Day 1.

Not a bad day for the Big Ten, all told.  The conference was supposed to go 2-2 according to seeding, and did so, but with Michigan winning in a mild upset and Illinois losing to 12 seed Western Kentucky (is it still the fault of Eric Gordon and/or Kelvin Sampson, or has the statute of limitations passed?).  As I have said numerous times below, I don't feel obligated to root for all Big Ten teams, but I was particularly happy to see Michigan knock off a higher-seeded team from the invincible ACC.  I thought Minnesota was going to make a run at Texas as well.

Travis at Hammer and Rails reports that yesterday's win over Northern Iowa, which was more interesting at the end than the first 30 minutes would have suggested, was Purdue's 11th straight first round win, dating back to a 1993 loss to Rhode Island.  As Travis notes, the second round typically has been Purdue's Achilles heel (both since 1993 and even in some of Purdue's really good years under Keady), but that's a pretty solid accomplishment given that there have been a number of middling seeds in that era.

Today, Ohio State play Siena in the 8/9 game in Dayton, Michigan State plays Robert Morris in Minneapolis, and Wisconsin plays Florida State in Boise.