The Living Room Times

Heading into the Sweet Sixteen, Yvette Webster of Round Hill, VA, who entered using the “mascot bracket” and stated, “I do not know a thing about basketball & I select by mascots – prefer birds & animals to anything,” leads the 17th annual Living Room Times NCAA Men’s Tournament Pool by a point over long-time blog reader and pool contestant Elizabeth Styles of South Bend, IN. (Until recently, Styles’s husband Randy was winning the women’s pool, leading to talk of “Styles family dominance.” Randy has since fallen to 7th place.)

Jen Deschenes of Newington, CT, Steve Vivier of Meriden, CT, and Chris Palmer of Long Valley, NJ round out the top 5 in the men’s pool. But they are among 78 contestants (33.5% of the field) who are still mathematically alive to win the contest.

The women’s pool is even more competitive heading into the Sweet 16 of that tournament, with 40 of the 78 contestants (51.3% of the field) still mathematically alive to win. The current leader is Michael Holtsberg of Broomall, PA, the 2009 women’s pool champ, looking to become the sixth two-time winner in the LRT pools’ history.

Four points behind Holtsberg are Dan Dinunzio of Newington and Notre Dame alum Kevin Curran (kcatnd) of Austin, TX, tied for second place. Carol LaPlante of Cheektowaga, NY and Karen Torgersen of Raleigh, NC round out the top five of the women’s pool standings. Here is the scenarios page showing who can win and everyone’s best possible finish.

Last but not least, in the NIT pool, we’re down to a Final Four: Tommy Lemoine of Manchester, NH; Jeff Poor of Washington, DC; Dan Dinunzio of Newington (again), and Mike Wiser of Lansing, MI. That pool could be decided tonight, with the last two quarterfinals: if Middle Tennessee beat Minnesota and Stanford beats Nevada, Lemoine (@hoopthink on Twitter) will clinch the championship.

If Minnesota wins, Dinunzio, who is aiming to join Matt Kagan as the only contestant to win two LRT pools in a single year, stays alive. If Nevada wins, Poor, the Auburn fan, avowed mid-major hater, and recently Limbaugh-lanched Daily Caller columnist, stays alive. And if Minnesota and Stanford both win, Wiser — the USC and Stanford alum and current MSU grad student, who has the Cardinal winning the NIT championship — stays alive. So, at the end of the night, there will either be 3 contestants (if Minnesota beats MTSU), 2 contestants (if MTSU & Nevada win), or just 1 contestant (if MTSU & Stanford win, so Lemoine clinches) left standing.

Now that’s what I call March Madness.

After the first 23 games of the first round produced just 3 “upsets” — none of them a “David vs. Goliath” situation with mid-major beating a major — Norfolk State opened the floodgates, and we saw TWO #15 seeds beat #2s in one evening (after just 4 such upsets in the previous 27 years), including the “bad guys” going down, plus a #13 over a #4, a #12 over a #5, a #11 over a #6, a #10 over a #7, and a #9 over a #8 (that many people thought was an unusually dangerous #8). The result?

After all the chaos, Scott Paine emerged as the leader of the LRT pool, with Deanah Kim & Elizabeth Styles tied for second 1 point behind, and Chris Palmer, Jeremy Lee, Robert Carlos, Yvette Webster, McClane Jugler, Pat Caplin and Karen Torgerson all within less than 10 points. Here are the standings.

Meanwhile, LAST CALL FOR THE WOMEN’S POOL!!! Deadline at 11am Eastern today.

First things first… join the women’s pool! Deadline tomorrow morning!

As for the men’s tourney: we only saw two “upsets” yesterday, and neither of them was a classic David-over-Goliath situation. We had Colorado over UNLV — exciting locally, but at the end of the day, just a BCS team beating a Mountain West team. And we had one instance of “mid-on-mid violence” that, with all due respect to VCU, likely hurts the mid-majors’ chances down the road. (I could see Wichita State giving Kentucky a scare. VCU, not so much.) It was a great game, but much like Western Kentucky over Drake a few years ago, felt sort of empty at the end, as the end result was the elimination of a team you’d have liked to see tested against above-the-Red-Line competition. Alas.

Beyond that, we saw some “scares” (New Mexico surviving Long Beach State, Baylor getting past the Jackrabbits) and one near-historic result derailed in part by horrible referring (#16 UNC-Asheville vs. #1 Syracuse), but no buzzer-beaters or even near-buzzer-beaters, and not a ton of real excitement, frankly, by March Madness standards. So… hopefully today’s better!

The early games don’t have a ton of Cinderella potential, but maybe #14 Saint Bonaventure can knock off #3 FSU in the second wave of afternoon games. Don’t laugh — Loyacita picked that as her one major first-round upset, and she is presently winning my law firm’s 29-person office pool. LOL! Go Loyacita! (She’s only 32nd in the LRT pool because she went 1-3 in the First Four, but those games don’t count in the office pool.) Anyway, if the Bonnies win, I’m taking that kid to Vegas. 🙂 Here’s her bracket:

(As you’ll recall, these really are her own picks.)

Robert Carlos and Elizabeth Styles are tied atop the men’s NCAA pool with 69 points apiece, on 18-2 records overall (3-1 First Four, 15-1 on Saturday). They’re followed by Mike Dagen with 68 points (4-0, 14-2), Y Alice with 67 points (1-3, 16-0), and a six-way tie among Deanah Kim, Lisa Velte, Amy Booth, Karen Torgersen, Ken Stern and Alex Talcott with 65 points (3-1, 14-2). Complete standings here.

Meanwhile, remember that you can still enter the women’s pool — the deadline isn’t until Saturday morning. So if you’re bracket’s already busted, and you find yourself in the triple digits in the standings, you can get a fresh start! Sign up here.

P.S. By the way, in the NIT Pool, Jeff Morrison leads after the first round, with a 14-2 prediction record (it was 14-1 until Illinois State upset Ole Miss in the last game of the round) and 98 points. Bonnie Stone is next with 91 points, followed by a 3-way tie at 84 points among Daniel Pilz, Alex Talcott and Tommy Lemoine. Full standings here.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

P.S. ~1 hour left to enter the pool! Pool standings here, updating automatically.

UPDATE: Live Twitter coverage:

As Loyacita was filling out her bracket this morning, Loyette chimed in with some wisdom. Listen until the end for the punch line. Clearly we’re raising this kid right:

LOL! Loyette FTW!

In other news, today is the 16th anniversary of my announcement of the first-ever Living Room Times NCAA Pool (or “pool/poll,” as I initially called it) in the old LRT newspaper during my freshman year at Newington High. That’s more than half my life ago, folks. (Getting old #PANIC!)

You can still enter this year’s Living Room Times NCAA pools (men’s and women’s) — the 17th annual — here. Men’s deadline is tomorrow at noon Eastern; women’s deadline is Saturday morning.

By the way, Jeff Morrison leads the 8th annual NIT Pool with a perfect 8-0 record on the first day. Seventeen contestants are tied for second at 7-1. Full standings here. View everyone’s bracket as a printable PDF here.

The pools are, as always, FREE to enter. Winners of the men’s & women’s NCAA pools will (eventually*) get a t-shirt or equivalent prize. More importantly, all winners will attain eternal glory.

Eternal Glory!

Complete rules here. Entry links below. Good luck!

Men’s NCAA Tournament Pool:
• Standings here!
• Scoring system: 3-4-7-10-16-24-33.
• View everyone’s picks as a printable PDF.
• NOTE: Pursuant to Rule 4 and Option 3, First Four picks have been “made correct.” This does not impact whether people get credit for their First Four predictions, but it means that if you picked, say, Cal to the Sweet 16, and USF goes to the Sweet 16 instead, you get credit for those later rounds as if you’d picked USF. (But you still don’t get credit for the First Four game itself. Make sense?)

Women’s NCAA Tournament Pool:
• Standings here!
• Scoring system: 4-7-11-17-24-33.
• View everyone’s picks as a printable PDF.

NIT Pool:
• Standings here!
• Scoring system: 7-10-15-20-25.
• View everyone’s picks as a printable PDF.

*I’m…uh…three years behind on championship t-shirts/prizes, I believe. Yeah. I keep forgetting about that. I’m hoping to finally catch up this month (but I said that last year too). So, bottom line, don’t play for the t-shirts; play for the Eternal Glory. 🙂

P.S. You can re-submit your bracket with changed picks as many times as you want (up until the deadline, of course). I will assume that the last bracket you submit is the “correct” one, unless you tell me otherwise. If you just want to make a few small changes to a previously submitted bracket, leave a comment here, or e-mail me at irishtrojan [at] gmail.com, and I can change it for you.

(IMPORTANT NOTE: If you make changes to any part of the bracket — including, say, the East Region?? — and you submit those changes AFTER some First Four games have already started, you will lose any points you might have gotten for those First Four games, even if your changes are unrelated. Gotta be consistent.)

UPDATE: The pools now have their own Facebook Page, which I think looks pretty slick with the new “Page” layout. If you’re on Facebook, I strongly encourage you to “Like” the pools’ Page, as I will be posting updates there (as well as here) during the tournament. You should also follow me on Twitter, @brendanloy and @MileHighMids, if you aren’t already.

WHEEEE!!!!! We’re two days away from my favorite day of the year, Christmas morning Selection Sunday, and you know what that means: BRACKETS!!! Also, my 17th annual (free) Living Room Times Basketball Pools (Men’s NCAA, Women’s NCAA and NIT).

Come back here Sunday night or Monday to sign up. YAY!!! I. Can’t. Wait.

As a matter of fact, Loyette got so excited when she saw my Giant Bracket on the wall, she demanded to fill out a bracket immediately. So we’re doing a family Big East Bracket Contest. Here she is, updating Loyacita’s bracket this morning:

Right now, the preschoolers are kicking the grownups’ butts. Heading into the semifinals, the score is Loyette 17, Loyacita 17, Becky 15, Brendan 12. LOL.

My trip to Arkansas is off, cancelled ~7 hours before it was to begin, after Denver’s season ended in heartbreak at the hands of Western Kentucky in the Sun Belt semifinals last night. Here’s video of my reaction to the Pioneers’ shot at winning or tying the game in the final seconds, and then WKU’s game-sealing free throws at the other end:

Sigh.

Meanwhile, the college my mom attended for her first 2 years (before transferring to Illinois), Western Illinois, stunned #1 seed Oral Roberts in the Summit League semis last night, and will play for their first-ever NCAA Tournament berth tonight.

Tomorrow at 6:00 AM, I may be on board a plane departing Denver for Little Rock, Arkansas. Or I may not. I’ve already started packing, but I won’t know whether I’m actually traveling tomorrow until around 9:30 PM tonight — at which point I’ll be roughly six hours away from needing to leave for the airport, if I’m going.

That’s because my travel plans hinge on whether the Denver men’s basketball team beats Western Kentucky in a Sun Belt semifinal tonight. Full explanation here. Complete coverage over at my DU hoops blog, Mile High Mids.

I’ll be live-tweeting tonight’s semifinal (tip-off is 7:30 PM MDT) and, hopefully, a trip to Arkansas and tomorrow night’s championship game (winner goes to the NCAAs). We shall see. Anyway, here’s the liveblog window: