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By Brendan Loy
In the aftermath of Duke's win over Belmont on Thursday, the NBC affiliate in the Raleigh-Durham area bypassed the CBS/NCAA embargo on tournament game highlights by re-enacting the game using dolls:
Heh! Somebody get this guy a network gig. And I want to see that frog in One Shining Moment, dammit.
(Hat tip: AOL Fanhouse.)
By Brendan Loy
North Carolina 108, Arkansas 77, final -- and it was only that "close" because Arkansas ended the game on a 10-5 run. UNC led 103-67 with 3:14 left. Like I said: ouch.
So, the greatest four-day weekend in sports is over -- and it was a good one. The first day evoked unpleasant memories of last year's largely upset-free, mostly undramatic opening weekend, but Friday, Saturday and Sunday made up for Thursday in a very big way. Two titans, Duke and Georgetown, went down, as did sexy sleeper picks Pitt, UConn, Clemson and USC (sigh); three double-digit Cinderellas, Davidson, Villanova and Western Kentucky, moved on; a whole bunch of high seeds had a whole bunch of close calls; and game after game was hyper-competitive and extremely enjoyable. Hurrah! Long live March Madness!
Pool update shortly -- including, for the first time, the "Possible Outcomes" page showing who's still alive to win. (Now that there are "only" 32,768 scenarios left, my pool software can calculate this.)
UPDATE: Here are the standings of the 13th annual Living Room Times men's basketball pool presented by the UCLA Bruins. And here's the possible outcomes page. (To sort the possible outcomes page by mathematical likelihood of winning, instead of by current rank, click twice on the column header "# First.")
As noted earlier, Ryan Morgan is in first place, 12 points ahead of Ken Wagner. Impressively, Morgan wins in 20% of the 32,768 remaining scenarios -- a very high percentage for this early in the tournament. However, 86 of the 245 contestants, including everyone currently ranked in the Top 30, are still mathematically alive to win.
(The highest-ranked contestants not still mathematically alive are Ken Inadomi and Nathan Evangelista, who are currently tied for 31st but can finish no better than second. The lowest-ranked contestant who still has a shot: George Heidkamp, currently 223rd out of 245, who would win the pool in exactly one of the 32,768 possible scenarios.)
Current standings thru 48 games are after the jump. The maximum possible number of points to date is 272. The pool is scored on a 5-7-10-15-20-25 basis.
By Brendan Loy
The Notre Dame men were eliminated by Washington State yesterday, but the Notre Dame women are still alive, headed for a Tuesday second-round matchup with Oklahoma after beating #12-seed Southern Methodist this afternoon. Go Irish!!
In my women's pool, there's a five-way tie for the lead among Kay Torg, Ken Stern, Tom Caputi, Chuck Wessell and F.X. McGahee -- and, in a tournament that has seen only two upsets in 24 games, those co-eaders are also tied with the "all favorites bracket." Complete standings here and after the jump.
By Brendan Loy
Ryan Morgan predicted both of the NCAA Tournament's biggest upsets to date -- West Virginia over Duke and Davidson over Georgetown -- and now he's got a sizable lead in the 13th annual Living Room Times men's basketball pool presented by the UCLA Bruins. (You can see his bracket here.)
Morgan, a Drake alum and Wisconsin fan who lives in Milwaukee and surfed onto the Irish Trojan's Blog just a week ago, has a 12-point lead over his nearest competitor, Ken Wagner of Nashville. The pool is scored on a 5-7-10-15-20-25 basis.
Morgan has 200 out of a possible 251 points. Wagner has 188. Liz Janelle, Robert Dokes, Khalil Aboukhaled, Alex Whitfield and Amir Sadaghiani are tied for third with 186.
Aboukhaled (a.k.a. "fezafou") briefly tied Morgan, who had led overnight, when Villanova won Sunday's early game. (Morgan picked Clemson.) But when Tennessee beat Butler in overtime, Morgan retook sole possession of the lead (Aboukhaled picked the Bulldogs), and he increased that lead a few minutes later when Davidson stunned Georgetown.
Morgan picked Memphis, North Carolina and Louisville in the final three second-round games. Everyone near the top of the leaderboard made the same picks, so major changes tonight are impossible. Morgan is guaranteed to remain in sole possession of first place heading into the Sweet Sixteen.
Complete standings here and after the jump.
By Brendan Loy
In the battle to determine my rooting interest for the remainder of the tournament, Tennessee leads Butler, 53-49 with 7:53 left.
In the other games still ongoing, it looks like Texas, Western Kentucky and Georgetown have the edge (though I'm still hoping for a Davidson comeback in the latter game). And earlier, Villanova beat Siena. I'll post a pool update after the conclusion of all four of the games currently underway.
UPDATE: What a great bunch of games those turned out to be!! Texas survives a furious Miami comeback, Western Kentucky does the same against San Diego, Tennessee wins a thriller in overtime over a game Butler squad, and Davidson rallies to stun Georgetown! WOO!!!
I realize it's easy to second-guess the committee after the games have been played, but man, Butler is way better than a #7 seed, eh? They should have been able to reach the Sweet Sixteen without playing a team as good as Tennessee (which arguably should have been a #1 seed). But alas. Great win for the Vols. They certainly had to earn it. I'll be rooting for them from here on out -- unless they meet Davidson in the Final Four (not totally implausible) or Western Kentucky in the title game (umm, kind of implausible), in which case I'll probably revert to my usual mid-major lovefest.
Anyway, pool update coming shortly.
By Brendan Loy
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