Tip-Off Marathon Update/ In Season Tournament Preview

After nearly 31 hours of nonstop basketball, I completed my third Tip-Off Marathon in a row. Without a doubt nothing was better than the finale between Michigan State and Kansas as my Spartans emerged victorious behind a triple double by Denzel Valentine and clutch shooting from freshman Matt McQuaid. With that being said here are in my opinion the top 5 games of this year's marathon and a couple notes for the games you all probably slept/worked through:
1- Michigan State over Kansas (Great game and Denzel had a triple double, MSU came back down 13 in the first half)

2- Nevada over Hawaii (Two coast to coast finishes in 10 seconds and a 41 point performance by Nevada's Marqueze Coleman; he made everything in last 10 minutes but the last half court shot)

3- Valpo over Rhode Island (After 38 combined 1H points, scoring picked up but RI missed 2 game tying threes at the buzzer after clawing back)

4-George Washington over Virginia (The Colonials upset UVA, and this is why I love the Marathon, you get to see college hoops environments that are not usually nationally televised full of energy)

5-Utah over SDSU (This game was back and forth the whole way and Utah emerged late)

So to recap the selections of my panel of experts, here is the final standings (in order of tiebreakers):
Sam Tuori 12-4
Caleb Sleeman 10-6
Nick Tuori 8-8
Zach Tuori 8-8
Eric Tuori 7-9

Congrats to Sam Tuori for winning the Tip-Off Marathon pick challenge. I will say that myself and Eric Tuori were a product of bad luck as we both lost 5 of the 6 games decided by a possession or less, but that is the craziness of the Marathon.

So for Sam's reward for winning the Marathon, he decided that we should pick the winner's of all of the in-season tournaments as they start November 19 and last through November 29 and then there is also the Diamond Head Classic over Christmas.

For complete brackets I recommend you visit this link here.

So without further ado, here is Sam and I's picks for the finalists and champions of each tournament

Tournament	Date		Nick		Sambo
Puerto Rico	Nov 19-22		Utah over Butler		Utah over Butler
Charleston	Nov 19-22		Virginia over GMason		Virginia over OleMiss
2K Classic	Nov 13-22		Duke over Wisconsin		Duke over GTOWN
Paradise Jam	Nov 20-23		Ohio over FloridaSt		FloridaSt over Tulsa
HOF TipOff(N)	Nov 21-22		Purdue over Florida		Purdue over St Joes
Gulf Coast SC	Nov 23-25		MurraySt over CMU		CentralMI over MurraySt
Maui	Nov 23-25		Kansas over Indiana		Kansas over Indiana
Legends	Nov 23-24		LSU over NCState		LSU over NCState
Main Event(H)	Nov23-25		UMASS over Creighton		Clemson over Creighton
CBE HOF Classic	Nov23-24		UNC over Missouri		UNC over KState
Cancun (Riv)	Nov 24-25		Maryland over RIsland		Maryland over RIsland
Battle4Atlantis	Nov 25-27		Gonzaga over Michigan		Gonzaga over Michigan
Great Alaska	Nov 25-28		Toledo over Drexel		Toledo over Drexel
Advocare Invtl	Nov 26-29		Wichita over NotreDame		Wichita over Dayton
Wooden Legacy	Nov 26-29		MichiganSt over Arizona		MichiganSt over Arizona
NIT Tipoff	Nov 26-27		Villanova over GATech		Villanova over Arkansas
Las Vegas Invtl	Nov 26-27		California over WestVA		California over WestVA
Emerald Coast H	Nov 27-28		Iowa State over UAB		IowaState over UAB
Corpus Christi H	Nov 27-28		S.Illinois over Portland		UTEP over Portland
Barclays Center	Nov 27-28		Cincinnati over Tennessee		Washington ovr Cincinnati
Global Sports	Nov 21-22		G. Canyon over Wyoming		Houston over Marshall
Las Vegas Classic	Nov 22-23		SMU over Colorado		SMU over Colorado
Diamond Head	Dec 22-25		BYU over Oklahoma		Oklahoma over BYU

College Hoops Tip Off Marathon!

        The single greatest day (well 31 hours) of the season is just a few hours away. College Hoops Tip Off Marathon Day, ESPN's greatest TV achievement by giving all college basketball fans wall to wall basketball! It allows the high school student to wake up in the morning and instead of dreading your usual routine breakfast, on this one day you get to watch Wisconsin Green Bay at East Tennessee State. What more can you possibly need?

        I love this day so much that starting at 7 PM, I will be attempting my third consecutive marathon. This feat is getting more and more challenging each year with age, but thanks to my fortunate college schedule I am not even missing a class tomorrow (thank you Fred Jacobs for posting tomorrow's lecture online so I can learn during halftime of a game.)  So to add some extra motivation to this year's contest I called in my panel of college basketball experts (my dad, brother, cousin and my roommate) to predict this year's Tip Off Marathon games to determine the Marathon Champion (even though I automatically win by getting to watch 31 hours of wall to wall college basketball while they all have class or work). So without further ado, here are our selections:

Panel:
Nick Tuori: Freshman Michigan State- isportsweb MSU beat writer/Actuarial Science Major
Sam Tuori: 7th grade Forest Hills Central, Spartan and College Basketball Fanatic
Zach Tuori: 9th Grade Caledonia, Spartan and College Basketball Fanatic
Caleb Sleeman: Freshman Michigan State- Michigan State Pitcher/Engineering Major
Eric Tuori: Cal Thunder Basketball Coach/Founder, Spartan Alumni

Picks:                                                     Nick       Sam   Zach      Caleb    Eric
UCONN/Ohio State (Women) 5:30 ESPN2- UCONN UCONN UCONN UCONN UCONN
Virginia/George Washington 7:30 ESPN2-   UVA      UVA       UVA       UVA      UVA
LSU/Kennesaw State 9:00 ESPNU-               LSU       LSU        LSU        LSU       LSU
San Diego State/Utah 9:30 ESPN2-               UTAH    UTAH    UTAH    SDSU    SDSU
Baylor/Oregon 11:30 ESPN2-                        BAY      BAY       BAY      OREG     BAY
***TUESDAY***
BYU/Long Beach State 1:45a ESPN2-          BYU      LBSU     BYU       BYU       BYU
Nevada/Hawaii 4a ESPN2-                            NEV      HAW      HAW      NEV       HAW
UWGB /East Tennessee St 6a ESPN2-         ETSU    ETSU      ETSU     ETSU     UWGB
Steven F Austin/N. Iowa 8a ESPN2-             SFA       NIWA     SFA        NIWA    SFA
Valparaiso/Rhode Island 10a ESPN2-           RI          VALPO   RI           VALPO  RI
Alabama/Dayton 1:00 ESPN-                        DAY     DAY        BAMA   BAMA   BAMA
Colorado/Auburn 3:00 ESPN-                       COLO   AUB       COLO     COLO    COLO
Oklahoma/Memphis 5:00 ESPN-                  MEM     OKL       OKL        OKL      OKL
Kentucky/Duke 7:30 ESPN-                         DUKE   DUKE     DUKE     DUKE   DUKE
Georgetown/Maryland 9:00 ESPN2-            MARY  MARY    GTWN    MARY  MARY
Kansas/Michigan State 10:00 ESPN-           MSU      MSU       MSU       MSU      MSU
***TIE BREAKERS***
Harvard/UMASS 7:00                                  HARV   UMASS  HARV    HARV    HARV
La Salle/Rider 7:00                                       LAS      LAS         LAS        RID        LAS

So I will be tweeting thoughts and other tidbits not only for you pleasure, but to also keep me awake so refer back to this article to also check in on our pick standings. Hopefully you all enjoy the College Hoops Tip Off Marathon as much as I do, I already know that I will be watching these along with other games. Thankfully there is the ability to stream 4 games at a time on the WatchESPN app. Enjoy your marathon everyone. Also, if you need some reading material before the Michigan State game tomorrow night, check out all of the work the isportsMSU team has done at isportsmsu.com. My latest article on Gavin Schilling and Alvin Ellis is here.