KU Wins It

Apparently the Jayhawks are National Champions. I say apparently because I stopped watching at halftime. It was a good first half, I just had no chance of winning my office pool so I opted for sleep over TV. From what I've seen of the highlights and read in the recaps, it was a great game. That's how 2 of the best teams in the country should wrap up a great season of college basketball.

And with that, I'm temporarily closing up shop here. Feel free to check out my other blog where I rant about things that annoy me, or worse. See you back here next March.

Rock Chalk Jay Hawk

Lots of Kansas in the first half. Memphis needs to figure out a way to get Derrick Rose some open shots.

0-2

That's how I faired this weekend. I have neither Kansas nor Memphis in the championship and have guaranteed myself another pathetic finish in my office pool.

There weren't any updates during the games because 1) I wasn't home or near a computer and 2) I was in no condition to type anything.

My kickball league hosted a bar crawl and let's just say that scorpion bowl races at Hong Kong at 6pm proved to be a less than brilliant idea.

Championship game tonight at 9:21 p.m. ET.

Aces Wild...

So all the #1 seeds advanced to the Final Four and I gotta admit, I'm excited. There's been a trend where a lower seed makes an incredible run through the tournament, pulling one exciting upset after another. Don't get me wrong, this is always fun to watch, fun that is, until the Final Four. At this stage of the game, the better team almost always wins. It's just what happens. So now, instead of the championship being little more than a formality, it will be a two-day tournament featuring unquestionably the four best teams in college basketball.

I still think free throws could kill Memphis, but that will be one physical game against UCLA. I picked UNC to win it all, but Kansas probably has other plans.

One of Maine's finest...

Better late than never, but gotta pay tribute to Bryant Barr, backup guard for Davidson. As a rule, anytime a fellow Mainer actually does something noteworthy, it's news. Helluva run by the Wildcats and a closer game against Kansas than I was expecting.

By the way...

I'm now ranked 43rd in my office pool. Moved up one spot.

Well then...

OK, OK...I know what all you readers are thinking (if I actually had any readers, that is)...How can you possibly sit through all of last weekend's tournament games with all of those upsets and not blog about it? Not even a single post. Well, despite the title of this blog and my track record of falling out of contention early in office pools year after year, I guess I still hope to win. Naturally, last weekend my brackets went straight to hell.

Seriously, TWO 12-13 matchups in second round? Are you kidding me? I've needed the past few days just to pull myself together and I still can't even put it all into words. I only correctly picked half of the Sweet 16, but luckily my Final Four is still intact.

The teams I have still playing: UNC, Tennessee, Louisville, Kansas, Memphis, Stanford, Texas and UCLA. Before this tournament got started, I felt like it had a weak group of #3 seeds in Louisville, Wisconsin, Stanford and Xavier. Wouldn't you know it...all four of these teams are still playing. I suck.

Games start tongiht at 7:10 pm ET.

It never fails...

Once again, a 12 seed upset a 5 seed in the opening round. Western Kentucky stunned Drake by hitting a 3 at the buzzer in OT to win 101-99.

Naturally, I picked Drake.

Not a bad first day

12-4 overall. Respectable. I did, however, lose one of my Sweet 16 teams when USC came up well short against K State.

Games start today at 12:15 ET, with Tennessee and American getting things started.

44

44th out of 55...that's my current ranking in my office pool. 5-2 so far. Feeling confident about the games later tonight.

Lots of options on TV tonight...college hoops, Celtics-Mavs and LOST (the best show on television).

One hit?

That's all we got was one goddamn hit? - Harry

You can't say 'goddamn' in a blog. - Monty

Don't worry, no one's reading this thing, anyway. - Harry

On a related note, solid performance by Kent State putting up all of ten points in the first half against UNLV.

2-1

After three games, I'm sitting at 2-1. MSU was just too much for Temple. So far, all of the higher seeds have won.

Lots more to go.

It's not how you start...

It's how you finish. Which is good because of the three early games today, only one of my picks is currently ahead at halftime.

To be the man...

The Nature Boy, Ric Flair, used to preach that "to be the man, you've got to beat the man." Well for college basketball, "the man" would be the reigning champ Florida Gators and they didn't even qualify for the big dance this year.

That won't take anything away from what should be a fun and exciting few weeks of basketball. Let the games begin.

Woooooooooo!

The NIT is a joke

Just ask The Onion.

See here.

Big day ahead

The tournament gets underway in just a few hours. Georgia and Xavier kick things off at 12:20 pm ET and then it's about 15 straight glorious hours of college hoops.

Xavier should win this one going away. Georgia got hot at the right time and won the SEC tournament, but was just 4-12 in conference play during the regular season.

Gus Johnson can ruin your bracket

Gus Johnson will be calling the games played in Denver for the first two rounds. That means there's a 100% chance every underdog will win those games. So for those of you still filling out your brackets, you might want to consider picking the following teams:

- George Mason
- Temple
- Oral Roberts
- Winthrop

Play-in Game

Kudos to Mount St. Mary's beating Coppin State, the tournament's first ever 20-loss team. The Mountaineers prize for such an historic win? Top ranked UNC. Yeah, good luck with that.

And for the record, it still is the play-in game...none of this "opening round" game BS that the tournament committee is trying to promote. It exists for teams, like Coppin State, that simply aren't worthy of a ranking by the committee, but still won their no-name conference tournament. Seriously, 20 losses won't even get you into the NIT.

Welcome

Welcome to my March Madness blog. Basically, I'll be adding posts as the teams I picked lose and my brackets quickly go to hell. Feel free to chime in with comments to laugh at my pathetic picks or share in the misery. Without giving away too much info about my picks already, let's just say that if any mid-major makes a run, I'll be tossing my brackets in the trash by Sunday.

Cheers.