More monkeying around

Well, as we reported Wednesday, of the 14 conferences that have had winner's decided, the majority of our contestants have been correct in seven and incorrect in seven. We also noted that on Wednesday the top two votegetters in the MEAC (Norfolk State (76) and NCCU (18)) both lost their first tourney games, leaving Savannah State (5) as the only MEAC team still alive on which any of our entrants took a chance. Predictably, Savannah State lost its next game, leaving it guaranteed that the MEAC winner will have been picked by nobody associated with our contest.

Perhaps just as predictable, the very next day the very same thing happened in the WAC. The only difference being the top two teams that lost in their first games were named Louisiana Tech (picked by 79) and Denver (picked by 12). There are currently three teams alive in the WAC. New Mexico State (selected by 7) will play the winner of Texas-San Antonio and Texas-Arlington, neither of which was selected by any of us.

Then today our choice in the ACC, Duke (chosen by 62), went down in its first game as well. Big West favorite Long Beach (liked by 83) and Pac 12 top choice Arizona (46) at least waited until their conference semifinals before bowing out.

So here's what we have at this moment in the 17 conferences in which the champions will be crowned this weekend:

ALREADY CLINCHED FOR THE MONKEY:
America East: Albany (7) vs. Vermont (8)
ACC: Miami (30) vs. NC State (2); UNC (3) vs. Maryland (0)
Big West: UC-Irvine (4) vs. winner of Cal Poly (1)/Pacific (8)
MEAC: Morgan State (0) vs. NC A&T (0)
Pac 12: UCLA (20) vs. winner of Oregon (24)/Utah (0)
WAC: New Mexico State (7) vs. winner of UTSA (0)/TX-ARL (0)

MONKEY WINS ON A TECHNICALITY
(no team in these conferences was chosen by a majority of us, but the top votegetter is still alive)
Atlantic 10: St. Louis (46) vs. Butler (31); Massachusetts (0) vs. VCU (17)
Big East: Louisville (37) vs. Syracuse (19)

COULD GO EITHER WAY
Big 12: Kansas (75) vs. Kansas State (13)
Big Sky: Montana (63) vs. Weber State (36)
Big 10: Indiana (63) vs. Wisconsin (6); Michigan State (17) vs. Ohio State (5)
Conf USA: Memphis (89) vs. Southern Miss (10)
MAC: Akron (88) vs. Ohio (10)
Mountain West: New Mexico (62) vs. winner of UNLV (24)/Colorado State (10)
SEC: Florida (84) vs. Alabama (1); Ole Miss (1) vs. Vanderbilt (0))
Southland: Stephen F. Austin (74) vs. Northwestern State (18)
SWAC: Southern (68) vs. Prairie View A&M (0)

So if you're scoring at home, well, then you're probably not reading this. Nevertheless, the monkey now has at least 13 out of 31 conferences, 15 if you count the Atlantic 10 and the Big East, conferences that had no majority. That means for the monkey to beat our pool participants, just one more conference upset has to happen (three more if you don't count the A10 and the Big East).

We know what we're rooting for.