Scott Cordischi On Sports: Your Guide To March Madness

Scott Cordischi On Sports: Your Guide To March Madness

I’ll never forget the scene at the old Tort’s Bar & Grill in Seekonk, MA about 12 or so years ago. It was a Thursday afternoon and I stopped by to see owners Mike and Mark Tortolani and to grab a bite to eat for lunch. When I walked in, I couldn’t believe my eyes!

Normally Tort’s had a sparse lunchtime crowd. They made their money on Thursday, Friday and Saturday night’s when the place was packed. But there was nothing sparse about this lunchtime crowd.

It was standing room only for lunch. Why? It was Tournament time and hundreds of people had taken their lunch break at Tort’s where every Tournament game was on TV. There were ooh’s and aah’s and plenty of cheers. It was quite a scene.

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The funny part about it all was that, while many said that they were only there for lunch, virtually none of them returned to work later that afternoon. You just couldn’t leave the action-packed excitement of the David vs. Goliath match-ups.

I later came to realize that this was a common occurrence every year at Tort’s on the Thursday and Friday of the opening round each year as I suspect it still is at many sports bars around southern New England.

If you can afford to take the time away from work to enjoy lunch on either of those days with your friends, I highly recommend it.

-Some of my all-time favorite college nicknames from Tournaments past include the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers and the Ragin’ Cajuns of Louisianna-Lafayette.

-The Indiana State Sycamores is another good one but they’re playing my Syracuse Orange in the opening round so, minus Larry Bird, I have nothing good to say about Indiana State.

-It’s a good thing that the Celtics won’t have to play back-to-back nights in the playoffs since they have performed so poorly in those situations during the regular season.

-Friar fans may remember PC’s run to the Final Four in 1987 when the fans of Austin Peay chanted, “let’s go Peay!”

-Let me see if I have this straight. The Bruins lost 3 straight, won 7 in a row and then dropped 4 straight before last night’s shootout win at Columbus. Is that about right?

-New Red Sox pitching coach Curt Young took a novel approach with Diasuke Matsuzaka before yesterday’s spring training game when he “advised” him to throw more strikes.

-Does the NFLPA really need to keep college players from attending next month’s NFL Draft? It’s a once in a lifetime deal for these young men. Why not let them enjoy the experience?

-If Ed Cooley can turn PC basketball into a winner and make them a semi-regular participant in the NCAA Tournament, he will be even more of a local legend than he already is.

-This from a URI fan: “I’m a little jealous of PC right now because when you change coaches there’s always that feeling of hope. Right now, I have no hope for the Rams to be a Tournament team anytime soon.”

-That’s the harsh reality for Jim Baron who is a rock solid coach and human being. He works in a bottom line business and the bottom line for Rhody fans is that he hasn’t taken them to the NCAA Tournament in his 10 years at the helm.

-Since the start of the 64-team format in 1985, a #16-seed has never defeated a #1-seed in 100 games. Never!

-Here are some other numbers for you as you get ready to fill out your bracket:
#1 seeds vs. #16 seeds (100-0) 100%
#2 seeds vs. #15 seeds (96-4)      96%
#3 seeds vs. #14 seeds (85-15)    85%
#4 seeds vs. #13 seeds (79-21)    79%
#5 seeds vs. #12 seeds (66-34)    66%
#6 seeds vs. #11 seeds (69-31)    69%
#7 seeds vs. #10 seeds (61-39)    61%
#8 seeds vs. #9 seeds (46-54)      46%

Good luck!