Beautiful day here in Boston, sunny and warm, and an even better day to stay inside and watch as many first-round games as ESPN will deign to show us: compared to prior years, it seemed to me that we had more "let's stay with this game unless it becomes noncompetitive," and less whipping back and forth. I liked the whipping, but probably most people didn't, and since ESPN did cut away from TCU-Dayton to UK-Liberty when the latter looked competitive and the former didn't-- and then had to cut back when Dayton came all the way back-- I'm not going to say the producers did anything wrong.

Nor will I say the committee did anything wrong: except for some nine-over-eight matches, the bracket held, and instead of talking about upsets, announcers had to talk about comebacks.

Most of all they had to talk about Dayton's zoom back from 18 down to defeat TCU. The Horned Frogs' Helen Sverrisdottier-- surely Division I's only Icelandic starter?-- scored well but shot badly; the Flyers, in Knoxville, get the awesome reward of a second-round game against Tennessee.

Dayton finished second in the A-10; TCU, reg-season first in the Mountain West. In the interesting games involving major-conference teams, the story was often the stamina: enterprising mid-major underdogs led in the first half but ran out of gas afterwards.

That was the outcome in Tallahassee, where Florida State took a while to get past Teresa Weatherspoon and La Tech; two Techsters fouled out. The other match there, St. John's vs. Princeton, was disappointingly non-competitive.

That was the outcome in Louisville, where Kentucky had trouble with Jerry Falwell University the well-coached Liberty Flames. UK frosh A'dia Mathies, though, saved the day for the SEC team, scoring 32 points (12-17 from the line). "She wasn't going to let anybody stop her," said frontcourt teammate Victoria Dunlap.

That was the outcome, also in Louisville, when Michigan State trailed early to the orange-clad, three-point-shooting, MAC-champion Bowling Green Falcons; DeHaan showed up for the second half, grabbed one rebound per minute, and helped her team advance.

It was the outcome in Tempe, Arizona, where Oklahoma State came back to win without do-everything guard Andrea Riley, who had to sit out for a two-year-old infraction. The Cowgirls won even though they were out-rebounded, even though they sank not a single three-pointer, and even though their leading scorer on this day, Tegan Cunningham, went 9-25.

But it wasn't the outcome in Seattle, where Gonzaga, going against North Carolina, had (and deserved) the higher seed. The WCC champs led early, too, fell behind for a bit, then recovered behind an unreal string of treys from Tiffany Shives. "I was proud of the way we played down the stretch," said coach Graves; "we haven't had a close game in three months." (No, they haven't.)

Where most teams would try to slow the Tar Heels down, the Zags seemed to thrive on the fast pace. Gonzaga got out-rebounded but not by much: they're a disciplined, speedy team with very little inside game. Q, in Seattle, saw every minute of what must have been Saturday's most exciting game.

I wonder whether to give the Zags a shot against Texas A&M on Monday-- the home-state crowd should help. It turns out Gonzaga have played the Aggies already, on a neutral court three months ago: TAMU won by a nose, almost blowing a 20-point lead.