Friday, March 21, 2008

Oh, to be in Tampa

Four upsets in the Tampa pod. So we know for a fact that two in the Sweet Sixteen will be a 12 seed or lower. Did any of us have any of them as our Wildcard? Yes, as a matter of fact. Dallas took Villanova.

Other Wildcards that paid off were West Virginia (Kasprzak), Mississippi State (B Peloso), and Davidson (B Kleiman, J McAtee). Oh, and Louisville, chosen as Wildcard by 39 of us. Including 19 of the top 20 scorers -- all except leader D Josephs -- so the standings just got a teensy bit tighter.

Outside of Tampa there were only two upsets (not counting two 9s over 8s), but they were both in the Midwest Regional, meaning in the Midwest the 4, 5, 6, and 7 seeds all lost. But since every 1, 2, & 3 seed won their first round games, all but three contestants still have their Final Four intact. The lucky three are M Leach (Vanderbilt), R Schlegel (Clemson), and Mahalko (Indiana).

Eight teams picked by someone to make the Final Eight are no longer playing: UConn (11), Indiana (10), Vanderbilt (5 -- Haklar, M Leach, Marshall, Nowlan, L Schlegel), Florida (2 -- J McAtee, Shure), Drake (2 -- M Josephs, Packman), Gonzaga (E Leach), St. Mary's (Booth), and Kent State (Booth).

Booth's efforts to broadside Whiteside took a hit when she lost two of her Final Eight (St. Mary's and Kent St.), but eight other entrants have joined her in having two of their Final Eight eliminated before the first Saturday: M Josephs had Indiana and Drake; J McAtee and Shure both had Florida and UConn; and Perry, Reilly, Selarnick, and Settle all had Indiana and UConn. This year's winner for quickest route to obscurity was Packman, who believed Drake, Indiana, and UConn would be three of the last eight teams standing. No wonder they haven't sold that game since the '70s.

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