Vanderbilt Commodores: One of the Early Chokers of March Madness 2010

I start this piece with one of my favorite clichés: Would you believe it!

Last year, if you read the articles in my archive, I called out the Wake Forest Demon Deacons for their underachieving performance in the first round of the 2009 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

Fast forward 12 months to another postseason full of great performances, fantastic finishes, and...goats from every major conference just waiting to be uncovered.

This year, in the 2010 edition of the collegiate hoops carnival/media circus of fate that is the NCAA Tournament, I call out the Vanderbilt Commodores, who lost to the Murray State Racers 66-65 at San Jose's Hewlett Packard Pavilion today. Danero Thomas read the last rites on their last shot to close out the game.

Vandy, Vandy, Vandy. Oh you Commodores, you got Notre Dame off the hook with their 51-50 embarrassment to Old Dominion. I was going to wag my finger at the Irish, whose luck ran out post-St. Patrick's Day.

One would think that this Commodore team was ready for the best the Ohio Valley Conference would dish out. The verdict was in, and in a defiant middle-finger salute to the big-money conference, the OVC made the SEC look completely overrated.

I will admit that the shot by Thomas will be in the highlight montage leading up to the championship game on April 5.

The current president of Cal State Long Beach, Dr. Fieldon King Alexander, was previously the president of Murray State University. I would guess that he is feeling quite giddy right now after seeing his old school progress to the next round against what I would suspect to be Butler as of this article date. (Edit: It is.)

66-65. Do your Southeastern Conference brethren a favor and marinate on that scoreline with your faces all in blushes.

Thus, we already have a couple of goats in Notre Dame and Vanderbilt.
With all this talk and hand-wringing over parity, it makes you wonder who's next to choke in the middle of March Madness. Ummm...Georgetown? Anybody in Hoya Saxa Land still alive?

Stay tuned...on Bleacher Report.