Irish Trojan in Tennessee

Her father's daughter

By Brendan Loy

Heh. I just filled out Loyette's bracket using the modified coin flip method described earlier, and I kid you not -- I swear I didn't rig this -- she's got USC going to the Elite Eight and Notre Dame going to the Final Four. :) That's as far as they possibly could possibly gave gone, given her pre-determined national champion pick of Kansas.

Her other Final Four teams: Kansas, of course; Pitt; and BYU. Her only truly absurd first-round upset pick: UT-Arlington over Memphis. Yeah, that one came up tails three times in a row. Oops.

Now to do the cat and dog brackets...

UPDATE: Robbie predicts an all-Bulldog Final Four of Butler, Gonzaga, Mississippi State and Georgia, with Butler winning it all. Toby, Sasha and Butter, who are collaborating on a single "cat bracket" this year, have two sets of Tigers (Clemson and Memphis), a set of Cougars (Washington State) and a set of Wildcats (Arizona) in this Final Four, with Memphis cutting down the nets.

UPDATE 2: As for my bracket... here it is. I think I'm done messing with it now. :) It's relatively non-ridiculous, by my standards. I have one #12, one #13 and one #14 pulling first-round upsets; one double-digit seed in the Sweet Sixteen (#13 Oral Roberts); #6 USC and #7 Butler in the Elite Eight; and a Final Four featuring two #1s, a #2 and a #4. Hey -- I said relatively. :) It's still pretty wacky, I admit, but I've definitely done wackier.

Incidentally, in regard to those questions about Drake and Xavier, I ultimately answered them in the negative, simply because I don't know enough about those teams to take such huge leaps of faith in them. So I picked UConn to make a surprise run to the Final Four instead, beating both the Bulldogs and the Musketeers along the way. That'll get me back to my Connecticut roots, cheering whole-heartedly for the Huskies! (Now watch them lose to San Diego...)

I'm sticking with Fullerton, though. Oh, and I decided to pick Gonzaga over Davidson (and Georgetown). I know, I know. I can't help myself. GO ZAGS!!!

UPDATE, 11:15 AM SUNDAY: Let the record show that Robbie made a couple of last-minute changes to his picks this morning. He now predicts that the UConn Huskies will beat the Georgia Bulldogs in the West Regional Final, and he is also picking the Huskies to beat the Mississippi State Bulldogs in the Final Four before losing to the Butler Bulldogs in the title game. Apparently Robbie is upset with Georgia for trying to invade his home state, and he likes Connecticut because I'm from there. So the all-Bulldog Final Four is kaput.

In addition, he decided to pick the Georgetown Hoyas, whose mascot is a Bulldog, over the Gonzaga Bulldogs, who generally call themselves the "Zags," in the second round. Thus, he has substituted the Hoyas for the Zags/Bulldogs on his bracket all the way to the Final Four. So his new Final Four is Butler, Georgetown, Mississippi State and UConn.

Obama's bracket

By Brendan Loy

John McCain isn't the only presidential candidate filling out his bracket.

Meanwhile, TPM's David Kurtz makes an analogy between March Madness and Hillary Clinton's campaign:

[Hillary's] goal is to put superdelegates in the position that the NCAA tourney selection committee faces each March: Who deserves to be in the big dance more -- the team with the better overall record on a late season losing streak or the one who started the season slow and is finishing on a roll.

Is it too late to get Direct TV?

By Brendan Loy

The trouble with living in a state that has five NCAA Tournament teams is that you're locked into watching a lot of first-round games involving those teams, whether or not they're the most exciting game in progress. I mentioned this before with relation to Duke-Belmont pre-empting USC-Kansas State tomorrow night, but it's an even bigger issue on Friday, when all four time slots will occupied by games involving Tennessee teams, only one of which (Vanderbilt-Siena at 7:20, a 4-13 game) figures to be potentially competitive. The other games are: #2 Tennessee vs. #15 American at 12:15, #2 Texas vs. #15 Austin Peay at 2:50, and #1 Memphis vs. #16 Texas-Arlington at 9:40.

According to the local CBS affiliate, "At the network's discretion, all games BUT the Kentucky vs Marquette game [Thursday at 2:30] and the Tennessee vs American Game can be switched from/to during play to a better game of the network's choosing." (The Kentucky game gets higher "regional" priority than any of the non-UT teams from Tennessee? Weird.) So, once Texas and Memphis open up big leads, they'll take us out to other games at some point (like maybe Butler-South Alabama in the 2:50 slot). That's a relief. But I'm doomed -- unless I go to a sports bar, which is a chancy proposition when you've got a baby -- to have virtually zero chance of watching any of Gonzaga-Davidson, Miami-St. Mary's or Drake-Western Kentucky, all of which I really want to see, but all of which are scheduled opposite Tennessee-American. Arrrgh.

(I tried MMOD at home the other day. It works okay -- better than it did with our ridiculously slow connection in South Bend -- but I still don't think it'll be acceptably smooth for live, fast-moving basketball action. It's a wee bit jerky, to an extent that might not be bothersome in some contexts, but will, I think, be problematic for watching live sports.)

Pitt: Elite Eight team, or first-round flameout?

By Brendan Loy

As we enter the final hours of my annual ritual of bracket agonizing, I find myself fretting about the top right-hand corner of the bracket, the upper half of the South Region. I've got Pittsburgh penciled in as an Elite Eight team because -- with apologies to Jay -- I've felt ever since the Tennessee game that Memphis's inability to shoot free throws is going to knock them out of the tourney early, and Pitt seems like the logical team to do it.

Only one problem: I really don't feel comfortable picking Pitt to go that far. In fact, I'm not even convinced they'll make it out of the first round. Oral Roberts is good; indeed, after several years of unjustifiably low seedings, they're the classic "quality small-conference team with something to prove." They'll be ready to play. Pitt, meanwhile, is the Big East Tournament champion, which means they're a trendy pick that's probably overvalued. (Chatting with ESPN's Andy Glockner the other day, I said that the Big East tourney champ is "sometimes overvalued." He shot back, "I think you misspelled 'always.'" Heh.) More importantly, it's entirely possible they're overvalued in their own heads, in which case this could be a classic trap situation where ORU rises up and nips 'em.

The thing is, if I knock Pitt out in the first round, I have a #12 vs. #13 second-round game between Temple (which is going to beat Michigan State) and Oral Roberts, which in turn leaves me with nobody plausible to knock off Memphis before the regional final... unless I want to really double down on the South Region Chaos Theory, picking either Mississippi State or Oregon to knock off the Tigers in the second round, thus producing a Sweet Sixteen game between a #8 or #9 and a #12 or #13. Dare I predict that the bracket will blow up to such an extreme degree? Seems a little wacky, even for me.

I dunno. I think maybe I'll do the Oral Roberts/Temple thing, grudgingly advance Memphis to the Elite Eight without actually having to play anybody (cough cough, Bradley), and then have Texas knock 'em out in the regional final. (Argh, I can't believe I'm putting myself in the situation of having to root for Texas in order to preserve my bracket...)

Other things I'm fretting about: Gonzaga or Davidson? And can I really justify putting Drake into the Elite Eight? And can I really justify putting Xavier in the title game? And am I out of my mind with the Fullerton thing? And, Gonzaga or Davidson???

Whoa.

By Brendan Loy

That's a healthy-looking line of thunderstorms that's headed our way.

Tennessee's Governor angling for spot on Democrat ticket

By Jay Johnson

Well, I think that Governor Phil Bredesen is looking to slide into a VP slot with whichever candidate the Dems nominate. He's pushing a proposal for Democrat Superdelegates to convene in advance of the convention, in order to sort the whole mess out.

He's featured in an Op-Ed in today's New York Times.

Honestly, Gov. Phil is a pretty appealing candidate to add to a Democratic ticket. He comes across as much more moderate than I think either Hillary or Obama do. He's a yankee by birth, but the governor of a southern state.

The fandom that dare not speak its name

By Brendan Loy

While watching a SportsCenter commercial last night featuring the Tennessee Lady Vols' head basketball coach, I came to a horrifying realization:

I think I'm starting to like Pat Summitt.

This is simply not acceptable. Pat Summitt is the enemy! She is UConn's nemesis! She is the anti-Geno! She is the devil-woman! It is the solemn duty of every good Connecticutian to resist the Evil Pat and all Her Works! I'm allowed to grudgingly respect her, but under no circumstances am I supposed to like her! Must... resist...

"We are the Big Orange Army... you will be assimilated... resistance is futile..."

Nooooooooo!!!!

A question for sports fans

By Brendan Loy

On this NCAA Tournament Eve, here's a question I've been meaning to pose to my blog audience -- or, more specifically, to the sports fans within that audience. What's the most devastating loss you've ever suffered as a sports fan?

After the jump, my answer to this question. But I'm really curious about your answers.

It's all about Cal State Fullerton, baby

By Brendan Loy

College Hoops Journal tries the coin flip bracket. The result? Three of the four #1 seeds lose to #16 seeds, and the Final Four is Stanford, BYU, George Mason and Cal State Fullerton, with Mason winning the national championship.

Dane did a coin-flip bracket once, in 2004. I remember because he had me flip the coin for him, and enter his bracket accordingly. He finished 67th out of 76. That means he beat nine people! Well, okay, six people and three cats. :) And I'm pretty sure Craig Stern, in last place, was trying to get everything wrong. But the coin-flip bracket legitimately beat five human contestants who were trying to win -- including my wife. Sorry, Becky. But hey, she picked Hampton in 2001, so I really can't talk. (She'll hold that one over my head till the day I die, because it was the first pool she'd ever entered and, when I saw her bracket, I rather condescendingly informed her that it wasn't a good idea to pick #15 seeds. Heh.)

Anyway, speaking of Cal State Fullerton (and, more generally, of crazy upset picks that are utterly ridiculous on their face, but who knows?), I'm not predicting a Final Four run for the Titans, but I do have them penciled in over Wisconsin on my bracket. I have no logical basis for this whatsoever. (I don't think "it's Bea's alma mater, and I want to see the USC vs. Fullerton Long-Duque throwdown" counts as a logical basis.) Then again, I didn't have a logical basis the last time I picked a #14 to beat a #3, and that worked out okay. (And clearly, that's a good reason to hope for lightning to strike twice... is it any wonder I always lose my pools, usually spectacularly?)

P.S. The key to an effective coin-flip bracket, I think, is to stack the deck a little bit. Suppose heads is for the favorite and tails is for the underdog. For games involving a #16 or #15 seed, you should pick the favorite unless it comes up tails three straight times. For games involving a #14, #13 or #12 seed, you should pick the favorite unless it comes up trails twice in a row. For all other games, just do a straight coin flip. Under those modified rules, I bet you could get some intriguing, non-DOA brackets with the coin-flip method.

P.P.S. Hmm... maybe we can use the above-described, modified coin-flip method to make a bracket for Loyette! With one exception, though: she is definitely picking Kansas to win the national championship. She told me so. Well, to be more precise, I asked her on Selection Sunday who she thinks will win it all, in response to which she promptly gurgled something to the effect of: "Gaaa." Using my powers of babyspeak translation, I interpreted this as meaning "Kansas." So I asked her, "You think Kansas, huh?" She immediately smiled back, a super-cute, heart-melting smile. So clearly, Loyette is picking Kansas. But that only accounts for 6 of the 63 tournament games. Her other 57 picks could be determined by the modified coin-flip method...

Mark Gardner leads NIT Pool

By Brendan Loy

Mark Gardner has the lead in the 4th annual Irish Trojan NIT Pool with a perfect record through seven games, and will hold onto sole possession of first place unless Arizona State blows its 53-38 lead with 8:52 left against Alabama State in the night's final game. (Brandon Minich would tie Gardner for first if Alabama State wins.)

UPDATE: The Sun Devils won, so Gardner does indeed maintain his hold on first place. 22 contestants are tied for second. Complete standings here and after the jump.