups made size-wise! Just in Year 2! Pretty sweet! Let’s see if we can shock the world and have one of the World’s Greatest Brackets in our group again!

Today’s Rundown

What’s in today’s edition?

• 🏀 Day 1 Highlights From March Madness!

• 🍀 Celtics Sell for $6.1 Billion!

• 🇺🇸 USA Falls to Panama in Concacaf Nations League

• 📝 Another Quote, Song, Glue, that just makes absolute sense! AGAIN!

On This Day

On This Day…

🐐 One of the Goats Retires

There aren’t many players in the history of baseball who have the career records that Ichiro Suzuki has, but on this day in sports history, he hung up the cleats.

Ichiro retired on this day in 2019, when he hung it up he had totaled a record 4,367 base hits between his time in the Japanese league and the MLB. In his last game, the Mariners defeated the A’s, 5-4 in Tokyo, Japan.

Today’s Trivia

🧠 Test your sports knowledge…

Yesterday’s Trivia Answer: (B) No. SO FAR! Still, two more number-one seeds left to play!

Before We Dive In…

👀 You GOTTA see these!

• 🏀 We live for celebrations like this! MARCH!

• 🏀 Honestly didn’t even realize this happened with everything going on yesterday…

• ⚾️ 7. DAYS. AWAY.

• 🐷 Anybody else catch this yesterday?!

🔍️ Stump Spotlight

March Madness

🏀 Day One

If we didn’t talk about every game, I would feel like we failed you. So here’s a little tidbit about EVERY. SINGLE. GAME.

(1) Houston, def. (16) SIU Edwardsville, 78-40: Thanks for showing up, Edwardsville.

(1) Auburn def. (16) Alabama State, 83-63: Auburn. Wagon. 23 from Miles Kelly for War Eagle.

(2) Tennessee def. (15) Wofford, 77-62: God I’m a sucker for a Wofford Terroir, but they stood no chance against the Chaz Lanier-led Volunteers, 29 points from the UTENN star.

(3) Wisconsin def. (14) Montana, 85-66: I love Montana as much as the next guy, but this Wisco team has experience and talent. Two dangerous things when combined in March. Badgers move on.

(4) Purdue def. (13) High Point, 75-63: This one was tight the whole game. High Point stayed in sticking distance the whole second half, but couldn’t make the run they needed to pull off the upset. Lots of tournament experience on this Boilermaker team.

(4) Texas A&M def. (13) Yale, 80-71: Sorry for anyone who may be an Aggies fan, but I think everyone was pulling for the Bulldogs in this one. I mean, the nation LOVES a good Ivy League upset in March. But it would be for not, A&M had too much for Yale to handle. Pharrel Payne (dope name) led all scorers with 25 for the Aggies.

(12) McNeese def. (5) Clemson, 69-67: Ah yes, the Will Wade McNeese State experience lives on for at least another 24 hours. If you watched this game and turned it off with 5 minutes to go, you may not believe this score. McNeese was up around 15-20 pretty much the whole game, but six-straight threes from Clemson made it tight. McNeese held on, but man it got sketchy there for a minute.

(6) BYU def. (11) VCU, 80-71: A tight back-and-forth one, as many had VCU as one of their upsets today. BYU shot 50% from the field and really handled the boards. Cougars keep dancing.

(11) Drake def. (6) Missouri, 67-57: SEC who? The Drake Bulldogs had this one from wire-to-wire. Mizzou got red-hot late, but Drake was able to hold them off just long enough to pull off the upset. We LOVE the underdog.

(10) Arkansas def. (7) Kansas, 79-72: This was a GOOD one. John Calipari vs Bill Self. Two legendary coaches leading their squads to battle in the NCAA Tournament. It was truly a game of runs, as Kansas scratched and clawed their way back into this one late in the second half and eventually took the lead. A late Arkansas run extended their lead and never looked back. WOOOOOOOOOOO PIG!

(9) Creighton def. (8) Louisville, 89-75: A historic turnaround of a season for Louisville is finally over. Creighton really never looked back in this one, as their veteran squad looked primed and ready for a run. Led by a non-traditional scorer, Jamiya Neal, who dropped 29 points on 11/16 shooting. GLUE!

(8) Gonzaga def. (9) Georgia, 89-68: Just a tough tough showing for UGA. Really was rooting for my guy Blue Cain! Not enough, Zags move on!

(7) UCLA def. (10) Utah State, 72-47: Another popular STUMPSET pick was the Utah State Aggies. The only thing upset about this game was the Utah State fans after the game, not a great showing. 4/31 from 3 didn’t help. This one was all UCLA! Bruins advance!

(2) St. John’s def. (15) Omaha, 83-53: This matchup started 7-0 Omaha! It remained close for the entire half. Not quite sure what Coach Pitino does in halftime locker rooms, but it wakes the fellas up. They were a completely different team in the second half and cruised by the trashcan thrashers from Omaha!

(5) Michigan def. (12) UC San Diego, 68-65: This was one of the better games all day! Michigan had a lead all game until UC San Diego brought it all the way back with 2 minutes to go! They even led by 1. It seemed like Tyler McGhie was going to turn into a household name! Michigan was too much down the stretch! Wolverines advance!

(3) Texas Tech def. (13) UNC Wilmington, 82-72: Another one where the underdog teased us late! This game ended at 12:55 AM on the East Coast, we have a fresh new slate in less than 12 hours! Only in March! Let’s run it back with a great day today!

The Hot Stove

🤑 Celtics Sell for $6.1 Billion

That price surpassed the previous record for the most paid for a franchise in North American sports history, and easily passed the number for control stake of an NBA team ($4 billion to buy the Suns two years ago). A group led by Bill Chisholm, managing partner as Symphony Technology Group, also includes Boston business leaders Rob Hale and Bruce Beal Jr. Crazy to think that the last ownership group bought the Celtics in 2002 for $360 million. Pretty sound investment to me, but I’m not great at math. More on the sale here

⚽️ Down Goes USA!

The United States has won the first three editions of the Concacaf Nations League, but with last night’s loss to Panama in the semifinals, the US will not be four-peating. The only shot on goal that Panama was able to produce all night ended up being the decisive one. Cecilio Waterman took a low shot in second-half stoppage time that beat US keeper Matt Turner and sent all of Panama into an absolute frenzy. Panama continues to be a thorn in the United States side, as they have dropped three of the last four to the Central American country. Here’s the highlight

🤝 NHL in Talks to Add Franchise in Houston

The NHL currently sits at 32 teams after adding Seattle and Las Vegas a few years back, and apparently are eyeing adding another two in the near future. It looks like Houston is one of the most logical choices for the league. American billionaire Dan Friedkin has emerged as a strong ownership option to bring the team to the city. Fredkin, the chairman and CEO of Gulf States Toyota, recently dipped his toes into the professional sports ownership lifestyle. By dip, I mean full submerge. His company currently owns two historic European football clubs: Everton and AS Roma. As of right now, Houston seems to be the most ready-to-go option for a new franchise, but New Orleans, Atlanta, Omaha, Cincinnati, and Kansas City have also had preliminary discussions with the league.

What To Watch

🏀 The NCAA Tournament.

• Men’s NCAA Tournament: Games start at 12:15 PM on CBS with (9) Creighton vs (8) Mississippi St, and will start every 30 minutes or so for the rest of the day until the last game, (12) Liberty vs (5) Oregon tips off at 10:00 PM. Here’s the whole schedule

• Women’s First Four: Day one of the women’s tournament will be on the ESPN networks all day long, starting with (11) Iowa State vs (6) Michigan, and going until (16) Southern takes on (1) UCLA at 10:00 PM! Here’s the whole schedule

🏀 NBA Basketball, on the NBAtv Network!

• Double Header on NBAtv: Rockets @ Heat (8:00 PM), Grizzlies @ Clippers (10:30 PM)

• More to Watch: Magic @ Wizards (7:00 PM), 76ers @ Spurs (8:00 PM), Nuggets @ Blazers (10:00 PM), Cavs @ Suns (10:00 PM)

⚾️ Spring Training Full Schedule

🏒 Only ONE Game, featured on NHL Network

• NHL Network: Blue Jackets vs Penguins (7:00 PM)

⚽️ Soccer or Futbol, whatever you may prefer

• NWSL: Portland Thorns vs Angel City (10:00 PM on PRIME)

⛳️ Day two of the VALSPAR Championship live from the BEAUTIFUL Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Florida. Here is your leaderboard!

The Moment You’ve Been Waiting For

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