Final Four Breakdown

There are four teams vying for the NCAA title and four OTPers vying for the OTP title. Here's the breakdown:

1) Donna wins if UConn defeats UNC or Villanova.
So Donna's cheering for the Huskies.

2) Jimmy Baskin wins if UNC defeats MSU
So Jimmy's cheering for the Spartans and the Tar Heels.

3) Denise wins if MSU meets Villanova (champion is irrelevant) or if MSU defeats UNC.
So Denise is cheering for the Spartans and the Wildcats.

4) Papa Buono wins if UNC defeats UConn.
And Pops is cheering for the Huskies, but mainly the Tar Heels.

Good Luck to you all, and enjoy the Final 4. I'll be back tomorrow with a recap.

Et alors il y avait quatre...

Pardon my French, but Zut Alors! we finally got a few humdinger games, none more scintillating and rewarding then the 'Nova defeat of Pitt. I so wished I could have been in Pburgh for that contest, hanging out in the SportsRock Cafe as Scottie Reynolds ensured his place in the "One Shining Moment" highlights. I can hear the befuddled conversation now...

• Pittsburgh Basketball Ignoramus #1: "Shooot, why didn't we score more points!? I'm tellin' ya, if we had just scored more points we coulda won this thing!"
• Pittsburgh Basketball Ignoramus #2: "Nawww, more baskets, is what we needed! If we could have made two or three more baskets I bet we'd had a chance!"
• Pittsburgh Basketball Ignoramus #1: "Well, whatever, this darned basketedball thing was distracting me from the Penguins anyways. Playoffs start soon!"
• Pittsburgh Basketball Ignoramus #2: "Who the Steelers gonna draft?"

Now, mind you, I'm a tremendous fan of the Steel City and its denizens are generally fine folks. The town, however, is a dud as a bball town, and the only time they pay attention is when the Panthers are doing well. Even then, the Penguins often end up on the bar TV's.

Well Pitt and L'Ville's losses certainly destroyed the brackets of many. In fact nary an OTP participant manage to get the Final Four right. Kudos to Denise Monahan and Tery Baskin for being the only one out of 46 to just miss one. Tery, Jimmy, and Denise were the only pickers to have Sparty in the Final Four. And Sierra Martin and Emily Reklaitis were the only two to have Villanova in the Final Four. The fact that they are 5 years old and nearly 3 years old, respectively, demonstrates again, that this thing takes little B-Ball knowledge! Here's 'lil Em' doing her 'Nova Wildcat roar...

Who's gonna win? Well, I'll join you mid-week to give you the Final Four breakdown. Until then...

No Wake for Wake.

Bury them without a funeral, with no fanfare, in a shallow, unmarked grave in the Freddy B's parking lot across from the Joel Coliseum. Some Wake Forest fans/alumns may be dissapointed with the DD's performance last night. Some may be sad that their favorite team is out the tourney. Me, I'm just disgusted. What a horrific, "we're too good for this team," "we used to be #1," "we're looking ahead to Louisville," "defense? we don't need no stinkin' defense!," "hey! whoever gets the ball, ignore everyone else, and just try to score!" performance that was last night. I'm not dissapointed, this team has no right to advance in the tourney. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

On a side note, some of you probably caught CBS's note of trivia regarding Cleveland State. The last and only other time they were in the tourney they were also a #13 seed and they also beat the #4 seed, none other than the hated Indiana Hoosiers. Ugh! What a legacy to share. *retch*

To add insult to injury me and my fellow Wake alumn Will Davis decided to hitch our horses to the Wake wagon all the way to the final four. That's why we are the denizens of the bottom of the standings. Poor Ainsley Martin (last year's champ) had the Deacs as tourney champions. Well, hope you haven't spent all of last year's winnings yet Ms. Martin.

Two other notes about yesterday's games.

1. First, my buddies and I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in a bar in downtown Pittsburgh watching Pitt desperately try to stave off embarassment at the hands of ETSU. The other bar patrons were either thoroughly anxious or dumbfounded (huh? ya mean #1 doesn't automatically win). When Pitt finally escaped the debacle, there was a brief chorus of "Let's go Pitt!" which was quickly shushed down by the few in the bar who knew how utterly stupid that was. This is definitly a football town, and the lack of bball knowledge really makes it a shame that Pitt is actually successful. I'd much rather see an N.C. State or a Vermont succeed since they have some tradition and history behind their programs.
2. What a great way to end the evening with two great OT games featuring the Siena Saints and Badgers of UW. I think we missed a bit of those buzzer-beaters so far in the tourney.

All right, on to this year's annual OTP awards.

Best First Round Performance Award:
Goes to Trudy McPhail who nailed 27 out of 32 picks.

Best Second Round Performance Award:
Ben Kirvam, who still has ALL of his second rounders still alive! Nice work Ben.

Worst First Round Performance Award:
Is ALL MINE! For the second time in three years I have managed to take home the booby prize. Egads! And even worse, I bested my all time low mark of 2007, (of 13 missed picks) with 14. Well, you can't accuse me of cheating!

Worst Second Round Performance Award:
Doesn't leave the Reklaitis family, as it is grabbed by Christine Reklaitis with 7 missed. Ouch.

I'll be back with a look at the picks in general and an accounting of who picked who for 2009 Champion. Ciao!

Nice day of tourney action.

Notice I used the rather whimpy qualifier of "nice". It was pretty good. Unfortunately my Boilers were one of few teams that provided any excitement (in the case of my buddies and I: serious anxiety), when No Iowa (we loved how this was the way CBS displayed their school name in the score box at the bottom of the screen) made the game way too interesting. VCU/UCLA was the only true nailbiter whenEric Maynor's last second jumper fell about 5 inches short. All the same, some fun games, and a slew more today!

Now on to our contest... Currently we have 46 competitors (thanks for playin all!). Not all the brackets are posted as there have been serious submission issues. I'll get the last remaining few up ASAP. We had no perfect scores yesterday, all though Nikki Batta and Alison Martin, came achingly close with only one missed pick a piece. Actually it was Michael Thompson who had a near agonizing run at first-day perfection, as he was error-free until the Illini (the last game to finish last night) failed to complete the comeback against the Hilltoppers. Nice work all the same Mike. As for our less-than stellar competitors. Well, once again I'm determined that no one can accuse me of cheating, by always doing so miserably in these events. Only my good friend Skip Werner and my sis-in-law Christine faired worse. We'll get 'em in the next round you two!

Glad to have you all along friends, and you'll hear from me again tomorrow after today's scintillating (I hope) action. Go Deacs! Go Buccaneers!

PayPal is annoying.

So these idiots are using PayPal to run a prostitution ring, but having people pay $5 to participate in a fun, innocent, online tournament pool that's heinous!

Gut Check

Paul Schultz and I decided to do quickie picks, without giving much thought to matchups or evaluating teams at all. Here's his, and here are mine. I went a bit homeristic here (not Homer Simpson, but with my 'home' teams) which is why Wake is going so far. Not too far fetched I feel...

Conference Tourney Mayhem

So UNC bites the dust, joining Sparty, the Sooners, UConn, and Pitt. Not to mention my Deacs. Interesting stuff a brewing and we haven't even started the Tourney. I'm assuming these teams (Deacs and Sparty aside) still have a shot at the #1 seed, although if L'Ville and Duke win their respective tourneys perhaps they have a shot? I think Memphis deserves a #1 seed about as much as I'd deserve to be named MVP of my daughter's 2 year old basketball league. I mean there are only four other teams with winning records in Conference USA. Crap, I say.