After 1 1/4 crazy days of basketball, your bracket is probably busted. Yeah, so is just about everyone else’s. But I have two pieces of good news. First of all, busted brackets are what make the Tournament great, so stop complaining. (Yeah, easy for me to say.) Second of all, you have a chance at redemption: Enter the women’s pool!… Read more »
My Cinderella anthem, recycled for another year, with a couple of new teams added to the roster. More appropriate than ever this year: Mine eyes have seen the glory of a bracket freshly made And prognosticators certain that the seeds will be obeyed But like clockwork, underdogs emerge and favorites are waylaid The Madness marches on! Glory, glory, Cinderella! Glory,… Read more »
Because it’s worth another look (or ten), here again is the greatest shot on “one of the greatest days in the history of the NCAA Tournament.” What makes that shot so great? First of all, as I mentioned yesterday, it was a true buzzer-beater, leaving the player’s hands before 0:00 and swishing through the hoop after 0:00. No time left… Read more »
Boy, am I glad I made that last-minute change to picking Northern Iowa over UNLV.
Haven’t seen one this good in a while: So often, in recent years, it seems like the closest we get to NCAA “buzzer beaters” are shots that come in the final few seconds, but the clock stops to set up a game-ending anticlimax. Even Northwestern State’s memorable shot to beat Iowa was like that. And too often, literal “buzzer beaters”… Read more »
We’ve got 183 contestants. Most popular champion picks: Kansas (83), Kentucky (25), Syracuse (22), Duke (12), West Virginia (8), Villanova (5). Most popular first-round upset picks by an 11+ seed: Siena (62) and Cornell (58). Most popular double-digit Sweet 16 Cinderella picks: Utah State (23), UTEP (22), Cornell (19). Most popular Final Four picks below the #2-seed line: Baylor (25),… Read more »
…to enter my 15th annual Men’s NCAA Tournament Pool! UPDATE, 10:25 AM: Time’s up! Let the tourney begin!
Okay, so admittedly, at 2 years and 2 1/2 months old, Loyette isn’t actually a “baby” anymore. But the piece of paper pictured below is her first NCAA bracket: We filled it out over the course of three days, each session starting with great enthusiasm (“Do a racket, Daddy!”), which gradually waned as her attention wandered. Eventually, we’d stop and… Read more »
I’m on break from jury duty, so I have time to remind y’all to enter my FREE men’s and women’s NCAA Tournament pools! Just follow the links below, or in the “My NCAA & NIT pools” box at right. MEN’S POOL: [UPDATE: The polls are closed! Good luck, everyone!] WOMEN’S POOL: Regular Bracket | Mascot Bracket (To clarify about the… Read more »
Harkening back to my point that “none of the political leaders in Washington hold, or care about, the moral high ground when it comes to…procedural arguments,” and “they’re all hypocrites with respect to such arguments,” here’s a bit of perspective about the current “deem-and-pass” kerfuffle: In the last Congress that Republicans controlled, from 2005 to 2006, Rules Committee Chairman David… Read more »