All right, I admit it. I had barely heard of Belmont.
I wasn’t sure if it was Belmont College or Belmont University or Belmont Tech or Belmont Racetrack. Or just plain old Belmont.
But I’d like to thank the Fighting Whatstheirnames for providing us with a glimmer of excitement on the opening day of the NCAA hoops tournament.
In case you didn’t notice, it wasn’t exactly awesome, baby. Even Dick Vitale probably had to slug some Red Bull to get through it.
Here’s your scoreboard from Thursday: Sixteen games, 13 decided by double digits _ two by 20-plus points, another by 30-plus, another by 41.
The four sub-regional games at the Pepsi Center were decided by a total of 79 points, almost 20 per. Stuff happens, it seems, when you score 11 points in a half, as Winthrop did vs. Washington State.
And then there was the Belmont-Duke game.
You can exhale now, Coach K. The Dukies survived by the most narrow of margins, a single point, thus avoiding the greatest bracket buster in tournament history.
Where does the tournament go from here? I’m not sure, but I know this: The Belmont-Duke game aside, it can’t get any more boring than Thursday.Jim Armstrong: 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com
