Hola my marshmellow peeps!

So we're down to just 3 games left before the Madsanity is over. That's it. They are:

- Butler vs. VCU, Saturday April 2nd @ 3:00pm PST (the first ever "All-Mid-Major" Final Four game!)

- UConn vs. Kentucky, Saturday April 2nd @ 5:30pm PST

= NCAA Championship Game, Monday April 4th @ 6:00pm PST

All on CBS in HD, all played in Houston, Texas. Which makes BYU head coach Dave Rose sad, as he once played in the Final Four for Houston- the "Phi Slamma Jamma" team, starring Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phi_Slama_Jama ). BYU was SOO close this year, losing to Florida in overtime, who lost to Butler in overtime. Oh well, there's always another 30 years from now.

Which brings us to our brackets. We are down to just 2 contenders. It was 3, but Valerie got bumped when Kentucky scored the last 5 points in an Elite Eight win over North Carolina, her clever pick as champion. I mean, it beats the crud out of my "Ohio State over Pitt" pick. Ugh. Oh, and quick shout out... Besides the two geniuses still standing (more below), only Matt Christensen and Aaron Roundy got a single Final Four pick correct: Kentucky and UConn (that means Barack and I have a lot of company -70%- with zero). They both have those teams losing their next game. And yet they sit now in 2nd and 3rd place overall. Well done gentlemen!

http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/en/group?groupID=75639

Anyways, Steve E. still has a comfortable lead (780 points, 99.8th percentile), but wait! There is a challenger! While Stevo's got Kentucky losing in the championship game, my good Idahoan friend and Michigonian mission buddy Derek Mecham has Kentucky picked to win it all! Which perfectly matches the latest Las Vegas odds; At this point, Kentucky is also the gambler's pick to win it all. Judging by this year, that means they won't. After all, this has been the Maddest March in recorded history. Oh, you hadn't heard? Let me explain...

The Bird is The Word! I mean, this has been the Maddest of all Marches. Ever. Foreal. Statistically. You always read that it's unlikely that not all four #1 seeds will make the Final Four (Obama and I didn't listen). But it is EXTREMELY unlikely that NONE of them will. This season is just the 3rd time that has happened. And it's the first time ever that no 1 OR 2 seed has made it. Basically, the top 8 most-likely teams all whiffed. Ohio State, Kansas, Duke, Pitt, Notre Dame, SDSU, UNC, Florida. All done-zo. Gone. As are 11 of the top 12 seeds. Actually, make that 26 of the top 28. One of the Final Four match-ups (8-Butler vs. 11-VCU) has a Seed-total of 19! That's a new record. The Final Four seed-total is 25- The highest ever. Only one person has a perfect Final Four (on two different brackets), out of 6.5 million brackets worldwide on ESPN (a 1-in-300million Final Four according to basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy); He, like 0.02% of the universe, has VCU winning it all. According to Las Vegas, the least likely team out of these last four to walk away with the National Championship is... VCU. Can you say, CAA-RAY-ZAYYY!!

More about SErickson's greatness: After the Sweet Sixteen, there wasn't a single bracket left in the nation with a perfect Elite Eight. About a dozen people in the world had 7. I had 1. Obama had 2. Almost 84% of the nation had 3 or less. Steve had 5. Good enough to remain in the top 100%. Good enough to be 822nd out of 6.5MM. That's more than twice as good as Matt Hasselbeck's son, Henry, who had the best celebrity bracket on that day (M.Hass is ahead of Steve now by 10 points, but he already lost his Finals match-up). If only Florida had beaten Butler in OT and 1-Seed Kansas had taken out VCU, our boy would still be going STRONG!! The guy that was #1 out of 6.5MM that day? He, like Valerie, picked North Carolina to win it all. Ouch.

Now, for too much info...

Don't say I didn't warn you.....

* Only 4% of the country picked Arizona to make it to the Elite Eight (and probably none of them expected the Wildcats to blast 1-Seed, Defending National Champ Duke by 16 points... Duke was the 3rd most popular pick to win the tourny). Neither Stevee nor Kier were among them. Arizona had two shots to beat UConn and make the Final Four with under 10 seconds left, but sadly missed both of them before losing by 2. Of course, I had Arizona losing their very first game to Memphis; down 2 and driving for the tying shot at the end of regulation, Memphis got blocked into the 4 row. Phenomenal play. That's what March is all about! Memphis' head coach still got a raise... $1.7MM a year. Arizona won their second game, an upset over 4-Texas (and the #2 defense in the nation), by 1 point.

* 3.3% of people picked a Kentucky over North Carolina Elite Eight. Stever nailed it! As for the Kentucky-UConn game this Saturday, it's actually a rematch from the early part of the regular season. A game that UK was stunned to lose the first time around. I had Kentucky losing their 2nd game of the tournament, to West Virginia. Umm... WVU did have the lead at halftime. Kentucky's odds to win it all this year before the NCAA Tournament started, according to Vegas, was 1-in-30.

* UConn is the most popular team left, with 4.7% picking them as their eventual champ (Butler-UConn is the most popular championship pairing left, though the bookies see Kentucky-Butler as more likely in their updated odds... only 63 people nationally envisioned a Kentucky-VCU Title game). The longer they last, the worse for Jimmer Fredette, as Connecticut point guard Kemba Walker has been his stiffest Player of the Year competition all season. The first of the four major college basketball awards, the Oscar Robertson, went to The Jimmer yesterday. One more Kentucky win would help him in his quest for the Wooden, the AP, and the Naismith POY Awards. I had UConn losing to San Diego State in Anaheim, CA. They had 1-in-101 odds to win it all.

* 0.6% of brackets had Butler in the Final Four (odds were set at 1 in 100), even after the Bulldogs lost the Final Game last year by 2. In fact, 1.6% of the bracket had Butler in the Final Four last year (it helps that they were a 5-Seed). Me, I had Butler losing their very first game this season. Tied at 58, Butler missed a shot against Old Dominion with about 4 seconds left. They rebounded the ball and layed it back in for the win. I was shocked. It was crazy-fun to watch. The game was played about 30 miles from ODU's campus. Keep in mind, this is the year after Butler lost their star player, Gordie Hayward, who was drafted by the Utah Jazz early in the 1st round. Does this mean that BYU has hope post-Jimmer? Butler won their 2nd game, over 1-Pitt, by 1 point. The worst seed to ever win the Tourny was 8th-seeded Villanova, in 1985. 4th-seeded Arizona, 1997, is actually the fourth-lowest -and the most recent team outside the top 3 seeds- to ever win a ring (and to think, that matches UConn this year!). Butler's 8-seed ties them for the 5th "worst" team to ever make the Final Four. Their current odds to win the Tournament are about 1-in-4; At the start of the Tourny, they were 1-in-2500.

* Ah, Virginia Commonwealth University, "this year's" Cinderella (sorry Butler, you're old hat now). VCU, VCU, VCU. 0.03% of prognosticators picked VCU to beat Big XII champ Kansas... That's not a lot. Before that game tipped, one of Kansas' hulking centers walked up to VCU's diminutive point guard and told him "Your run is over". VCU got out to a 20-4 lead and won the game by 10 points. 1-Seed Kansas was the 2nd-most popular pick to win the tournament. VCU's head coach is named "Shaka". Shaka Smart started a new trend by conducting his post-Elite Eight interview wearing the basketball hoop his team cut down after the victory around his neck the entire time. VCU was one of the last 4 teams in, along with USC, Clemson, and UAB. Surprisingly, I actually picked them to win two games, including an upset of Big East bad-boy Georgetown. And boy did they (18-point victory). Except that they've won 5 games now, 1 more than any other team still standing, and 4 more than any other Play-In team in the history of the tournament. They killed USC (of the PAC-10). They beat Purdue of the Big Ten by 18. And they beat ACC team Florida State by 1 (the #1 defense in the nation). The only "power" conference they haven't faced, and beaten, yet in this tournament? The SEC. As in, SEC Tourny champ Kentucky. That would be crazy. No 11-Seed has ever won the Title before. Nothing worse than an 8 has. In fact, no 11 seed has ever made the championship game before at all. Only twice has an 11 made the Final Four before now, and both of them won their Elite Eight games by buzzer-beaters... not like how VCU demolished Kansas. And both of them were winning games by about 5 points a pop. VCU? 12. One of those, George Mason (2006), shares a conference with VCU, and actually finished above them in conference play this year. VCU lost their last 4 conference games of the regular season, and finished 4th in their conference, the CAA, or Colonial Athletic Association. They came into the tournament with the #143 ranked defense in the country. Sheer, complete, utter crazy-ness. VCU's odds to win the Tourny were 1-in-200,000 (as NO TEAM has ever won 7 games in the Big Dance), 1-in-820 to make the Final Four. "So you're telling me there's a chance!" I wish I had bet $1 on VCU.

And now finally, in more-related news...

~ Wendy Chapman, last year's champ, rose from a tough start to finish the year in 4th or 5th place (depending on Kentucky and Derek), tied with Adam Erickson, Bryant Casteel, and Joel Roller. Again, A-Bomb and Joeller were noobs this year.

~ Ericksons: Steve beat Adam who beat Karen who beat Lauren who beat Garrett.

~ Andrews: Star beat Kier who beat Londa who beat Steve who beat Russ who beat Lauren who beat me.

~ Rollers: Joel beat Rachel who beat Nathan.

~ Wifedom! Valerie beat Dan, Star beat Russ, my Mom beat my Dad (just like during my childhood), Maranda beat Ryan, and Lauren made a come-back from the last year or two to beat me again. Reppin' the boys, SteveE beat KarenE, Bryant beat Kelly, and Phil beat Charlotte.

~ VP 17: (Roundy beat Bryant who beat Ryan Lillywhite who beat Stephen Joel Jensen who beat Rob Shaw who beat Jared Armstrong who beat) Russ who beat Dan who beat (Jason Davies who beat) me who beat Ryan. I beat someone!! Yes, Ryan counts. All four of the original VP 17 finished in the bottom 30% nationally and lost to our significant others.

~ At the bottom: Carly came in WORST PLACE! Garrett was close. Kelly just above that.

WHEW! I can't wait until next year guys!!!

~Mars