Day 2 Look Back: Thumbs up to Cornell, thumbs down to Louisville

NEW YORK -- You know it's bad for the Big East when Adam Duritz -- founding member of Counting Crows/fan of the Cal Bears -- is spending part of his Friday night Tweeting about the league's dismal performance in this NCAA tournament.

"Just wanna congratulate the Big East for getting EIGHT teams into the Tourney and, even more impressively, for getting FOUR out so quickly," Duritz Tweeted. So the man who wrote A Long December publicly clowned four Big East schools for having A Short March.

Seriously, what's better than that?

Let's do the Day 2 Look Back ...

Best game from Friday: The first day of the NCAA tournament featured seven games decided by fewer than four points. So it was always going to be difficult for Friday to compare to Thursday, and Friday must've known this because the stupid day didn't even try. Nine of Friday's 16 games were double-digit games. The best? I'll go with Michigan State's 70-67 win over New Mexico State, not so much because it was great, but because it was at least close.

Worst game from Friday: Duke might not be the most talented or explosive team in the country, but the Blue Devils almost always destroy inferior opponents, which is precisely what they did in a 77-44 victory over Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Duke dominated the SWAC tournament champions on the boards and everywhere else, handled things the way a one seed is supposed to handle things.

Win to brag about: It's easy to forget Purdue was the higher seed and technically the favorite given how lots of people picked the Boilermakers to fall in the first round to Siena. But they didn't fall. They fell behind, sure. But they rallied in the second half and recorded a 72-64 win that pushed Purdue to 12-0 in its past 12 first-round games. More important, it means everybody who thought the Boilermakers couldn't beat a good team without Robbie Hummel were wrong. Now a new question: Can they can beat two?

Loss to hide from: Though there's nothing wrong with losing to California, there's absolutely something wrong with falling behind 22-4 to Cal -- like Louisville did -- because, let's face it, it's kind of embarrassing. Rick Pitino's Cards rallied and made it interesting for a while. But Cal ultimately won 77-62 to send Pitino into an offseason that'll hopefully, at least for him, be better than the last.

Player who deserves improper benefits: Jordan Crawford was not the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year even though he was, you know, the Atlantic 10's best player. No idea why the league's coaches voted that way, but they did. And Crawford made them look silly in the first round by making 11 of 21 shots and finishing with 28 points in Xavier's 65-54 win over Minnesota.

Player who does not deserve improper benefits: James Anderson was labeled one of the players capable of carrying his team deep into the NCAA tournament. But he was labeled that way based on him making shots, which he did not do in Oklahoma State's 64-59 loss to Georgia Tech. Anderson was 3 of 12 from the field and 0 of 6 from 3-point range. He finished with 11 points, otherwise known as not even half of his average.

Why I'm smarter than you think: Fourteen of my Sweet 16 teams are still alive. No idea if that's good or how it compares to most brackets. But it sounds good, so I'm going to call it smart.

Why I'm dumber than I think: I had UTEP and Vanderbilt playing in Saturday's second round. If you haven't heard, that's not the way it played out. It'll be Butler-Murray State instead.

Three things you should know before you go

1. Cornell's 78-65 win over Temple was the school's first NCAA tournament win. That's good for Cornell. Meantime, it was the 11th loss in 12 NCAA tournament games for Temple coach Fran Dunphy. That's bad for Dunphy.

2. In a related note, Clemson's 86-78 loss to Missouri dropped Oliver Purnell to 0-6 in the NCAA tournament. This is the third straight season he's lost to a lower-seeded team.

3. Syracuse had no problems getting past Vermont without Arinze Onuaku, cruising to a 79-56 win with their injured big in warm-ups. There's still no official word on whether Onuaku will play Sunday against Gonzaga. But it seems unlikely.

Final thought: Can Jimmer Fredette put 40 on Kansas State?

If it happens, will Frank Martin's eyes pop out of his head?

And what about Ohio?

Can a team that lost more MAC games than it won really make the Sweet 16?

Will Kentucky and Kansas both advance? Will Darington Hobson's wrist be a problem? Will Old Dominion keep alive the Colonial's dream of putting another team in the Final Four? Will Villanova start slow again? Will Danero Thomas sink a second buzzer-beater?

Yeah, I'm ready for Saturday.

And some more Counting Crows Tweets, too.