Dancin': Day Three

The important stuff:

• Player of the Day: (tie) Orlando Mendez-Valdez, Western Kentucky; Ty Lawson, UNC; JaJuan Johnson, Purdue. Mendez-Valdez scored 25, including seven of ten from downtown in the Hilltoppers' near upset of Gonzaga. Johnson scored 22, but more importantly had four blocks, including two on one posession when Washington was down only two. The most important one of these three is Lawson, who shook off the rust and scored 21 in the second half as LSU made the game close. If Lawson continues to play like this, Carolina should have a very good shot to breeze through to Detroit.
• Game of the Day: (tie) Texas-Duke and Western Kentucky-Gonzaga. On the first day, the best two games were the last, ditto the second day, ditto today. In my reimagined brackets, I had Texas and WKU winning. Both were very close. Texas had a three to lead that rimmed out and then failed to get a rebound, down three. Western Kentucky tied the game with six seconds left on a tip-in, but Gonzaga's Demetri Goodson took the ball the length of the floor to score with 0.9 seconds left.
• Most Problematic Commercial Effect: I'm probably the only person who is annoyed by this, but it's the Old Spice commercial with the centaur. When the guy reaches back and puts the bottle on his back, there's a slight bit of foam around the bottle. The foam never drips or dissipates. Even more, when he puts it down, the foam appears right at the second the bottle hits his back in the shape in which is stays for the rest of the commercial.
• Bracket Apologist: I had Clemson beating Oklahoma in my original bracket, so the only game in which my team was in today and lost was Purdue-Washington. The Huskies fell by two points. In my reimagined bracket, I lost on Texas (five points, but they had a shot to win) and Western Kentucky (two points on a near-buzzer beater). My brackets aren't great, but so far only Wake has lost for me in a game that wasn't close.
• Re-thinking Memphis: Nope, they had a serious physical advantage over Maryland. If they continue to shoot the way they have, they'll probably get to the Final Four, but if they continue to shoot the way they have, they'll also be the best team of all time.