Conference call

Last year, not counting the Ivy League, there were only 14 conferences out of 30 where more than half of our group of canny contestants correctly claimed the conference king. As those who know us might guess, we only bring that up because this year we're even worse.

This year (again, not counting the Ivy), there were only 12 conferences out of 30 where more than half of us guessed right. That's a whopping 40%. In contrast, in 14 conferences this year, 11 or fewer of us correctly chose the conference champion:

Morehead State: 11
Purdue: 11
Akron: 10
Louisville: 9
Temple: 9
CS Northridge: 9
Duke: 7
Northern Iowa: 6
Missouri: 5
Portland St: 3
Cleveland St: 1
Mississippi St: 1
Chattanooga: 0
USC: 0

But examining this sort of thing from a group perspective can sometimes be misleading. If you take the time to look at it from an individual perspective you'll find we look truly pathetic. Taking Cornell out of the equation, only two (2) entrants got more than half the conference tournament champions right: Schlegel and Millan, both of whom got 16 of 30. That's 53% accuracy, for those of you failing at home.

But the commissioners want to give credit where credit is due. Reilly, for example was on the money with Louisville, Mississippi State, and Northern Iowa, certainly enough cool picks to make us forget he also chose Boise St., Jackson St., New Mexico, Wis-GB, UC Riverside, and The Citadel. M Josephs (Louisville, Temple, and CS Northridge) and P Leach (Missouri, Temple, and Purdue) also had three snazzy selections and at least as many sorry ones. R Simon did them one better, choosing CS Northridge, Duke, ETSU, and Northern Iowa, along with Boston University, George Mason, Holy Cross, and San Diego St. Moving up the ladder, Sakowski picked five surprise winners (Purdue, Binghamton, ETSU, Morehead State, and Cleveland State) along with a lot more than five not-so-surpise losers (BYU, Charleston, Dayton, G Mason, Holy Cross, Liberty, New Mexico St., Niagara, Nicholls St., Oral Roberts, and Columbia (!)).

J Donadio impressed with Akron, CS Northridge, Duke, Louisville, Morehead St., and Binghamton, but only managed to pick 7 other (non-Ivy) conferences correctly. Pogach picked Akron, Duke, Louisville, ETSU, Binghamton, and Portland State, but only pulled three other (non-Ivy) conference champions out of his you-know-where, in large part because of choices like BYU, George Mason, Holy Cross, Illinois, Illinois St., Jackson St., New Mexico St., Niagara, Oral Roberts, UC Riverside, Troy, and Sacred Heart.

But, as always, we need to genuflect in the general direction of the Leach Kids, who picked CS Northridge, Morehead State, Northern Iowa, and two (2) other non-Ivy conferences correctly. If you're keeping score (and we know you are), that's a total of five correct conference tournament champions out of 30, a mind-numbing 16.7% accuracy. But don't worry, they picked two hyphenated schools from Arkansas (Ark-Pine Bluff and Ark-Little Rock, as well as Boise St., Boston U, Long Island, Montana, Northeastern, Rider, South Carolina St., Southern Utah, Tex A&M-Corpus Christi, and Western Michigan), so it's OK.

Look for a Final Four and Final Eight count on Tuesday, and Rivals round and Tag Team tallies on Wednesday.

Edit (3/18/09): Well, maybe not Wednesday for the Rivals and Tag Team stuff, but I'll get them up as soon as I can -- DK