New Mexico coach Steve Alford AP

New Mexico coach Steve Alford joined the show to talk about the NCAA Tournament. Here are some of his takes ...

-- Alford was part of the documentary Winning Time about Reggie Miller. When the Pacers took Miller over Alford, the entire state of Indiana was mad. But Alford said it worked out.

"Not only was it a much better draft choice than drafting me ... Reggie turned out not to be a great pick, he turned out to be great for the state of Indiana," Alford said.

-- Alford did say Indiana coach Bob Knight sometimes made him stop shooting. "He had two practices in a row, where I was put on the white team, and he would say 'OK, white ball, everyone can shoot but Alford.'"

But Alford said Knight did make him a much better player in his time in Indiana.

-- Alford said he's glad conference opponent Jimmer Fredette of BYU is getting attention. "He's one of the most talented players we've played against all year," Alford said.

-- Alford talked about how the three-point line would have helped him a little in high school. He averaged 37 points a game in high school.

BYU's Jimmer Fredette AP

BYU star Jimmer Fredette joined the show to talk about the Cougars' win over Florida in the NCAA Tournament. Fredette scored 37 points in the double-overtime victory.

Fredette said that his coaches want him to be aggressive. "They definitely don't mind me shooting the ball, especially if I'm taking good shots," Fredette said.

Dan asked Fredette what his shooting range is. "Hopefully it's pretty unlimited," Fredette said.

Fredette explained why he wasn't recruited by Syracuse even though he's from upstate New York. He said that the Orange had guards coming in when he was going to college -- one of them being Jonny Flynn. Fredette might end up playing 'Cuse in the West region.

Fredette also talked about his Mountain West competitors, New Mexico. He said that the Lobos work very hard and should do well in the Tournament.

Jimmer's brother is a rapper and wrote a song called "Amazing" about his brother. It's good, but Jimmer said he's still a better shooter than his brother is as a performer.

DP Show Director of Operations Patrick O'Connor, also known as Seton, hard at work in the studio.

Share your thoughts in the "Comments" section below ...

CBS and ESPN analyst Jay Bilas joined the show to talk about a wild first day of the NCAA Tournament.

Bilas said yesterday was loaded with great games, but there have been other days just as wild. Bilas pointed to 1989, when No. 16 seeds East Tennessee State and Princeton almost won. Bilas said the Big Dance has always been like this. He talked about 1985, when the last team in, Villanova, won it all.

Bilas said there's actually less parity now and the top teams actually are tougher to knock out. We haven't seen a No. 16 seed come close to beating a No. 1 in a long time. But it used to happen more often.

Bilas said the key difference between majors and mid-majors is that the mid-majors lose their seniors and the cupboards are empty. Majors keep re-tooling on the fly by bringing in so much talent.

Bilas is against expansion, unless the financial benefit for colleges is just overwhelming. He thinks the reason the NCAA might do it is because it owns the NIT now and wants to save administrative costs.

Bilas said he gets a lot of pressure from fans. "I didn't pick Kentucky to go to the Final Four and I'm wearing a flak jacket a the Kentucky games," Bilas said.

Um, just a slice of life from the Dan Patrick studios ...

Armon Bassett (right) finished with a game-high 32 points to lead Ohio past Georgetown. Damian Strohmeyer/SI

After a wild first day, here's the standings in the Friends of Dan NCAA Tournament pool:

(Number of games correct)

Paul Pabst: 12
Dan Patrick: 11
Cheryl Miller: 11
John Smoltz: 11
Reggie Miller: 10
David Spade: 10
Adam Sandler: 9
Patrick Whitesell: 9
McLovin: 8
Seton: 8

BYU's Jimmer Fredette AP

Wow, what a day. Some big upsets and some close calls in the NCAA Tournament. Ohio shocked Georgetwon. Murray State knocked off Vanderbilt in a thriller. Northern Iowa beat UNLV on a long three-pointer. And Villanova barely got by Robert Morris.

We just learned BYU's Jimmer Fredette will join the show on Friday. Fredette scored 37 points to lead the Cougars to a double-overtime win over Florida.

Here are some of the Locker Room's early takes on a great day of college hoops:

It's a party in Iowa right now.. 2nd tourney win ever for UNI. Very very proud of them boys. Iowa fired their coach and the lil brother school's advancing to the 2nd round! =) | Hibbyy

that screwed up my bracket, but how can you not love a buzzer beater...**** awesome! | whitey_13

nova, purdue, and texas will be lucky to get out of the first round (Nova WAS lucky)- as they ALL came into the tourney looking bad. | SnapTheJap101

man, Rob morris should get on to the next round for pure effort | thejyav

Wow, not a bad start to the NCAA tournament. BYU, ODU and Vanderbilt all went down to .1 second and beyond. | bobbythebobcat

hey LR, how 'bout Dan's Murray State? | SconnieMan

Vandy followed them around like puppy dogs on "D". Never got in front to cut the guy off! | miker aka Iceman

Whoop - there it is!!!!!!!!!!! | NCSU44

Gary Williams Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images

A daily recap of the Dan Patrick Show ...

Q & A with Gary Williams

DP: Maryland was a topic on Capitol Hill yesterday. The secretary of education Arne Duncan said that maybe we should bar NCAA teams with low graduation rates. The numbers came out on Maryland and they weren't good. As a head coach, what is your role when it comes to getting kids to graduate?
GW: First of all, 1999-2003, in that period we had four players leave early to go to the pros. They are all still playing professionally. They haven't come back and gotten their degrees yet. Hopefully they will. But they've made millions and millions of dollars during that time that they left. In other words, they didn't have their degree, but it all depends how you measure success in your life. We've graduated nine of our last 11 seniors. We have four senior this year that will graduate. So that will be 13 out of 15 in the last five years I believe. However, we don't get measured on that yet. We're still measured back there. Two of those guys that were part of that figure also have graduated, but the graduation rates are based on you have five years to graduate after your class leaves. And they did not graduate within that five-year period. They graduated in the last two years. So they don't count. They're out there in space somewhere not counting as graduates.

DP: What's your role?
GW: My role is to do everything I can to give them the opportunity to graduate. And I'm very proud of my graduation rate overall.  The rate they've referred to is four years out of the 21 years I've coached at the University of Maryland. My role is to do everything I can to help those players graduate and give them the opportunity. The University of Maryland spends over $1 1/2 million a year on academic support for their student athletes. We have a academic support unit and since we've been able to do some things with academic support, our graduation rates have been competitive with anyone in the country.

DP: Are they doing a disservice by taking information that's six or seven years old and taking it out of context there.
GW: This article appears every year around the NCAA [Tournament]. It's amazing the timing of the articles that come out. Arne Duncan went to Harvard. You know football did what they did. They established the BCS schools ... about 110 schools. Basketball has 340 schools. I coached at Lafayette college for six years. I was in charge of academics for the players. Every player we had graduated from Lafayette. But most people that go to Lafayette graduate. Arne Duncan went to Harvard. Harvard is not the same. They don't lose players early to the pros. They don't have guys transfer. So we're talking about different things. Unfortunately with men's college basketball and 340 schools involved at the Division I level, you have every spectrum of school available. Financial-need schools, full-scholarship schools. They all vote on all the issues, so it's a tough group to get control of.

If you want to participate in our producers-only post-show, call 877-3-DP-SHOW at 1 p.m. ET. You can find out how McLovin' screwed up the brackets, Paulie's failed efforts to get people out of work and what Fritzie did to get in trouble during a passionate take by Dan.