Rivals 2010

We like it that the contest means different things for different people. R Wanger's aspiration to win the contest, for example, seems to annually take a backseat to his desire to mercilessly crush his own daughter (K Ripley), son-in-law (P Ripley), and even his one-year-old grandchild (A Ripley)! Without commenting on the psychological health of such goals, this year R Wanger's wish came true as he came in with 244 points, more than 27 points ahead of any of his kinfolk. P Ripley has been heard to lament, "I can't lose to my wife and father-in-law every year, can I???" And we'd like to offer some assurance... but we can't. For the fifth straight year both R Wanger (244) and K Ripley (216) finished significantly ahead of P Ripley (191), with the kicker this year being one-year-old A Ripley (206) also thrashed his old man.

A step up in inter-familial intensity may be seen from Whiteside, who promised to "annihilate" sister-in-law Booth, and delivered, outscoring his relation-by-marriage, 231 to 169. Butscher (230) rashly declared that Whiteside and Booth "have no chance," and he was half right, ending up a mere point behind Whiteside. It's not all felicity for Whiteside, however, as he wasn't even close to co-workers McKillip (266) and Canning (247).

E Leach, the "granddaddy of all the Leaches," has shown that venerability has its compensations, as his 231 points are superior to every other Leach. Second grader Madison Leach (227) stated she is no longer counting on her father, P Leach (217) for tips, and we believe her, as she left her daddy in the dust by ten points. Madison's sister, S Leach also claims she's "smarter than my daddy," but she couldn't back it up with only 186 points. Alien creature Mash Leach (227) fell squarely in the middle of the Leach clan, which we suppose makes sense in a warped sort of way.

In a couple of sibling rivalries, D Kornfeld (219) edged R Kornfeld (217) and Bill Acchione (247) easily handled Bud Acchione (206), while L McAtee (235) smoothly skated by her brother M McAtee (229).

Millan (227) boldly declaimed that Karlsruher (219) was "going down" -- and he was right.

Upstart L Schlegel (241) didn't have enough juice to get past his dad, R Schlegel (258), and commissioner M Josephs (197) probably ought to watch some "Father Knows Best" re-runs himself, as he fell to D Josephs (228) by 31 points. On the other hand, Adams (251) didn't have any trouble dispatching her paternal relative, Coach Doc (229). Mike Paston (232) put the hurt on Matt Maston (185). J Donadio (263) left no doubt who was head of his household, besting both spouse ME Donadio (202), and offspring L Donadio (210). In Kleimanland, it was B Kleiman (215) finishing ahead of both M Kleiman (211), and E Kleiman (208).

M Peloso, who we fear may have to turn in her Duke-loving credentials after refusing to pick the Blue Devils into the Final Four, still managed to sneak by her husband B Peloso, 218 to 215. G Wright (227), in her first time entering the contest, took out her hubby B Wright (215) with points to spare.

Baum somehow managed to lose to himself, 191 to 214.

The real winners

As we said yesterday, we'd like to lead a big round of applause for Crotty, who solved the intellectual puzzle and won the contest, while not being interested in trivial things such as money.

Most of you, however, are probably more interested in our prizewinners, who are listed below. Note that NOBODY chose Michigan State, Butler, or West Virginia to win it, and only six (6) people took Duke (Biebel, Crotty, Harlan, R Schlegel, R Simon, Tester) as champion. So...

IF DUKE WINS
Crotty** 317
Biebel 305 (wins first prize)
R Schlegel 298 (wins second prize)
Harlan 292 (wins third prize)

IF SOMEONE OTHER THAN DUKE WINS
Crotty** 277
McKillip 266 (wins first prize)
Biebel 265 (wins second prize)
J Donadio 263 (wins third prize)


** -- (gets nothing and likes it)

Congratulations to all the prizewinners.

At least one commissioner is heading to Indianapolis on Friday, but we'll make our best efforts to provide a Rivals update, Tag Team tallies, and All Name teams (and maybe Mascot Trivia -- we'll see) before we leave.

If possible we'll also provide updates on the scene in Indy, which should be wild with Butler playing in the Final Four about seven miles from their campus.

Four

Duke and Michigan State will join Butler and West Virginia in Indianapolis, but that didn't stop 49 of our 75 contestants (65.3%) from predicting exactly zero (0) Final Four teams correctly. We had 22 entrants who got one (1) right, and four players (Crotty, D Kedson, Madison Leach, Tester) whose success rate (two (2) accurate selections -- 50%) couldn't pass a fifth grade science test but who look like Einstein compared to the average pool-picker (funny hair and all).

Updated standings may be found at the ubiquitous link on the right side of the page. We'll have more comments tomorrow, but for now we'd like to congratulate Crotty for winning the pool while not paying the entry fee. No matter what happens in Indianapolis next weekend, Crotty will have the most points and someone else will win first prize. Mr. Crotty, at least three entry-fee paying contestants salute you.

We'll break down who and how many tomorrow.

The Kingpins keep dropping

Only three teams that were still alive going into the Final Eight games had received more than eight Final Four votes from our group of prognosticators. So naturally, two of them lost today (Kentucky (55), Kansas State(18)).

West Virginia (chosen by 8: Crotty, D Kedson, Madison Leach, M McAtee, Merril, R Perry, Smith, Tester) and Butler (picked by nobody, or at least nobody who chose to enter our contest) are in the Final Four, while two of tomorrow's four teams (Duke (20), Michigan State (2: Templeton, Yolles), Baylor (a very large goose egg), and Tennessee (also the big oh)) will join them.

What's the over/under on the number of "Butler Did It" headlines tomorrow morning? Whatever it is, we're taking the over.

And for those who don't already know, Butler is from Indianapolis, the site of this year's Final Four. So not only did none of our contestants pick them, but now they're the home team!

Smith, the man who tattled on Bill Acchione and Durkin, has slithered into first place, with 258 points. Non-paying entrant Crotty (who even if he wins will get nothing and like it) is right behind with 257, while McKillip (246), Biebel (245), Wanger (244), J Donadio (243), and Nowakowski (241) are clumped up behind the leaders.

This has been one amazing, crazy, unbelievable tournament. Tune in tomorrow for more.

Eight

The Final Eight is set, with Duke (chosen by 56 to make the Eight), Michigan State (picked by 18), Tennessee (taken by Freidhof only), and Baylor (liked by absolutely nobody) joining yesterday's advancees.

In perhaps the worst performance in the history of the pool, here's what our contestants thought of the possiblity of the actual Elite Eight moving on to the Final Four:

Kentucky (55 votes for Final Four)
Duke (20)
Kansas State (18)
West Virginia (8)
Michigan State (2 -- Templeton, Yolles)
Butler (nada)
Tennessee (zip)
Baylor (zilch)

Only 26 of us got as many as half of the Final Eight correct, led by Biebel, who was the only entrant who managed more than half (5 of 8), plus 25 who were right on four. There were 29 contestants who got three right, 15 who got only two, and five hapless individuals who managed a measly one apiece (Richardson, Pike, Booth, DaLauro, and Packman).

McKillip has surged into the lead with 246 points, followed closely by Biebel (245), R Wanger (244), and J Donadio (243). Another 18 entrants are within one Final Four pick (20 points) of the leader.

Blue Orange

Butler really did it this time, taking out Syracuse and leaving us with only one of our top four votegetters for the Final Four (Kentucky in; Kansas, Syracuse, Villanova out). E Leach and Mahalko scored with Butler into the Final Eight, bringing themselves all the way up to 11th (tied) and 46th place. Nobody has Butler in the Final Four.

Baum and DaLauro just missed with Xavier (along with 12 entrants who had Xavier as their wildcard), as the X-men succumbed in a double OT thriller to Kansas State.

Wanger is our current leader, with 234 points, followed closely by J Donadio (233) and Nowakowski (231). Booth (169) has slid into the cellar, not too far behind Richardson and Matt Paston (175 each).

Four Score

Two of our entrants' favored four didn't make it to the Sweet Sixteen (Kansas and Villanova), while nine of us chose a Final Four team that lost on the first day (Booth, who took Texas, and Butscher, Fitch, S Leach, Missy Peloso, A Ripley, Rybaltowski, Sakowski, and Templeton, who chose Georgetown).

Trying to cash in on unorthodox picks are Templeton and Yolles, who believed in Michigan State, Karlsruher, M Kleiman, D Kornfeld, R Kornfeld, Missy Peloso, Richardson, and B Wright, who dared to choose Purdue, and Crotty, D Kedson, Madison Leach, M McAtee, Merril, R Perry, Smith, and Tester, who went with West Virginia.

We have 39 contestants who still have three of their Final Four alive; 33 who have two left; and three who are hanging their hopes on a single team (Matt Paston and Fitch, who have just Syracuse left; and former Duke-lover Missy Peloso, with only Purdue).

All selected teams:

Kansas (73)
Syracuse (61)
Kentucky (55)
Villanova (30)
Duke (20)
Kansas State (18)
Ohio State (15)
Georgetown (8)
West Virginia (8)
Purdue (7)
Michigan State (2 -- Templeton, Yolles)
Gonzaga (Freidhof)
Texas (Booth)
Wake Forest (Matt Paston)

The full Final Four breakdown, showing every contestants' choices, may be found here.

Eight is Enough

Well, three of our top eight votegetters for the Elite Eight are no longer playing (Kansas, Villanova, Georgetown), while nobody bothered to cast a single vote for any of Northern Iowa, Cornell, Washington, Baylor, or St. Mary's.

There were 52 Final Eight selections that didn't make it out of the first round (including Georgetown (30), Vanderbilt (8), Texas (7), Richmond (Templeton, B Wright), Louisville (Pike), Temple (J Broder), and Oklahoma State (Packman). Special kudos to DaLauro and L McAtee, who both chose a team for their Final Eight (UConn) who ended up playing in the NIT.

There are 19 contestants who still have six of their Final Eight; 29 who have five alive; and 21 with four Elite Eight teams remaining. Five entrants (Pike, Packman, Matt Paston, R Perry, and B Wright) have only three left, with a big shout out to B Wright, who has two of his three remaining Final Eight teams playing each other in their Sweet Sixteen game (Duke and Purdue, but at least he's guaranteed to have one team of his Final Eight, right?). Booth goes one better, with a meager two (2) Final Eight teams left to root for.

Looking to sneak in with an advantage are Baum and DaLauro, who are the only entrants to like Xavier into the Final Eight; E Leach and Mahalko, who think Butler will do it; and Freidhof, who craftily chose Tennessee.

All selected teams:

Kansas (75)
Kentucky (71)
Syracuse (71)
Villanova (64)
Duke (56)
Kansas State (54)
Ohio State (37)
Georgetown (30)
West Virginia (25)
Purdue (23)
Michigan State (18)
Gonzaga (10)
New Mexico (10)
Pittsburgh (10)
Vanderbilt (8)
BYU (7)
Texas (7)
Wisconsin (6)
Xavier (2 -- Baum, DaLauro)
UConn (2 -- L McAtee, DaLauro)
Butler (2 -- E Leach, Mahalko)
Texas A&M (2 -- Fitch, Pike)
Wake Forest (2 -- Matt Paston, Mike Paston)
Richmond (2 -- Templeton, B Wright)
Louisville (Pike)
Missouri (Packman)
Old Dominion (B Wright)
Temple (J Broder)
Tennessee (Freidhof)
Oklahoma State (Packman)

The full Final Eight breakdown, showing every contestants' choices, may be found here.

Our bad

We spoke about wildcard scofflaws in an earlier post, and we've given several kudos to Bill Acchione and Durkin for their astute selection of Baylor as their wildcard. Well, thanks to undercover detective Smith, some new information has come to our attention.

Well, actually it's old information, and it originally came from us. Right from our own rules and entry form, both of which contained a link to the AP Top 25 upon which wildcard selections were required to be made, which most clearly showed Baylor to be the #22 ranked team at the time.

What's the lesson here? Well, as the old adage goes, you can fool some of the commissioners all the time, and all of the commissioners some of the time, but eventually someone's going to tattle. We've updated the standings (link on the right) to take those ill-gotten wildcard gains away from Bill Acchione and Durkin, and dispatched a team of Federal Bureau of Investigation agents to their homes.

This brings the total of illegal wildcard choices up to seven (7), the most since 2002.

Not so fast

Thanks to Xavier, R Wanger's stay at the top was short-lived. Now it's McKillip, whose selection of Xavier as his wildcard has put him in first place (for now), with 206 points.

There were 21 people who got more than 1 point for their wildcard, having chosen Xavier (12), No Iowa (7), or Cornell (2 -- Brindisi, Cohan).

Booth is still in second-to-last place.

G'night all.

Who's got Kansas?

Sorry to be absent for the last couple days. I was closeted in a big room with lots of beer and TVs.

Well, we warned the good people of Lawrence, Kansas of their impending doom (as augured by negative omen of Kansas' being a clear favorite of our entrants), and they ignored us to their peril. Our contestants are now a solid 5 for 21 in predicting champion. The Jayhawks were chosen by 28 of us as national champs, 73 of us as a Final Four team, and 75 of us as a Final Eight team. Oops.

Villanova's demise was perhaps less obvious to longtime contest observers, but we would be remiss if we didn't mention that nine of us have the Wildcats as champs (Bill Acchione, Brindisi, J Broder, DeMaso, D Kornfeld, Mash Leach, M Paston, Sakowski, and L Schlegel); 30 of us liked Villanova into the Final Four, and 64 took Villanova into the Final Eight.

The No. Iowa surprise was good news to the seven entrants who had the pesky Panthers as their wild card (Bud Acchione, Booth, E Leach, L McAtee, M Paston, B Peloso, and R Wanger). R Wanger has parlayed his savvy selection into a (possibly temporary) run into first place, where he now stands with 204 points. Booth's choice of No. Iowa has allowed her to scramble into second-to-last place, two points ahead of Madison Leach.

The only other Saturday wild card winners were Bill Acchione and Durkin, who chose Baylor. [EDIT: they only thought they were winners, but now they've been caught red handed.] There are 39 contestants who have a wild card playing today (Sunday, 3/21), having chosen Maryland (17), Xavier (12), Missouri (3), Cornell (2), Georgia Tech (2), and California (1).

Full standings are at the link on the right. Full Elite Eight and Final Four information will be available sometime this week. And of course we'll be looking into Rival performances and the annual Tag Team competitions in the next few days.

More games, starting now...

The economy and your wildcard

Word on the street is the Sociology department of a major midwestern university is conducting an in-depth study on the correlation between worldwide economic conditions and wildcard selection in pre-NCAA tournament pools. And while we hesitate to steal their thunder on the eve of their submission to a prominent sociological journal, we feel obligated to post our own findings here:

In early 2008, prior to the unexpected collapse of Bear Stearns, we had three (3) contestants choose illegal wildcards and four (4) who chose wildcards that failed to make the NCAA tournament field. These numbers were fairly representative of the totals for the previous five years (where we had an average of 4.4 illegal wildcards chosen and 4.2 wildcards that didn't make the field).

In 2009, with many of us tightening our belts, it became apparent that more and more of those belts were worn around their owners' heads. Again we had three (3) illegal wildcards, but the number of entrants who picked wildcards that didn't get into the bracket rose to seven (7).

This year, with two years of recession staring us in the face, the wildcard numbers have reached alarming proportions. Five (5) [EDIT: Seven (7)] contestants chose illegal wildcards (as reported previously, those five [EDIT: seven] were Richardson, L Donadio, R Kornfeld, D Kornfeld, and Hubbard [EDIT: add Bill Acchione and Durkin to this slithery collection of individual lawbreakers]), and a mind-boggling thirteen (13) of us wasted our pick on teams who probably didn't even bother to watch yesterday's numerous selection specials. In fact, our fourth and sixth most popular wildcards didn't get invited to play, as Canning, Huffnagle, Mash Leach, Pike, P Ripley, and Rybaltowski chose UConn and Karlsruher, Millan, Sakowski, and Warner took Virginia Tech. Similarly unfortunate were DaLauro (Arizona State), R Perry (Mississippi State), and Freidhof (William & Mary).

The last time it was this bad? You guessed it -- during our last economic recession in 2002, when we had a whopping eleven (11) illegal wildcards and fourteen (14) wildcard teams who watched the tournament on TV. And now that we've beaten the sociologists to the punch we've got at least a decent shot at the Nobel, right?

Some of this year's contestants apparently aren't feeling nearly as much of a pinch. Our most popular wildcard, Maryland (17 votes), is a #4 seed; and Durkin and Bill Acchione are riding high on the hog (or possibly the bear) with their selection of #3 seed Baylor. [EDIT: riding high no longer; the bear market has finally caught up to these two "businessmen."]

Top votegetters:

Maryland (17)
Xavier (12)
Northern Iowa (7)
UTEP (6)
UConn (6)
Virginia Tech (4)

Others:

Missouri (3 -- Brenner, Harlan, Madison Leach)
Cornell (2 -- Brindisi, Cohan)
Georgia Tech (2 -- D Kedson, Tester)
Siena (2 -- Broder, Packman)
Arizona State (1 -- DaLauro)
Florida (1 -- M McAtee)
Mississippi State (1 -- R Perry)
Clemson (1 -- Merril)
California (1 -- L Schlegel)
Louisville (1 -- Fitch)
William & Mary (1 -- Freidhof)

The next champeeeen?

As a public service, we routinely make our data available to champagne salespeople so they know who our entrants' favorite is to win it all. It allows them to save time and concentrate on everybody else. The team that has had the most votes for champion in our contest has actually been the champion only five times in our twenty years of existence (a whopping 25% success rate), so the following may give some people in Lawrence, KS, the willies:

Kansas -- 28
Syracuse -- 19
Kentucky -- 12
Villanova -- 9
Duke -- 6
Kansas State -- 1

All #1 or #2 seeds, and nothing too crazy (unless you count P Leach's selection of Kansas State to win it all). Which essentially confirms our earlier suspicions that we're in for one wacky tournament.

The bracket is set

Well, the bracket is set and our hearts are all aflutter. We'll have more later and/or tomorrow, but for now we'll just say we have a three way tie for first place (with 200 points), meaning Adams, McKillip, and Whiteside will split the $100 prize (assuming they all paid, which we haven't checked yet).

Six entrants were within one lousy at-large selection of the leaders: Missy Peloso (198), R Wanger (198), J Donadio (197), R Schlegel (197), Smith (197), and G Wright (197).

Bringing up the rear is Whiteside's whipping girl Booth, with 153 points, followed closely by Madison Leach (156).

Official standing may once again be accessed via the Standings link on the right.

heartbreak

Mississippi State was, like, a tenth of a second away from winning the SEC. Now the talking heads say they won't even get a bid. It's "heartbreak city," as Dickie V might say, for the players, the coaches, and the university. But what about Baum, Cohan, D Kedson, and R Perry? I mean, they're out five points!

Anyway, Ohio State and Minnesota are still playing, but so far today's winners have been the favorites: Duke (64); Kentucky (58); and Temple (36).

Broder and McKillip are currently tied for first with 102 points, with six teams tied and right behind at 99.

Full standings, blah, blah, blah, on the right.

It's South Dakota!

South Dakota beat Houston Baptist tonight to win the inaugural Great West conference championship, in a game that had absolutely no bearing on the NCAA Tournament. Just thought we'd pass that along.

In games that actually matter:

Kansas won the Big 12, as 69 of us said they would;

Vermont secured the automatic bid from the America East conference, much to the delight of 27 of us;

UC-Santa Barbara, picked by 48, won the Big West;

Ohio, predicted by nobody having anything to do with the contest, took the MAC;

Houston, also considered only by people who didn't enter a pool (and probably not very many of them) won the day in Conference USA;

Sam Houston (chosen by 65) beat Stephen F. Austin in the battle of 19th Century Texans also known as the Southland conference;

Morgan State (predicted by 73) took no prisoners in the MEAC;

Arkansas-Pine Bluff (taken by Booth, Brindisi, Canning, DaLauro, ME Donadio, Harlan, D Kedson, E Leach, Missy Peloso, Sakowski, R Wanger, and Merril) played their best hand to win the SWAC;

West Virginia (liked by Canning, Crotty, D Kedson, Templeton, and Tester) emerged victorious in the Big East;

New Mexico State (envisioned by Baum, S Leach, and R Perry) stunned overwhelming favorite Utah State (61).

Washington (wanted by M Josephs, D Kedson, S Leach, and Tester) pulled through in the Pac-10; and

San Diego State (guessed by Baum I, Baum II, and Freidhof) climbed to the top in the Mountain West.

In tomorrow's action, it's Duke (picked by 64) vs. Georgia Tech (picked by no one) in the ACC; Kentucky (58) vs. Mississippi State (Baum I, Baum II, Cohan, D Kedson, R Perry) in the SEC; Ohio State (45) vs. Minnesota (considered by nobody) in the Big 10; and Temple (36) vs. Richmond (15) in the Atlantic 10.

McKillip currently leads the contest with 89 points, followed by J Broder (87) and Missy Peloso (86), while seven additional entrants are right behind with 84. At the other end, Booth (41) is gaining ground on the Leach girls (Samantha Leach (56) and Madison Leach (54)).

Full standings, as always, available through the link on the right.

Clear the Decks

The Big East and ACC each had one (1) of their top four seeds advance to their conference tournament semifinals, while only two (2) of the top four seeds advanced that far in the Big 10. In the Mountain West, #1 seed New Mexico (chosen by 30) has gone down and #2 seed BYU (chosen by 32) is losing in the 2nd half [EDIT -- BYU lost]. As we've said before, if the conference tournaments are any indication we may be in for a wild ride next weekend.

In today's only conference final, Lehigh (predicted by 58 of us) survived in the Patriot League. New standings are once again available through the link on the right.

Tomorrow's finals include:

America East: Vermont (chosen by 27) vs. BU (just Canning and Madison Leach)

Big 12: Kansas (taken by 69) vs. Kansas State (Baum, Crotty, DeMaso, Freidhof, P Leach)

Big East: Georgetown (Baum, M Josephs, Madison Leach, M Paston, Rybaltowski) vs. West Virginia (Canning, Crotty, D Kedson, Templeton, Tester)

Big West: UC Santa Barbara (picked by 48) vs. Pacific (25) OR Long Beach St. (Brindisi, Pike); [EDIT -- Long Beach won]

Conference USA: UTEP (liked by 55) vs. Houston (nobody)

MAC: Akron (selected by 16) vs. Ohio (zilch)

MEAC: Morgan State (supported by 73) vs. South Carolina State (the big oh)

Mountain West: San Diego State (Baum I, Baum II, Freidhof) vs. BYU (32) OR UNLV (Canning, Cohan, Fitch, D Josephs, M Josephs, S Leach, Richardson, Rybaltowski, R Schlegel, Templeton); [EDIT -- UNLV won]

Pac 10: California (favored by 51) vs. Washington (M Josephs, D Kedson, S Leach, Tester) OR Stanford (zerocity); [EDIT -- Washington won]

Southland: Sam Houston (picked by 65) vs. Stephen F. Austin (Booth, L Donadio, B Kleiman, E Kleiman, M Kleiman, S Leach, Pike)

SWAC: Arkansas-Pine Bluff (Booth, Brindisi, Canning, DaLauro, ME Donadio, Harlan, D Kedson, E Leach, Merril, Missy Peloso, Sakowski, Wanger) vs. Texas Southern (a handful of nothin')

WAC: Utah State (predicted by 61) vs. Nevada (Alberts, Brindisi, Coach Doc, M Josephs, P Leach, Richardson) OR New Mexico State (Baum, S Leach, R Perry); [EDIT -- New Mexico State won]

We're not waiting for the western games to complete [EDIT -- but we've now marked them above], but enjoy your weekend. We're less than 42 [EDIT -- 32] hours away from the final bracket.

Big Sky

In last night's action, Montana, considered only by Madison Leach, bested big favorite Weber State (chosen by 64 entrants) in the Big Sky finals, bringing young Madison all the way up into a tie for 34th place. Bob Morris (picked by 51) snuck by fan favorite Quinnipiac (taken by 20).

In perhaps a harbinger of postseason upsets to come, both Syracuse (selected by 39 contestants) and Villanova (favored by 23) went down in their very first 2010 Big East tournament games.

Standings, of course, are reachable through the link on the right.

The Butler did it

Three more teams have gotten on the tourney train. Butler was a unanimous selection in the Horizon, North Texas was chosen by 30 entrants in the Sun Belt, and Oakland was picked by 60 contestants in the Summit.

In the Big Sky, overwhelming favorite Weber State (selected by 64) faces off against Montana (taken only by Madison Leach). In the Patriot League, big timer Lehigh (favored by 58) goes up against its traditional rival Lafayette (picked by 9: Canning, Cohan, L Donadio, Huffnagle, D Kornfeld, Madison Leach, MASH Leach, R Perry, and Sakowski).

The news that Mash Leach has once again dipped into the pool is enough to send shivers down many a spine. But that will have to wait and be the subject of another post.

As always, standings are available on the link on the right.

How the standings work

Every single year at least one or two people e-mail us to ask how [fill in your favorite entrant moniker here] could have six correct conference champions and have 30 points while Adams has six correct conference champs but has 33 points. Do the commissioners like Adams better than them? (And every year it's always Adams, for some reason. Isn't that weird?)

So, after 21 years, here is the answer: We get 5 points for every correct conference champion and 3 points for every team we've identified at-large who makes the field.

Still flummoxed? Well, suppose Adams picked Gonzaga to win the WCC and St. Mary's as an at-large team. Well, St. Mary's won, and thus they've made the field, so Adams gets 3 points for that, in addition to the 5 points for each of the six conference champions she has so far selected.

This seeming anomaly goes away, of course, when the entire field is chosen, because then all the people who picked Gonzaga get their 3 points. True, Adams will get 6 points (3 for St. Mary's and 3 for Gonzaga), but that's because she picked two teams who made the field while someone who picked Gonzaga to win the conference and didn't pick St. Mary's at all only picked one.

Still confused? Tough.

Four more

The majority of us guessed right on three of four tonight, although all three were close games. Old Dominion (chosen by 51) eked by William & Mary (selected by 4) in the CAA final, Wofford (favored by 40) edged Appalachian State (taken by 8) in the Southern, and Siena (picked by 74) got by Fairfield (liked by nobody) in the MAAC. The only blowout was by the sole underdog to win: St. Mary's (selected by Canning, D Kedson, M Leach, Paston, Sakowski, and Yolles) kicked Gonzaga's keister in the WCC.

In the Summit conference, Oakland (selected by 60) faces off against IUPUI (taken by 12: Alberts, Booth, DaLauro, Coach Doc, Freidhof, Harlan, D Kedson, S Leach, Merril, Sakowski, Templeton, Tester). In the Sun Belt, it's North Texas (thought highly of by 30) versus Troy (fought for by 5: Claude, L Donadio, Karlsruher, E Leach, B Peloso).

Updated standings are, of course, available via the link on the right.

No Iowa

Northern Iowa became the 5th team into the tournament, as foreseen by 66 of us. Only D Baum (I & II), Booth, Fitch, M McAtee, Merril, Paston, Richardson, and Templeton thought the MVC tournament would end differently.

Five conferences are down to their Finals. In the America East conference, our favorite Stony Brook (chosen by 44) went down in the semis, leaving Vermont (picked by 27) vs. Boston University (selected only by Canning and M Leach).

Canning and M Leach could look like heroes if they land the perfecta of BU and St. Mary's (chosen by the two of them plus D Kedson, Paston, Sakowski, and Yolles), although history suggests otherwise (at least for M Leach). 69 of us took the safer path and chose Gonzaga in the WCC.

Old Dominion (51) is our favorite in the CAA, with only Friedhof, D Kedson, Templeton, and Tester going with William & Mary.

Everybody except L Schlegel picked Siena in the MAAC, and nobody picked Fairfield. A slight majority (40) picked Wofford in the Southern conference, while Alberts, Booth, ME Donadio, Huffnagle, M Leach, B Peloso, P Ripley, and Sakowski were the only believers in Appalachian State.

Updated standings are available using the link on the right.

Scofflaws

We try, we really do. We write the rules as clearly as we can. We provide links on both the Rules page and the Entry Form which lead to the particular AP Top 25 that governs which teams are ineligible to be Wild Cards. Yet every single year a few entrants figure they can sneak one by us.

Well, after 21 years we've finally had enough. According to our lawyers, this post will serve as legal notice to Richardson (#25 Richmond), L Donadio (#23 Wake Forest), R Kornfeld (#21 Temple), D Kornfeld (#20 Tennessee), and Hubbard (#15 Texas) that we have submitted all your names to the Enforcement Division of the IRS.

Good luck with the audit.

EDIT: Two more wildcard scofflaws have come to light: Bill Acchione and Durkin, who both chose #22 Baylor, bringing the total of bad guys up to seven (7).

First Four In

Four teams have had their ticket punched, and in typical form our contestants were ready for two of them. Cornell clinched the Ivy League, as they were very close to doing before the pool was due, an easy five points for all concerned. Well, for all but Sakowski, who picked Harvard. OVC favorite Murray State also came through, as all of us except Booth, M Leach, S Leach, and L Schlegel predicted.

Only five entrants saw the Music Man and picked Big South winner Winthrop -- Bud Acchione, Cohan, ME Donadio, P Leach, and Rybaltowski. Only one of us (Brindisi) had any inkling that ETSU might outlast Lipscomb, Belmont, and Jacksonville in the Atlantic Sun.

For those like Sakowski who like to eschew the obvious, contest standings may be seen by clicking on the link to the right that says, "Standings."

The Dance Card is filling up....

Congrats to those who had the foresight to take Cornell to win the Ivy. Hopefully it's a 75 way tie for first in the pool.

I don't believe many if anyone had Winthrop to win the Big South. Coastal Carolina and Radford were the favorites in that one.

Upset City Already

For those of you in the pool who weren't up on their Atlantic Sun basketball, the one seeded Lipscomb lost to the eight seeded Kennesaw State. Yikes, some of us are already behind the eight ball.

It has begun

Here we go. 75 brave souls have entered this year's Contest and subjected themselves to our scrutiny. Bwahaha.

Not sure yet how many paid for the privilege.

We'll be going into the details over the next days and weeks, so check back soon for a whole lot of clever remarks and witty repartee (or at least what passes for clever remarks and witty repartee 'round these parts -- your mileage may vary).

Deadline is Friday

If you want to enter the contest, the deadline is this Friday, February 26.

Here's the entry form if you want to take care of it right now.

Old enough to drink

Yessir, the Contest is 21 years old this year, and we want to buy it a beer. But it's probably some sort of Interstate Commerce violation, so instead we'll once again be blogging right here about the Contest and college hoops, between now and April 5 (and maybe a couple days after that).

If you've never heard of our PreNCAA Contest, or have forgotten how to play, the Rules are here.

If you're interested in joining the many savvy entrants who have participated over the past two decades, the Entry Form is here.

Any questions? Please contact us at PreNCAAContest@gmail.com.

It's that time again

Here we go! Yes, we're gearing up for our twenty first contest. The entry form should be ready sometime during the week of February 15, 2010, and the sarcastic banter shouldn't be too far behind.

We bet you can't wait, can you? So check back with us early and often.

What the big toe said to the little toe

It's over, and we have a tie for first place between Nowakowski and R Wanger, with 328 points. Third place goes to J Go Owls, with 327 points, but third prize goes to J PHINO, with 326, because J Go Owls chose not to pay. J Marshall also had 326 and also chose not to pay. As reported earlier, the prize for leading after the field was chosen was won by R Schlegel.

The last time we had a tie for first place was 2005, a year in which, oddly enough, North Carolina was champion and a Wanger was one of the contestants who were tied for first (although in 2005 it was K Wanger, now known as K Ripley, who is right now probably kicking herself for choosing to go through childbirth at the time the pool was due). Even stranger, in 2005 the person K Wanger was tied with was Butscher, who in eariler posts we erroneously concluded would be a prizewinner this year.

Official final standings may be found both on the right side of this page, and here.

Kudos to Nowakowski, R Wanger, and J PHINO. Your checks will soon be in the mail.

Thus endeth the 2009 PreNCAA Contest. Please return in February 2010 for more fun and profit.

Enjoy the rest of your year.

Our bad

It was erroneously reported on this blog that if UNC won the title Butscher would be tied for third place. Upon closer inspection it appears Butscher chose Louisville as his national champion, and not UNC as previously believed, which means Butscher in fact is tied for 21st place and will not be among our prizewinners. We regret the error and apologize for any inconvenience and/or misplaced euphoria to which it may or may not have directly or indirectly contributed.

Going Green

Walking to Ford Field yesterday afternoon, we probably saw 50 Michigan State shirts for every one of any of the other three competing teams. A sea of green, if you will. Inside the arena, it was without doubt a home game for the Spartans, with the usual home game result. The second game had a miniscule fraction of the intensity of the first game, but that may have simply been a reflection of Villanova's shooting percentage. If it's any consolation to any Nova Gang members out there, Villanova's band was the best by a large margin.

Depending on the game results, our winners will be:

NORTH CAROLINA
1. Nowakowski 328 (tie)
1. R Wanger 328 (tie)
3**. J Go Owls 327**
3. J PHINO 326 (tie)
3**. J Marshall 326**

MICHIGAN STATE
1. Karlsruher 296
2. S Adams 291
3. Nowakowski 288 (tie)
3. R Wanger 288 (tie)

**J Go Owls and J Marshall are non-paying entrants, and thus will get nothing and like it.


The omen-seeking commissioner's son has declared from his perch in a Detroit suburb that everywhere he looks all he can see is Michigan.

Take your omens as you find them

Sometimes one has to suffer for one's obsessions. This particular commissioner traveled to his 20th Final Four yesterday, a fact that utterly failed to impress the USAirways automatic assistant when it called four hours before the commissioner's scheduled departure time to inform him via pre-recorded message that his flight had been canceled. Humans working at USAirways were similarly unsympathetic, asserting that all other flights to Detroit were booked solid, leading to this hypothetical conversation in the commissioner's about-to-spontaneously-combust brain:

Commissioner: No kidding it's booked solid. It's the friggin' Final Four! You canceled my flight on four hours notice, you can't squeeze me onto another plane?

Unsympathetic USAir employee: Sorry, we're only required to do that if the situation is our fault.

C: I've had a reservation for four months and you canceled it on four hours notice. Who's fault is it?

UUE: Would you like to fly somewhere else?

C: Would you like to move the Final Four somewhere else?

Ultimately, we compromised on tickets to Akron/Canton, Ohio, a mere three and a half hour drive from Detroit, a flight which had the added advantage once we arrived at the Philadelphia airport of being postponed for four hours, making our door-to-door travel time a pleasant ten hours.

But that's not what this story is about.

We finally arrive at Akron and trudge out to our rental car, for which Hertz has compassionately agreed to charge us only $157 since we're picking the car up in Akron and dropping it off in Detroit the next day. The commissioner's eight-year-old son wanders around to the back of the car, to stow his backpack in the trunk, when he stops and calls out in horror, "OH, NO! Daddy come quick!"

We're standing in Ohio on our way to Michigan, but the license plate of our rental car says, "North Carolina."

We'll see what it means tonight. Enjoy the games.

Tag Team tenacity

The waters may get muddy, but eventually the dirt settles to the bottom. As has been happening since the dawn of time, lawyers (248.67) have finished below humans (255.1). So it is, so it has been, so it shall ever be. Amen. Spiny anteaters (264.0), of course, have evolved beyond the other competing species.

Also in line with the immutable stars, females (261.5) are better than males (254.69). The No Child (252.20) Left Behind legislation has clearly failed.

The average entrant this year has a score of 254.67, which is a huge drop from last year at this time (290.49). It appears Darwin never studied our contestants. The average commissioner's score is 236.50, which says something but we're not planning to expound upon it. Paid contestants score an average of 257.59, while once again non-paying participants (244.81) have shown they fail to pay for a very good reason.

Among technical professions, accountants (268.33) added things up better than engineers (268.11) and IT Consultants (255.0). Teachers (255.33) apparently only think they know more than students (260.88). The only other professionals worse than practicing attorneys (257.67) are members of the liberal media (249.67), whose slanted coverage has finally come back to haunt them. Retired people (243.33) should stay that way.

Among employers, Urban Engineering (261.0) and Conrail (261.0) are equivalent. They'll be swapping their staff any time now.

Regionally, Central NJ (263.0) beat out the Philadelphia suburbs (261.35) for the high ground. Such as it is. Western PA (257.4) edged the Beltway (253.0) and urban Philadelphia (246.83). If it's true that the South (246.36) is gonna rise again, they better start working on it.

In the turbulent Tag Team tussles, the Marshall Plan (281.5) beat back the Adams Family (275.33) for the spot of honor. The Donadios (263.0) finished ahead of the Ripley-Believe-It-Or-Nots (261.0) and Whiteside and people who don't like him so much (259.67). The D'Zurans (254.5) are safely ahead of the South Philly Playground Guys (248.0), and the Paston Brothers (236.0) are still giving thanks that the Lord created the Leach Gang (228.25).

It's a good year to be a John Doe (277.67). Rick (269.0) and Luke (269.0) tied among names ending in the "k" sound. Bob (265.5), Chris (263.5), David (261.5), Ken (258.5), and Ed (256.0) are above average names, while Brett (245.0), Matt (220.0), and Nick (218.5) should think about getting theirs legally changed.

Rivalactitude

The weeping thing seems to be working for Karlsruher (296, Pitt) who is currently in first place and thus ahead of that pesky Millan (281, UNC), but if UNC wins it all, Karlsruher may really be crying because in that case he'll be conquered by his rival once again.

Whiteside (276, UConn) clings to a 10 point lead over co-worker McKillip (266, UNC), but (again) if UNC wins we may see a change in the pecking order. As seems to be her annual fate, sister-in-law Booth (237, Okla) is eating Whiteside's "shabbalicious" dust.

Also rooting for the boys in baby blue are Joe Mc (263, UNC), who can sneak ahead of daughter McAtee-Gattone (264, Pitt) for the first time ever if UNC wins, and Coach Doc (277 UNC), who can shove aside daughter S Adams (291, UConn) under the same unfortunate circumstance. Alleged Duke-loving M Peloso (273, UNC) can master her husband B Peloso (277, Pitt) if the Heels win, with the added bonus of losing all her credibility and self-respect.

B Peloso is currently fending off archnemesis Sullivan (266, UConn), but he will fail miserably if UConn takes the title. Sullivan already knows she's better than husband D'Zuro (244, Okla), and can claim bragging rights at her next séance with dead mother-in-law Haklar (244, UConn).

R Wanger (288, UNC) has finally bested daughter K Ripley (253, UNC), but he had to beat up on a 10-month pregnant woman to do it. P Ripley (242, UNC) chose the wiser course and bowed to his wife for the third time in their three year marriage.

Children L Schlegel (259, Pitt) and B Kleiman (236, Memphis) made valiant but ultimately unsuccessful efforts to unseat their fathers, R Schlegel (263, Okla) and M Kleiman (237, Pitt) as head poolpicker of the household. In the Donadio home, however, youngins Jr Donadio (279, UConn) and L Donadio (279, UNC) pwn their parents, J Donadio (262, Okla) and ME Donadio (236, Pitt), as well as sibling N Donadio (259, Louis), who at least was able put his mom in a time out.

M Paston (218, Okla) got hammered by a sibling with an unidentified initial (? Paston, 255, UNC). Commissioner M Josephs (233, UConn) is so far behind his dad, D Josephs (283, UNC) that it doesn't matter whether his champion wins or not. P Leach (240, UConn) can pound patriarch E Leach (246, UNC) if UConn wins, but there's no absolutely no hope for the Leach Kids (185, Pitt).

All Name 2009

First Team, Crazy Long Name Division
Grlenntys Chief Kickingstallionsims, Jr. (Alabama State) (Captain)
Lacedarius Dunn (Baylor)
Chinemelu Elonu (Texas A&M)
Kyievarez Ward (Texas)
Orlando Mendez-Valdez (Western Kentucky)

First Team, Normal Length Name Division
Beloved Rogers (Oral Roberts) (Captain) -- Name of the Year
Grievous Vasquez (Maryland - they call him "General")
Derwin Kitchen (Florida State)
Avery Jukes (Butler)
Idong Ibok (Michigan State)

Third Team
Kwadzo Ahelege (Northern Iowa) (Captain)
Dogus Balbay (Texas)
E'Twaun Moore (Purdue)
Lazar Hayward (Marquette)
Divaldo Mbunga (Montana State)

Third World Team
Zaire Taylor (Missouri) (Captain)

Old Testament Team
Jeremiah Dominguez (Portland State) (Captain)
Isaiah Thomas (Washington)
Solomon Alabi (Florida State)
Marshall Moses (Oklahoma State)
Ishmael Smith (Wake Forest)

Honorable Mention for Religious Connotation
Xavier Gibson (Florida State)
Emanuel Maybin (Binghamton)
Dionte Christmas (Temple) (Holiday Division)
Osiris Eldridge (Illinois State) (Greek Division)
Epiphanny Prince (Rutgers Women) (Women's Division)
Brooklyn Pope (Rutgers Women) (Women's Division -- what's in the drinking water up at Rutgers?)

Spelers of the Yeer
Jrue Holiday (UCLA) (Captain)
Jimmer Fredette (BYU)
Justynn Hammond (Portland State)**
Semaj Inge (Temple) (Backwards Division)
Steffphon Pettigrew (Western Kentucky) (Department of Redundancy Department Division)

**Siblings of the Year: Justynn Hammond apparently has a brother named Christiaan Hammond and another named Uranus Golden. We wonder if Uranus Golden has ever met 2008 Name of the Year winner Yauney Neptune?

Who will win

The contest, that is. Depending on who is the victor in Detroit, our winners will be:

VILLANOVA
1. Karlsruher 296
2. S Adams 291
3. Nowakowski 288 (tie)
3. R Wanger 288 (tie)

CONNECTICUT
1. S Adams 331
2. Jr Donadio 319
2**. Dax Gray 319**
3. O'Brien 317

NORTH CAROLINA
1. Nowakowski 328 (tie)
1. R Wanger 328 (tie)
3**. J Go Owls 327**
3. J PHINO 326 (tie)
3**. J Marshall 326**

MICHIGAN STATE
1. Karlsruher 296
2. S Adams 291
3. Nowakowski 288 (tie)
3. R Wanger 288 (tie)

** Dax Gray, J Marshall, and J Go Owls are non-paying entrants, so their inclusion in this list is sort of honorary. They obviously have a higher love for college basketball and clearly did not want to cheapen their rooting experience by placing a price on their passion, and for this we admire them. Although presumably O'Brien, Butscher, and J PHINO (all three of whom actually have a chance at real money thanks to Gray's, Marshall's, and Go Owls's unwillingness to fork over a measly ten bucks) admire them a lot more than we do.

Final Four is set

Now we know who'll be driving up to the motor city. What perhaps we hadn't expected is there'll be a home team. Well, four of us expected Michigan State to make it (Jr Donadio, J Go Owls, M Peloso, Pogach), though neither they nor anybody else picked the Spartans to win it all. Fifty five individuals took UNC into their Final Four and 27 of them like them as champs. At least one commissioner has no comment except to say he's not bitter.

Of the 70 people who entered this year's contest only one (1) of us accurately selected as many as three of the Final Four, and that was 20-year participant Joe Mc. This stellar achievement may have been the crown of Joe Mc's contest career but it wasn't good enough to put him ahead of 2-year participant McAtee-Gattone, who still leads her father by a point. Although if UNC wins it all, Joe Mc won't have to be scared to take his daughter's phone calls.

Thirty eight people correctly chose two of the Final Four and 28 were right on only one. Three highly skilled contestants (Paston, Reilly, and the irrepressible Leach Kids) managed a grand total of zero (0) accurate Final Four predictions.

Some days it feels like the Pitts

Not today, though. Fifty one people had Pitt in the Final Four, but they were all wrong. Instead Joe Mc, Pangolin Palace, and Rybaltowski rule the day with their astute selection of Villanova. Eleven contestants with Pitt as their champion have had their hopes dashed, while nobody considered the possibility that Villanova could win it all.

UConn made it and 45 people said hurrah. Twelve of those happy individuals have UConn going all the way. Only Haklar and the Leach Kids had the temerity to suggest Missouri could make the Final Four.

Greek-quoting weeper Karlsruher maintains a small lead over S Adams, Nowakowski, and R Wanger, but Karlsruher picked Pitt to pommel its peers (i.e., win the championship), so the door is still open.

Eight is Enough

The favorites all won today, meaning not too many people lost anything. Only 16 people had Kansas in the Final Eight and just 4 (Alberts, Brenner, DeMaso, B Kleiman) took them into the Final Four. Nobody had Arizona or Syracuse going anywhere (although three -- McAtee-Gattone, Rodenstein, G Warner had Arizona as their Wildcard), and just 6 and 2 (R Perry, G Warner) were betting on Gonzaga to reach the Final Eight and Final Four, respectively. None of today's losers are anybody's champion (except maybe their mom's).

For the Final Eight and Final Four, UNC was favored by 69 and 55, Oklahoma by 61 and 39, Louisville by 45 and 23, and Michigan State by 23 and 4 (Jr Donadio, J Go Owls, M Peloso, and Pogach). For champion, it's UNC 27, Oklahoma 10, Louisville 4 (Butscher, N Donadio, Rybaltowski, Wadden), and Michigan State 0.

Die Hard-quoting Karlsruher (256 points) has wept his way to the top spot, followed by S Adams (251), Nowakowski (248), and R Wanger (248). Eighteen other entrants are within one Final Four selection (20 points) of the leader.

With four number one seeds, two number two seeds and two number three seeds in the Final Eight, you might expect our contestants to have nailed it this year. Yeah, right. Only five entrants (Karlsruher, J Go Owls, J Marshall, J Phino, McAtee-Gattone) correctly guessed as many as 7 of the Eight, and two of them were merely non-paying outtakes from the Marshall Plan.

Twenty competitors got 6 of the Eight, 33 got 5, and nine (9) got only four (4) of the Eight (8) right, including both commissioners (M Josephs and D Kedson). Always good to know they're not cheating, right? The Leach Kids, with five accurate Final Eight predictions, look like Little Einsteins compared to R Perry and J Jones (1 & 2), who only managed three (3) proper picks apiece.

Life of Reilly (and others)

Five people lost champions last night, three with Memphis (Reilly, B Kleiman, Pangolin Palace) and two with Duke (R Simon and commissioner D Kedson). Memphis was taken by 48 misguided souls into the Final Eight and 24 into the Final Four. Duke was chosen by 33 for the Eight and 10 for the Four, but at least those entrants' hearts were in the right place. Five people (Booth, Jr Donadio, N Donadio, S Smith, Stanton) took Xavier into the Final Eight, but only Booth had them in her Final Four. Three dice-rollers (Fitch, Haklar, Sadkowski) had Purdue in their Final Eight.

On the good side, 25 people liked Villanova enough to put them in their Final Eight, and three (Joe Mc, Pangolin Palace, Rybaltowski) placed them in their Final Four. Just 13 were wise enough to choose Missouri in their Final Eight, with only two (Haklar, Leach Kids) taking them as far as Detroit.

In probably the most surprising development of the day, UConn (61 in F8, 45 in F4, 12 as champs) and Pitt (68 in F8, 51 in F4, 11 as champs) were both popular and successful.

R Schlegel still clings to the top spot, but five contestants (S Adams, Nowakowski, B Peloso, Butscher, Karlsruher) are within a single Final Eight choice of the leader.

More games tonight.

Tag Team treats

Dogs and cats living together? Mass hysteria? Well, it may not be a disaster of biblical proportions, but it's possible the world has gone topsy-turvy, as lawyers (177.0) currently lead humans (171.44). For the first time in the contest's 20 year history, there are no feline entrants. In fact, proclaiming that "scaly is the new black," the only competitor from the animal kingdom is a scaly anteater, Pangolin Palace (174), who has come down pretty much right in the middle of the lawyers and the people. At least gravity's working in the case of females (173.5) and males (172.32), although clearly children (166.2) have a lot of growing up to do.

Practing attorneys (177.67) currently claim the top occupation as well, barely ahead of accountants (176.67) and members of the media (176.33). Teachers (175.33) know more than students (172.75), and engineers (174.78) solve their problems better than computer professionals (171.67). Retired persons (166.67) appear to have retired for a reason. Among employers, Conrail (176.0) is beating out Urban Engineering (167.67).

In the true Tag Team tallies, the Adams Family (178.67) is currently leading the South Philly Playground Guys (176.0), the D'Zurans (174.5), the Ripley-Believe-It-Or-Nots (174.33) and the Marshall Plan (174.0). Whiteside and his Detractors (173.0) and the Donadios are tied with 173.0, while the only thing keeping the Paston Brothers (166.5) from complete ignominy is the fact that the Leach Gang (158.25) is still in town.

If you're picking pools, the suburbs of Phildelphia (174.81) are where you want to be this year, certainly better than visiting Western PA (173.4), Central NJ (173.0), or urban Philadelphia (168.5). The further south you go, the worse you'll get, as the Beltway (168.0) and the Deep South (163.34) represent the bottom of regional thinking.

In the name game, it's Rick (184.0) on top and Nick (158.5) on the bottom. David (181.5) leads Ed (181.0), Bret/t (180.0), Kevin (178.5) and Bob (178.0), while John (174.33) is edging out Luke (174.0) and Matt (170.0).

Rivalicious

Last year Karlsruher declared he would never lose to Millan again, and backed it up by getting clobbered by 39 points. This year, Karlsruher quoted Plutarch (or maybe it was Alan Rickman in Die Hard: "When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer"), but he's losing to Millan yet again, 191 to 186, so maybe he doesn't have to weep just yet.

Whiteside (176) continues his mastery over sister-in-law Booth (157), but so far is well behind workplace adversary, McKillip (186). K Ripley (163), who annually bests both her husband and father, trails both P Ripley (172) and R Wanger (188) this year. But the rumor is she was in labor with a baby boy when she made her picks, so perhaps that explains it. Between the Paston brothers, "M" (168) leads an undisclosed initial (165).

B Peloso (177) is hanging by a thread over his archnemesis, Sullivan (176), although as usual he trails his Duke-loving wife, M Peloso (183). M Peloso, however, has forever forfeited her Duke-loving credentials by choosing North Carolina to win it all. Sullivan is still ahead of both her husband, D'Zuro (174), and her deceased mother-in-law, Haklar (174).

Joe Mc (163), one of the few competitors to have played in all twenty contests, is for the second consecutive year trailing daughter McAtee-Gattone, who is one of the many competitors to have played in just two. Coach Doc (187) is having similar problems with daughter S Adams (191), and J Donadio (172) is eating the dust of two of his three descendants -- Jr Donadio and Lucia Donadio both have 179 while poor, deprived N Donadio has only 169. Mother ME Donadio (166) is being spanked by all three kids.

Other entrants are having fewer problems with their progeny. Leader R Schlegel (193) is easily handling son L Schlegel (169), while M Kleiman (177) is barely suppressing son B Kleiman (176). D Josephs (183) is once again trouncing son and commissioner M Josephs (173). Leach Gang patriarch E Leach (176) is beating son P Leach (170) and whupping the backsides of his grandchildren, the Leach Kids (135).

Spartans conquer Trojans

Michigan State edged Southern Cal today in a gripping reenactment of the Peloponnesian War. More pertinent, perhaps, to both the current millennium and our entrants, is that it marked the first time in history that the twelve top seeds in the NCAA tournament all made the Sweet Sixteen.

So most of us should be in pretty good shape. Unless of course you're one of the 12 risk takers to have Marquette in your Final Eight or the 7 cagey contestants to go with Arizona State. Or Rybaltowski, who chose Siena. Or one of the three people whose Final Four includes either Arizona State (George B, Pangolin Palace, B Peloso) or Marquette (Fitch, R Perry, Reilly).

Reilly adds Marquette to his spate of unfortunate decisions, which include Utah and Texas into his Final Eight. Even more impressive is R Perry whose Final Eight has Marquette joining Texas, Washington, Wake Forest, and both Gonzaga and North Carolina (opponents this Friday so only one of which can actually reach the Elite Eight), and whose Final Four consists of Marquette, Wake Forest, Gonzaga, and UNC, meaning the first weekend is barely over and we already know he'll be correct on at most one (1) of the above.

The only Wildcard remaining is Arizona, and thus L McAtee-Gattone, Rodenstein, and Warner stand alone in receiving more than 1 Wildcard point.

No more games until Thursday, which should give me time to finally produce the Rivals and Tag Team numbers. See ya.

Thabeet goes on...

Half the Sweet Sixteen was set today, and it was Waterloo for Wildcards. Washington (chosen by 13), LSU (13), Texas (6), and Maryland (1) all went down today, leaving only Arizona (L McAtee-Gattone, Rodenstein, Warner) and Dayton (Wadden) still alive for Wildcard points.

Final Eight losers included UCLA (picked by 8), Texas (5), Washington (2), and LSU (2). Mahalko and R Perry had the misfortune of picking both Texas and Washington, losing 25% of their Final Eight in one evening. R Perry also had Wake Forest in his Final Eight, so presumably he's not very happy right now. Reilly had Texas today after losing Utah yesterday.

Three people had UCLA in the Final Four (DeVito, D'Zuro, and Haklar), while just J Broder had Texas and Mahalko had Washington.

The standings didn't change today, so I didn't re-post them.

B.A.D. day for the A.C.C.

With a small number of already discussed exceptions, more or less every Final Eight and Final Four team chosen by our group is still alive. Except for ACC stalwarts Clemson and Wake Forest, that is. Twenty-five of us chose Wake into the Final Eight and 16 of us liked Clemson, while the teams had three votes each for the Final Four (Clemson: George B, M Josephs, Wanger; Wake: R Perry, Wanger, and of course, the Leach Kids). Wanger deserves special mention for choosing BOTH Wake Forest and Clemson into his Final Four, pretty much scragging his entry by the end of the first round.

Rybaltowski, who took Siena into his Final Eight, must feel pretty good. At least until Sunday. And now that we think about it, there was one other Final Eight fiasco, as Reilly expected Utah to be one of the last eight standing.

Our most popular Wildcard, West Virginia (with 15 votes) went down hard, as did our fifth most popular Wildcard, Utah (5 votes). This leaves 13 people with LSU and 13 with Washington, 6 people with Texas, 3 with Arizona (L McAtee-Gattone, Rodenstein, G Warner), and 1 each with Dayton (Wadden) and Maryland (R Simon).

First day action

Presumably a lot of people who picked Memphis, Villanova, and UCLA breathed a moderately large sigh of relief yesterday, but we had relatively few actual casualties on the first day of the Big Cha Cha.

It was a bad day for George B, who had California as his Wildcard and Clemson in both his Final Eight and Final Four. Fifteen other entrants joined him in choosing Clemson into the Final Eight, but only Wanger and commissioner M Josephs stood with George B in taking the Tigers into the Final Four. P Leach, who was the sole contestant to think Illinois could make the Final Eight, and DeVito, who had Minnesota as his Wildcard, were the only other entrants to lose anything yesterday (at least with respect to the contest).

Still working on Rivals and Tag Team material -- sorry about that.

Enjoy today's games.

Foursomes

Our favorites for the Final Four include three #1 seeds and a #2, although the #2 is in the same region as one of the #1's, so we won't be right (as if that's a surprise to anybody).

Innovative choices were made by George B (Arizona State and Clemson), M Peloso (Duke and Michigan State), Pangolin Palace (Arizona State and Villanova), and R Wanger (Clemson and Wake Forest). Even more inventive were Haklar (Duke, Missouri, UCLA), R Perry (Gonzaga, Marquette, and Wake Forest), and of course the Leach Kids (Duke, Missouri, and Wake Forest).

Everybody's Final Four selections may be perused here.

All Final Four teams selected are below:

FINAL FOUR
-----------------
North Carolina (55)
Pittsburgh (51)
Connecticut (45)
Oklahoma (39)
Memphis (24)
Louisville (23)
Duke (10)
Kansas (4)
Michigan State (4)
Arizona State (3)
Marquette (3)
UCLA (3)
Villanova (3)
Wake Forest (3)
Clemson (3)
Gonzaga (2)
Missouri (2)
Xavier (1)
Texas (1)
Washington (1)

Final Eight count

Our top seven choices for the Final Eight are all #1 or #2 seeds, which probably bodes well for an upset-filled tournament.

As you'd expect, a few contestants branched out into creative territory. Haklar, for instance, chose Missouri, Purdue, and UCLA into her Final 8, while Reilly chose Marquette, Texas, and Utah, and commissioner M Josephs liked Clemson, Gonzaga, and Kansas. Other creative souls include Mahalko, who picked Clemson, Texas, and Washington, and Wadden, who went with Gonzaga, Kansas, and LSU. Going one further was R Perry, who picked Gonzaga, Marquette, Texas, and Washington to be four of the last eight teams standing.

But this year's winner for most imaginative Final Eight goes to J Jones (as well as his alter-ego, J Jones (2)), who is already two picks behind everyone else after going with Clemson, UCLA, Florida, and Kentucky. Although he's looking pretty good in the NIT pool.

All Final Eight teams chosen are as below. For a complete breakdown of everybody's choices, try this link.

FINAL EIGHT
------------------
North Carolina (69)
Pittsburgh (68)
Connecticut (61)
Oklahoma (61)
Memphis (48)
Louisville (45)
Duke (33)
Wake Forest (25)
Villanova (25)
Michigan State (23)
Kansas (16)
Clemson (16)
Missouri (13)
Marquette (12)
UCLA (8)
Arizona State (7)
Gonzaga (6)
Texas (5)
Xavier (5)
Purdue (3)
LSU (2)
Florida (2)
Washington (2)
Kentucky (2)
Illinois (1)
Utah (1)
Siena (1)

Wildlife

Picking Wildcards is a tricky business, but some make it trickier than others. This year ten (10) entrants have a zero (0) percent chance of grabbing any Wildcard points, and we're happy to name them here.

In addition to Broder, J Jones, and R Perry, who chose illegal Wildcards, seven contestants chose Wildcards so wild they were not invited to play: Packman (St. Mary's); Ripley (South Carolina); Mahalko (Penn State); Booth (Florida); D Gray (Florida); Stanton (Creighton); and 2007 contest winner and noted Duke-lover M Peloso (Davidson).

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

Up on my soapbox

OK, this doesn't really have anything to do with the contest, but indulge me for a moment and consider the following four team resumes, and tell me which one you'd pick for the fourth number one seed (you can only choose one)?

Team A:
RPI: 2
Conference tournament champ? Yes
Conference standings: tie for 2nd
Win-loss: 28-6
Record vs. RPI Top 25: 5-3
Schedule strength: 3
Last 10: 8-2

Team B:
RPI: 7
Conference tournament champ? Yes
Conference standings: 1st
Win-loss: 31-3
Record vs. RPI Top 25: 1-2
Schedule strength: 38
Last 10: 10-0

Team C:
RPI: 8
Conference tournament champ? No (lost in conference quarterfinals)
Conference standings: tie for 2nd
Win-loss: 27-4
Record vs. RPI Top 25: 4-3
Schedule strength: 30
Last 10: 7-3

Team D:
RPI: 5
Conference tournament champ? No (lost in conference semifinals)
Conference standings: 1st
Win-loss: 26-6
Record vs. RPI Top 25: 5-2
Schedule strength: 5
Last 10: 8-2


I know it's not easy, but the only thing for sure is the team you don't pick is team C, right? So what in the world is team C[onnecticut] doing as a number one seed? What possible rationale could the committee have used?

It boggles the imagination.

The brackets are in

Well, the brackets are set and we're off to the races. Our leader after selection of the field (and winner for the prize thereof) is long-time entrant R Schlegel, with 193 points, barely edging out S Adams, who has 191, and Millan, who has 190. Congratulations Mr. Schlegel.

Full standings may be found using the link on the right hand side of this page, or if you're too lazy to go there then you can try here.

We'll have lots more fun, facts, and fabulosity tomorrow, so tune in then.

Millan, dahling

Just four more games and then the fabulous selection special. In the meantime, Memphis (picked by all 70 of us), Binghamton (picked by 23), Temple (9), Missouri (5), Alabama State (59), Utah State (63), Louisville (9), and Cal State Northridge (9) strutted down the championship runway yesterday, leaving Millan as our sole leader, with 86 points. Hot on his heels are S Adams, Brenner, Coach Doc, and McKillip, all with 84 points. Bringing up the rear in fine style are the Leach Kids, with 45.

Buy American

American won its 2nd straight NCAA tournament berth and its 2nd all-time. This impressive history led 61 of us to pick the Eagles, making this one of the few results we've been able to properly predict.

Chalk up the Atlantic 10 as one of the much larger group of conferences about which we've had absolutely no clue, with Xavier (chosen by 47) going down to Temple (chosen by 9) and Dayton (picked by 13) losing to Duquesne (picked by nooooooobody). The count of nine contestants still alive in the A-10 matches the 9 who still have an interest in the Big East (all Louisville) and is actually significantly better than the 5 who still have something to say in the Big 12 (all Missouri).

Just two more days until Selection Sunday, so enjoy the ride.

Life imitates art...

...well, if you can call a commercial for a mediocre wings place "art" then life imitates it. Right down to the refs looking into their magic monitor and waving off the game winning basket at the end of regulation. But Syracuse downing UConn (chosen by 26 entrants) in 6 (!) overtimes wasn't the only disappointment for some of our contestants. Oklahoma (picked by 57), Pitt (32), Sam Houston St. (21), UNLV (18), Miami Ohio (10), Kansas (7), Clemson (6), Arizona (5), NC A&T (4), Kent (4), CS Fullerton (3), Texas Arlington (2), California (1), Rhode Island (1), and Marquette (1) also went down. Hard.

They haven't played the semifinals yet, but only 11 entrants are still alive in the Big East (9 for Louisville, L Schlegel for Villanova, and D Kedson for West Virginia). And only 6 people are still interested in the Big 12 results (5 for Missouri and R Perry for Texas).

More fun tomorrow.

At the buzzer

Two more conference champions determined last night and both of them won by two on shots with mere seconds to play. In the NEC, Robert Morris (selected by 60 entrants) beat Mount St. Mary's (selected by 7). In the Big Sky, Portland State (favored by 3 entrants) beat Montana State (favored by none), much to the delight of Pogach, L Schlegel, and Stanton. Pogach used this unlikely victory to springboard all the way up into a tie for last with the Leach Kids, with 20 points. Stanton used it to keep pace with Brenner and B Peloso at the top, because Stanton also picked Mount St. Mary's. The leaders have 45 points.

The Butler didn't... you know

Three more conference champions, including another one nobody saw coming. Well, Sakowski did, cleverly counting on Cleveland State over Butler (chosen by 68). The other two were more in the mainstream, with North Dakota State (53) winning a squeaker over Oakland (chosen only by Alberts, N Donadio and E Leach), and Western Kentucky (57) controlling South Alabama (0).

The Big Sky winner will be yet another surprise (at least to us), as Weber State (65) got knocked out, leaving Portland State (Pogach, L Schlegel, Stanton) against Montana State (nobody) for the league title.

Four more conferences started their tournaments yesterday, but the only entrants who've lost so far in the MAC, MEAC, WAC, and Big East are the Leach Kids, who chose Western Michigan in the MAC, and L Schlegel who tapped Howard in the MEAC.

We have a three-way tie for first, Brenner, B Peloso, and Stanton, each with 40 points, and a one-way tie for last, Pogach, with 15 points, who has somehow managed to fall behind the Leach Kids, who have 20.

Uh, oh

Check out this video link from the Onion.

Grave implications for the Contest, wouldn't you say? Unless you picked the On-line University of Liverpool, of course.

Pardon me, Roy, is that the cat who chewed the new shoes?

We've finally seen a conference champion that our entrants favored to win; in fact we've now seen three (Gonzaga, chosen by 67; Siena, chosen by 59, and VCU, chosen by 50). But today's big story is Chattanooga winning the Southern Conference after being chosen by zero (0) of our canny contestants.

We now have a six-way tie for first (Luke and John, Brenner, ME Donadio, B Peloso, Stanton, and last year's winner, Whiteside). We have a two-way tie for last, but both of them are J Jones.

Down goes Davidson

Another conference champion today, and another one chosen by hardly any of us. Northern Iowa won the MVC and only six contestants weren't surprised (Mahalko, McKillip, Reilly, R Simon, S Smith, and the Leach Kids). Besides Cornell we've yet to see a conference champ that more than half of us thought would win.

And the streak won't be broken in the Southern Conference championship game tomorrow, as overwhelming favorite Davidson (selected by 63) went down to the College of Charleston (selected by 6) in the league semifinals.

Those crazy Leach Kids are tied for first after choosing Northern Iowa and Morehead State, but they shouldn't start counting their winnings yet considering they also went with Northeastern (picked by 6 others), Rider (picked by 2 others), Montana (1 other), and Long Island (nobody else), all of which have already lost. Twelve other entrants are tied with the Kids, while 15 players have only chosen one winner so far and are tied for last.

In probably the first NCAA Division I men's basketball championship of any kind played in the great state of South Dakota, underdog South Dakota State knocked out Oral Roberts (picked by 13 entrants) yesterday. As you might guess, the home team was picked by absolutely nobody in our contest.

In another odd twist of fate, Troy and Sacred Heart both lost today and were both picked by ME Donadio and Pogach, but by nobody else.

3 more champs

Three more conference champions, and none of them picked by more than half of our contestants. Morehead State (picked by 11) beat Austin Peay (picked by 6) for the OVC crown today. Radford (35) overwhelmed VMI (32) in the Big South, and ETSU (20) slammed Jacksonville (14) in the Atlantic Sun.

Big losers today included Creighton (selected by 88.6% of us, also known as 62 entrants) and Vermont (chosen by 41). We now have a ten-way tie for first place, among John and Luke, Brenner, J Broder, ME Donadio, McAtee-Gattone, P O'Brien, B Peloso, Stanton, Wadden, and 2008 winner Whiteside.

Whiteside antagonist Booth leads a list of 19 entrants who only have one correct conference champion, and that's counting Cornell.

We have Standings

Now that Cornell has won the Ivy League and one ticket has been punched, we have standings that aren't all zeros. (If you want to see those standings, use the link on the right hand side of the page that says, surprisingly, "Standings.") And believe it or not, we do NOT have a 70-way tie.

No, the safe pick may have been Cornell, who at the time the pool was due had a virtual stranglehold on first place in a league that doesn't hold a tournament, but the Big Red's ascension was not a mathematical certainty, and that opened the door for five of our entrants to show they had the guts to trod the path less traveled (Sakowski went with Columbia, and J Jones, J Jones (2), Joe Mc, and Paston all selected Princeton). Due to their daring and courage we now have a 65-way tie for first, and a five-way tie for last. Thanks, guys.

In other news, Morehead State (chosen by 11 entrants) has knocked off Eastern Kentucky (chosen by 5) and UT-Martin (chosen by 42) in the Ohio Valley Conference, and will go up against Austin Peay (chosen by 6 and vanquisher of Murray State, also chosen by 6) for the OVC crown. Radford (35) will battle VMI (32) for the Big South title, leaving only N Donadio, Sakowski, and Rodenstein (who all chose Liberty) in the lurch. In the Atlantic Sun, ETSU (20) faces off against Jacksonville (14), making losers out of the 33 contestants who took Belmont as well as S Adams (Lipscomb), Coach Doc (Lipscomb), and Jr Donadio (Mercer).

As far as we can tell, pretty much everybody else is still alive in every other conference, with the exception of O'Brien, who took Loyola Marymount in the WCC, and the Leach Kids, who took Long Island in the NEC.

And the beat goes on.

What counts as Wild these days

Only seven teams have more than one Wild Card vote:

West Virginia -- 15
Washington -- 13
LSU -- 13
Texas -- 6
Utah -- 5
Arizona -- 3
Florida -- 2

While nine other teams have a single voice of support.

More interesting, as always, are the competitors who try to sneak past the Commissioners a Wild Card that appeared in the AP Top 25 that was linked from both the Rules and the Entry Form.

In the public interest we will name these lawbreakers here, but be warned -- these are potentially dangerous individuals. If you happen to see them don't try to apprehend them yourself; notify the authorities immediately and let armed professionals bring these wrongdoers to justice.

That said, be on the lookout for:

J Broder, who chose #25 Florida State as his Wild Card;
J Jones, who chose #8 Memphis; and
R Perry, who chose #5 Louisville.

And then dial 911.

A relatively safe first day

No big upsets on the opening evening of conference tournaments. In fact, only five entrants have lost so much as a single pick, and all of them chose Eastern Kentucky to win the OVC (N Donadio; J Jones; J Jones (2); Kasprzak; Stanton).

Today marks the beginning of the Atlantic Sun, Patriot, and Sun Belt conference tournaments. Enjoy.

Good news for Duke fans

In the 19 years this contest has been running, our contestants have had a favorite for National Champion every single year. And in four of those years, our group of supposedly knowledgeable individuals has actually been correct. That's right, our entrants are on the money in over 21% of their collective championship predictions! Admit it, you're impressed.

We bring this up because this year our contestants have annointed the University of North Carolina as our favorite for National Champion. Which based on our history would make any Duke fan smile.

The breakdown of all our choices for champion are as follows:

UNC -- 27
UConn -- 12
Pitt -- 11
Oklahoma -- 10
Louisville -- 4
Memphis -- 3
Duke -- 2
Clemson -- 1

OK, the contest really begins

It turns out we have 70 entrants, including one sent via e-mail we forgot about at the time of the last post. We're not sure how many are paying entrants, because the deadline for payment is later this week. (NOTE: If your intention has been to be eligible for prizes, please read the previous sentence.)

The OVC, Big South, and Horizon conference tournaments begin tonight, so let's all get out there and root for High Point.

The contest begins...

It looks like 69 entries in this year's contest (and we absolutely refuse to make even a single prurient reference regarding that maligned configuration of digits). We'll run some numbers and post some analyses no later than Monday, so stay tuned.

The first conference tournament games start on Tuesday, so take a deep breath and get ready for the ride.

The time is near

Don't forget, the due date for the contest is TOMORROW, Thursday, February 26, 11:59pm. So get those entries filled out.

If you've forgotten how to find it, the entry form may be found here.

May you be guided by Divine Providence (or Pittsburgh, or Connecticut, or whatever).

2009 Pre Tourney Information

I have sent out the emails to those of you who played last year with all of the pertinent information. Those of you who are facebook people, there is a group on there as well with all of the information. "2009 Pre Tournament Pool" is what I titled it on there. We're upgrading technologically!!

Good luck all

Here we go again!

Believe it or not, it's time for the 2009 edition of the Pre-NCAA Contest. Even more mind-boggling is it's our 20th Anniversary.

Yes, this will be our 20th contest, dating all the way back to the 20th century! (1990, to be precise.)

So, why not enter this historic contest? Or bring a friend. Or an enemy, for that matter. We don't discriminate.

This year's contest due date is THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, at 11:59pm.

The rules may be perused here.

The entry form may be found here.

Have a field day.

Final Standings

The final standings may be found both on the right side of this page, and here.

Congrats again to Whiteside, Harlan, and Brenner. Your checks will soon be in the mail.

That's it for the 2008 PreNCAA Contest. Check back here in February 2009.

Have a great year.

Trivial

Rather than reprise the same old, same old, the commissioners will eschew posting Mascot Trivia questions this year. Instead, we have decided to post the answers only. So here they are:

(1) Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

(2) Cats, then birds, then dogs.

(3) Wildcats, Bulldogs, and Eagles, each tied with 5.

(4) Three.

If you feel slighted in some way, you can try to figure out the questions.

Why newspapers are becoming obsolete

When I left the hotel this morning they left a USA Today at my door so I took it on the plane. Here's a quote from some NCAA commentary by Mike Lopresti:

Here's to Ty Rogers. He's the Western Kentucky player who buried a 26-footer at the buzzer to beat Drake 101-99 in overtime. Barring something extraordinary Monday night, he owns the shot of the tournament.

The thing is, this was printed in Tuesday's paper.

Thanks for joining

What have we learned this year:

1) Duke sucks...haha...just throwing that in for my own sanity and to take a dig at our commish.
2) This tourney needed VCU....relatively boring tournament for the most part sans Davidson and the title game.
3) Never publish your picks as an expert....I did horribly and looked bad in the process...hehe
4) Before you all kick the bucket, you must go to Vegas for the 1st weekend....it's a true experience for any fan of the sport. Just don't go to the Hilton because I don't want you sitting in my seat.
5) The CBI isn't a bad offshoot of CSI...It's a tournament and homefield matters....God, i hope they pass the rumored changes including fan participation and making the title series a best of 9 with two games in a foreign country and one game being on X-Box with the coaches playing as their team.

Wow

Now that was a game. It's what you're hoping for when you buy your plane ticket to the Final Four. The kind of thing you pray for every year. In fact, it was so exciting that a certain commissioner's spouse even tuned in to watch. Although she missed the end of regulation because there was a Top Chef re-run she really wanted to see...

We may have to talk Booth down from the ledge now that Whiteside (pool winner with 361 points) has not only kicked her fanny but everyone else's too. Also in the winning circle are Harlan (360 points) and Brenner (355 points). Final standings will be posted tomorrow night.

Neither of these may compare to Whiteside singing "I'm shabbalicious," but we're not sure which we found more annoying: the Kansas cheerleaders needing cue cards to lead complicated cheers such as "Go Jayhawks," or the Memphis fans displaying their impressive education by spelling T-I-G-E-R-S approximately 17 times per timeout.

Kansas shirt of the day: "Kansas: The birthplace of North Carolina basketball."

We may or may not post Mascot Trivia tomorrow, so tune in if you care.

Goodnight everyone. It's been a fun pool.

All-Name Teams

First Team:

Yauney Neptune (Florida Gulf Coast) -- Name of the Year
Chief Kickingstallionsims (Alabama State)
Bienvenu Songondo (Wyoming)
Silver Laku (Western Michigan)
Ebenezer Noonoo (Illinois-Chicago)

Best Woman's Name: A'Quonesia Franklin (Texas A&M)
Best Local Name: Dionte Christmas (Temple)
Artist of the Year: Picasso Simmons (Murray State)
Egyptian God of the Year: Osiris Eldridge (Illinois State)
Roman God of the Year: Yauney Neptune (Florida Gulf Coast)

What do you think their middle names are?
Akini Akini (Florida A&M)
Longar Longar (Oklahoma)

All-Edible Team:

Jacob Turnipseed (Nicholls State)
Pawel Kielbasa (Chicago State)
Stephon Curry (Davidson)
De'Jon Jackson (San Diego -- condiment division)
Fendi Onobun (Arizona -- sounds like food, though, doesn't it?)

All-Geography Team:

Austin Montgomery (IUPUI)
Dallas Lauderdale (Ohio State)
Arizona Reid (High Point)
Clinton Houston (San Diego)
Jordan Hill (Arizona)

Women's entry: Italee Lucas (UNC)

All-NCAA-Tourney-Team-Name Team

Duke Crews (Tennessee)
Drake Reed (Austin Peay)
De'Sean Butler (West Virginia)
Jordan Davidson (Duke)
Arizona Reid (High Point -- good enough to be on two teams, right?)

All-Avian Team

Jeremy Bird (South Carolina Upstate)
William Byrd (Arkansas-Pine Bluff)
Zack Wing (Fordham)
Isaiah Swann (Florida State)
Zach Peacock (Georgia Tech)
Josten Crow (Sam Houston State)
Brett Ravenberg (Utah Valley State)
Louis Birdsong (George Mason)

All-Compound-Name Team

Luc Richard Mbah a Moute (UCLA)
Chris Douglass-Roberts (Memphis)
Charles Jim-George (UC Riverside)
Pierre-Marie Altidor-Cespedes (Marshall)

Referee of the Year: Zelton Steed (ACC)
Future Speller Award: Jrue Holiday (UCLA recruit)

One More Team

A'Darius Peagues (Western Kentucky)
Cem Dinc (Harvard)
Solomon Horsechief (Pacific)
Quade Milum (Akron)
Sundiata Gaines (Georgia)


Special thanks go to Bob Natalini for assembling most of this list

Who will it be?

Whiteside and Millan have both beaten off their detractors, but the question is which of them will win the contest? The answer is:

KANSAS
1st place: Whiteside
2nd place: Harlan
3rd place: Brenner

MEMPHIS
1st place: Millan
2nd place: K Sullivan
3rd place: Smith

We have a lot of repeat money winners on this list: Smith finished 2nd just last year; Whiteside finished third in 2006; Harlan finished 2nd in 2001, and K Sullivan finished second in 1998. In addition, selection-of-field winner D Josephs also finished 2nd in 2006.

The Moment

It's the Final Four. The teams line up for the opening tap. The ball goes up and tens of thousands of glittering lights dazzle the eyes as the players vie for the first advantage of the game. The lights are flash bulbs, as everyone snaps a picture simultaneously. Words cannot adequately describe how cool this is. It's the seminal moment of the college basketball season and after 19 Final Fours it doesn't get old.

Except this year I missed it because the six Kansas fans in front of me chose that exact moment to stand up and re-arrange their seating.

Another Final Four tradition that still cracks me up after 19 years is the amazing vision of the fans in the "distant view" seats -- yes, by the way, they really call them that; you'd think if the NCAA was going to bilk you for hundreds of dollars for a seat near the New Mexico border, they'd come up with a more palatable name, wouldn't you? Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, it's an optometric marvel the way fans two football fields away can see the court so much better than the refs can. They usually complain (at the top of their lungs, mind you) about block/charge calls, because that's not a call you have to be close up to tell what happened. This year's award goes to several Kansas fans in my vicinity, who when their team was up 40-12 were still screaming at the injustice of Tyler Hansbrough getting every call. Well, come to think of it, maybe they had a point; you could have been sitting in a dark room in Somalia and still known that Tyler Hansbrough was getting every call.

UCLA had the best band and the best cheerleaders, although for some reason that didn't help them on the court. And I have to mention that the Memphis cheerleaders are apparently the defending National champions (bet you didn't know they had a National championship for cheerleaders, did you?), at least according to the woman sitting next to me whose husband was a cheerleader back in 1985, the last time Memphis made the Final Four.

Memphis and Kansas had the most enthusiastic fans, even before the games started. Maybe the UCLA and UNC fans could sense what was coming. Memphis gets the slight edge here, though, thanks to the two Elvises (in full hair and costume) sitting in the row in front of me.

Kansas had the best souvenir shirts -- I saw at least ten different clever quotes on different shirts. The biggest laugh was "Why play with Roy when we can play with our Self."

I'm not sure if it's alphabetically significant, but my highly scientific scouting assessment is that Derrick Rose and Brandon Rush are good. Tywon Lawson and Kevin Love? Not so impressive.

The 30 second timeouts were taking around three and a half minutes by the end of the evening. And I don't even want to talk about the full timeouts.

The primary color for all four teams in this year's Final Four is blue. The highway between Austin and San Antonio has a different speed limit during the daytime (70) than it does at night (65).

Tune in later for more wisdom.

Revenge of the Nova Gang

Coming into the Tournament, if you had to pick a team to beat between #2 seed Duke and #12 seed Villanova, it probably wouldn't have been the Wildcats. Backing up that perception, contestants associating themselves with Duke had a healthy lead over their Philadelphia counterparts. Who would've guessed that once the smoke cleared Villanova would win twice as many games as Duke, and that the Nova Gang (average score 308.33) would have a 20+ lead over the Cameron Crazies (287.75)?

In the Tag Team Tussles, the D'Zurans (321.00) enjoy a narrow lead over the Friends of Natalini (317.33), who might even be doing better if Natalini himself had actually entered the pool. Or maybe they wouldn't. Members of the Marshall Plan (300.75) lead Whiteside and his Enemies (293.67) and the Ripley-Believe-it-or-Nots (292.33), while the Mc's (288.87) have surged ahead of the Donadios (280.4). The Leach Gang (258.5) trails the pack for the 177th straight year.

This year's top name is Brett (320.8), over Ed (313.5), Adam/s (306.0), and David (302.0). John (296.83) and Luke (292.0) are above average, while fellow apostle Matthew (252.5) is about as bad as you get outside of Leachworld. Al (285.5), Bob (280.0), Mary (279.5), Nick (276.0), and Rick (260.0) round out the field.

The years go on, but some facts are immutable. Females (300.27) are better than males (291.41). Cats (309.0) are superior to humans (289.83). Lawyers (278.4) are bottom feeders. The unwashed unpaid (269.22) don't pay for a reason (they now trail paying participants (293.73) by an average of almost 25 points). And children (265.0) should be seen, but not seen gambling.

Teachers (309.5) are our top profession, over Engineers (296.8), IT Consultants (294.5), Accountants (290.5), and of course practicing Attorneys (283.0; we guess they need more practice). But the educators still trail Students (314.2).

Florida (310.0) is the sunniest State from which to pick. Pennsylvania (294.83) is not just for Democratic Primaries. Despite a 20+ point lead, New Jersey (285.17) still has an inferiority complex when it comes to New York (262.67). There may be a Santa Claus, Virginia (257.0), but forget about the March Madness Bunny. Within Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh environs (307.0) have come out on ahead of the Philadelphia suburbs (289.78) and the Philadelphia urbs (282.8).

As a final note, the average pool participant (290.49) may have something to say to the average commissioner (270.0).

See you after the games.

Pool headquarters temporarily moving to Texas

A commissioner is on his way to San Antonio. I'm pretty sure the hotel has wireless internet, so tune in all weekend for updates, including Tag Team tallies, All-Name teams, and Mascot trivia.

See ya.

Rivals III

Everybody loves the little guy, right? It's what makes this tournament great, an improbable run by Davidson or an impossible near-miss by Belmont. We identify with the Sienas and San Diegos of the world; they're kings of the road for a day.

But as Mount Saint Mary's and Texas-Arlington can attest, sometimes they're just roadkill. So in a year where four number one seeds made it to the Final Four, is it any surprise that Booth (256 points, Memphis as champ) will finish 25 points behind her arch-nemesis Whiteside (321, Kansas) even if she gains 40 points for her champion? McKillip (304, UCLA) -- who has also confessed his sole desire is to whack Whiteside -- is likewise far in the rear-view mirror, but at least he has a chance to pass his co-worker if UCLA wins.

Somebody should have told Karlsruher (315, UNC) that "never" is a long time, as he trails Millan (354, Memphis) by 39 points. But eternity can start now if Karlsruher's champion wins, because that'll put him one over on his buddy, 355 to 354. K Sullivan (326, Memphis) has already clinched a victory over her hapless whipping boy, B Peloso (264, Texas), but needs someone other than UCLA to win if she wants bragging rights over D'Zuro (296, UCLA) in her own custom-built home. Perhaps B Peloso can take solace in the fact that he only lost to his Duke-loving wife, M Peloso (298, Duke), by 34 points this year.

Most of the children in our contest seem to have outgrown their parents. L Schlegel (313, UCLA), for example, now sports a sizeable lead over daddy R Schlegel (279, Memphis), although the old man can salvage his respectability if Memphis wins. No such luck for M Kleiman (305, UCLA), who has no hope of showing his son (B Kleiman (328, UCLA)) who's boss. Joe Mc (264, UNC), who has played in every single pool we've ever run, has lost by 47 points to his daugher, McAtee-Gattone (311, UNC), who (including this year) has played in a grand total of one. For that matter, Joe Mc won't be catching his assistant, Dallas (291, UNC), either. K Ripley (306, UCLA) had no problems dispatching her father, R Wanger (288, Texas), for the fourth straight year. Her husband, P Ripley (283, Memphis), however, can reclaim his masculinity if Memphis wins.

A couple of dads still rule the roost. D Josephs (321, UCLA) powered his way past commissioner M Josephs (257, UNC), and J Donadio, Sr. (308, UNC) handled his entire brood (Jr. Donadio (299, Tennessee); L Donadio (283, Texas); N Donadio (244, Memphis)). Although if UCLA wins, his spouse (ME Donadio (268, UCLA)) can claim her half of the community property.

Leach gang patriarch E Leach (323, UCLA) and his son P Leach (323, UNC) are currently tied for the right to say they clobbered their own flesh and blood (S Leach (196, Memphis); M Leach (192, Tennessee)) by 131 points.