March Madness betting continues this evening as the first round of action comes to a close.  We’ll have more March Madness betting this weekend along with NBA, NHL, NASCAR and MMA.  For now, we’ll take a look at 9:55 Eastern/6:55 Pacific start time game between Louisville and California.  This morning all of the sports media was in a lather over the dismal first day performance of the Big East.  That’ll be the ‘hook’ among lazy sports media types for at least the next few days, and whenever a Big East team does something right they’ll talk about how they’ve avoided the ‘jinx’ that befell Georgetown, Marquette and Notre Dame on opening day.  They’ll wring their hands about how Villanova barely escaped Robert Morris–a very good mid-major program that could be to this decade what the College of Charleston was under John Kresse during the 1990’s.  There’s nothing wrong with the Big East, other that they were the beneficiary of the crooked NCAA selection process that gave them more bids than they deserved.   Louisville may not have really deserved a bid, finishing at 20-12 overall and 6th in the Big East but now that they’re here look for them to win a few games.  Cal finished first in the Pac 10 with a 23-10 record overall.

Utah State faces yet another team called the ‘Aggies’ after facing the New Mexico State Aggies several times during the WAC season.  I’ve had this play circled in silver Sharpie ink since the opening round lines were posted.  Utah State lost the WAC tourney to the aforementioned NMSU Aggies but fortunately got the at large bid they deserved.  Utah State finished 27-7 SU this year, while Texas A&M finished 23-9 overall and fourth in the Big 12.  These teams will go at it at 1:55 Pacific/4:55 Eastern.

UTAH STATE VS. TEXAS A&M:

The Seattle Seahawks may have found their quarterback of the future. His name is Charlie Whitehurst. Who?

The Chargers shipped their third-string signal caller to the Pacific Northwest in exchange for a second-round pick this April, and what is rumored to be a third-rounder next year. All for a guy who has yet to toss a pass in a meaningful game.

The first day of March Madness betting is in the books and we’ll move on to early action for Friday.  Today we’ve got a great potential upset of a higher seed as Purdue takes on Sienna from the MAAC.  Just a warning–if you go looking for a Siena cheerleader on the Internet be advised that there’s a surprising number of adult film actresses named ‘Sienna’ that have played cheerleaders at various points in their career.

As was the case yesterday, we’ll be back later with more March Madness betting action so check back throughout the day for the latest winning free picks.

SIENA VS. PURDUE–11:30 AM PACIFIC/2:30 PM EASTERN

Oh, ain’t March Madness grand? Well, not if you are on Vanderbilt’s side of the fence, but still, even Kevin Stallings has to tip his hat to Danero Thomas’ big-time shot. It was a fantastic ending to a great game, which featured a great deal of back-and-forth. Murray State pretty much controlled the game; although, a late Vanderbilt run put them in the position of needing Thomas’ heroics.

And Danero, well, delivered with an “ONIONS” shot that would’ve made Bill Raftery proud.

While the shot was indeed impressive, another thing that caught my attention was how quick YouTube had videos of it up. If the elapsed time was over 5 minutes, I’ll be pretty surprised. While I have some incredibly fond memories of early/mid 90s March Madness, enjoying it with the modern technological amenities available to us is pretty damn awesome — much like Thomas’ shot.