High stakes tonight in women’s pool

With the Final Four half set, a whopping 12 contestants are still mathematically alive in the Living Room Times women’s NCAA pool. But any one of them could be eliminated tonight. It’s a high-stakes Elite Eight finale!

Presently, as you can see on the possible outcomes page, a dozen contestants — Randy Styles (1st in the current standings), Michael Holtsberg (3rd), Cam McLachlan (T-4th), Joe Hiegel (T-4th), Becky Loy (6th), Gary Kirby (T-11th), Rick Boeckler (T-11th), Amy Booth (T-11th), Yvette Webster (14th), David Kreutz (17th), Michael Walsh (21st) and Kevin Hauschulz (31st) — have a chance to win.

Holtsberg, who won the women’s pool in 2009, might be considered the favorite to do so again, as he will win if all the expected results happen: Notre Dame beats Maryland and UConn beats Kentucky tonight, Notre Dame and Baylor win in the national semifinals, and Baylor wins the championship. That said, he’d be eliminated tonight if Maryland upsets Notre Dame. So would the current leader, Styles (who has UConn upsetting ND in the semis, but needs the Irish to get there).

Meanwhile, Cam McLachlan and Becky Loy both face an unusual situation tonight: they’ll either take the lead (if Maryland upsets ND, in McLachlan’s case; if ND wins and Kentucky upsets UConn, in Becky’s case) or be mathematically eliminated.

Here’s an overview of tonight’s scenarios:

• If Notre Dame and UConn win, creating an all #1-seed showdown in Denver, we’d head into the Final Four with 6 pool contestants still mathematically alive, which I think would be a new LRT record. Those contestants would be Styles, Holtsberg, Hiegel, Kirby, Booth and Webster.

• If Maryland and UConn win, we’d have 5 still alive: McLachlan, Boeckler, Kreutz, Walsh and Hauschulz.

• If Notre Dame and Kentucky win, the pool would have a “Final Four”: Loy, Styles, Holtsberg and Booth.

• If Maryland and Kentucky win, we’d be down to just 3: McLachlan, Boeckler and Kreutz.

With Becky and me having tickets to the Final Four next weekend, I confess I’m a bit torn about whether to root tonight for the team I grew up cheering for, UConn (though I’d be rooting against them if they play my law-school alma mater, Notre Dame, in the semis), or to instead root for my wife to have a shot at the pool championship. It would be fun to have a Becky’s pool fortunes riding on Notre Dame’s success as we watch them next weekend. But it would also be fun to watch the fourth game of the season between the Irish and the Huskies. Ah, well. I’ll look at it as a no-lose situation, I guess. (Well, “no-lose” unless Maryland upsets ND!)