Hey Y'all!
Sorry this is a little late, as my good laptop has recently died a sudden and unexpected death. We plan to add another one to our family soon... before my next research paper is due! I am sending this from my school library, just so you know.
Hopefully everyone is enjoying their Mad March so far, the best weeks-long holiday of the year! We're done with the first week of the NCAA Tournament, meaning 2 rounds of games down, 4 left still to go (Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight, Final Four, and the National Championship Game). Which of your favorite teams have survived so far? Which of your picks have dropped like flies? Let's recap together some of what we've learned so far...
BYU- Still dancing baby! Jimmer Fredette may have sealed his Player of the Year awards nationwide, scoring a combined 66 points as the Brandon Davies-less three-seeded Cougars beat Wofford and then Gonzaga (this was the 13th year in a row the Bulldogs made the tourny... they are from the West Coast Conference, which BYU will be joining next year). The Cougars now advance to the Sweet Sixteen for the first time since 1981, 30 years ago! During that magical run led by Danny Ainge, Russ and I were comfortably inside a pregnant Londa's belly. How time flies. Next up for BYU is the Florida Gators, a 2-seed, who BYU beat in the 1st round of last year's NCAA Tourny. The game is being played in New Orleans, Louisiana, not far from UF's familar "swamping" grounds. The game will tip-off Thursday evening (March 24th) at 4:27pm PST, on TBS (For a complete listing of game days, times, and channels, go here: http://mattsarzsports.com/basketball2010/NCAATournament.aspx ). Florida is favored to win by 3 points and is seeking revenge. The winner will face the Wisconsin (4) - Butler (8) [Thu. @ 6:57pm PST] victor Saturday on CBS in the Elite Eight. Two weeks ago, Jimmer alone scored 52 points against New Mexico on the same night that Top 10 Wisconsin scored only 33 points against Penn State all game. And we all remember that Butler made it to the NCAA Tourny Finals last year, losing to Duke when their last-second shot bounced off of the rim. Note worth noting: BYU has never made it to the Final Four.
Arizona- Kiernan's alma mater, the 5-seeded Wildcats, beat Memphis and then upset 4-seed Texas to gain a match-up against 1-seeded Duke, last year's grand champion. It's Arizona's first Sweet Sixteen in, like, 2 years. Jerks. This game will start at 6:45pm PST Thursday night, and the winner will play the SDSU (2) - UConn (3) champ [Thu. @ 4:15pm PST]. Of course, BYU beat Arizona by 22 points this season and beat SDSU twice, both times by 13 points, before losing to the Aztecs in their 3rd match-up in the Mountain West Conference Tournament Finals in Las Vegas. Connecticut features Kemba Walker, the likely runner-up behind The Jimmer for National POY. Both SDSU and UConn are undefeated in tournament play this year, including the regular season, their respective conference tournaments, and NCAA play thus far. Live scoreboards can be found at: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/scoreboard?d=2011-03-24&c=nit&refresh=60
Friday night, Florida State (10) will face VCU (11) [who saw that coming?], Kansas (1) plays Richmond (12), North Carolina (2) faces Marquette (11), and in the big game of the night Ohio State (1) squares off against Kentucky (4). Both Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University are small schools from Richmond, Virginia, not far away from one of the last four teams left OUT of the tournament, Virginia Tech, which has a much larger and now very jealous fanbase. VCU was one of the last four teams that got IN, and they played an opening game against USC for the rights to play 6-seed Georgetown. VCU beat the Trojans, beat GU by 18 points, and then won their 3rd game against 3-seed Purdue by another 18 points. Thus, they are the only team in the Tourny today with 3 wins. None of the other 3 play-in winners, such as Clemson, won their second game. Marquette is one of 11 teams from the Big East conference that got into this year's Big Dance, a new record. Surprisingly, they are one of only TWO Big east teams remaining, alongside UConn. Other B.E. teams that were upset early and may have wrecked your bracket with their losses (like they did mine), besides Georgetown (6), include Pitt (1), Notre Dame (2), Syracuse (3), Louisville (4), and St. John's (6)- who lost by 15 to Gonzaga. Both Marquette and UConn beat teams from their own conference in the 2nd round to advance. The MWC also has two teams left, same as the Big east... out of just three schools that made the tournament. UNLV, of course, lost badly in a minor upset to Illinois. I called that one wrong too. Kansas, to win four games, only has to beat a 16-seed (Boston), a 9 (Illinois), a 12 (Richmond), and then either a 10 (FSU) or an 11 (VCU). Ohio State, meanwhile, has beaten 8-George Mason, faces 4-Kentucky next, and could have 2-North Carolina after that. And 1-Duke remains on OSU's side, while the 1 on Kansas' half (Pitt) is gone. Luck?
In First Place in our group currently is my Father-In-Law, Steve Erickson! Steve has 500 points, which puts him in the 100th percentile of the millions of fans playing across the world. That means that his bracket is literally one of the top brackets in the country right now, not just in our group. Steve has a whopping additional 1200 possible points remaining. The most amazing part of his success is that he spent more time figuring out how to log-in to ESPN.com than he did actually filling out his bracket. Mostly asleep and partially senile, Steve got on the computer around midnight the night before the game locked; With Lauren's help coaching him over the phone, a half an hour and a dozen "Oh Geez!"es later he was in and haphazardly choosing teams, with admittedly little knowledge of the field. He has Kansas picked to beat Kentucky in the national championship game. GO STEVE! http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/en/entry?entryID=5741093.
Ryan Lillywhite is #2, with 470 points, 30 behind Steve E. He also has 1200 PPR, with SDSU picked to beat BYU in the Finals. Which would be crazy. Ryan L. is also in the top 1 percent of the nation with his great picks thus far. He is also the first person of many in our group behind the POTUS, Barack Obama, who is pretty phenomenal at this type of thing apparently (490 points!). http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/en/entry?entryID=4267886 Bobama had an official entry into our group last year, where he finished decently high.
Tied in 3rd place with 450 points apiece are my sis Kier, my bro-in-law Adam Erickson, Bryant, and my cousin Joel Roller. They've all picked Ohio State to win this thing, and all but Joel picked them beating Kansas... he picked Notre Dame. Ohio State over Kansas was also the strong national consensus coming into the tournament. All four are in the top 4% of the nation. This is also Adam and Joel's first time filling out a bracket.
As for me: After the first day of games, I was tied for first place. After the second day of games, my bracket was shot. My only hope left was Ohio State beating Pitt in the championship game. On the third day of games, Pitt became the first #1 seed to lose. So... I'm out. Out of 34 brackets (and not all of them serious), I am left down in 24th place, in the bottom half of the country. I would like to thank you all for competing against me, and most of you for beating me. I appreciate the humbling process. This would be the 3rd year in a row Bryant has beaten me, after never filling out a bracket before in his life. Others beating me include: Karen E., my Mom, my Dad, my lil' bro Russ, his fiancee Star, his roommate Rob, my dirty wife Lauren (haha), my cousin Nathan, my buddy PhilRad, and finally, sadly, Maranda Anderson. Congrats Yos! To those I am beating: Ryan Anderson- You are really bad. For reals. Actually, Russ, Star, and Nathan, I have a tiny hope of passing again someday. My points possible remaining is a poor 920, but it still beats Russ' 840, Star's 560, and Nathan's 440. Bryant's wife, Kelly, has just 320! Sorry Kelly. She picked by the alphabet, I've been told. http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/en/group?groupID=75639&entryID=626583
I guess this brings us naturally to those dwelling at the very bottom of the heap. To those unique souls, we salute your adventuresome spirit and thank you for entertaining the rest of us by playing! Kelly has just 280 points total. Garrett Erickson, my smartest BIL, who we continually nagged and nagged for days, finally picked according to a pretty, decorative pattern scheme, and thus has 250 points, only HALF of his dad's total. And my dear sweet Carly picked according to which names she liked the best- She has 240 points (less than half of our top contestant, her grandpa on Mommy's side). She really liked Xavier, who I guess may be some cartoon character (on Caillou?). She liked Temple, because she likes the Temple. She liked Princeton, because she's a princess who likes princes. She liked LIU, because it sounds kinda like BYU. And she also really liked Bucknell... we still have no idea why. And oddly enough, she picked BOTH South-east region Sweet Sixteen match-ups 100% correctly: Butler-Wisconsin and Florida-BYU. Not even our Steve Erickson did that!! She has Wisconsin and BYU advancing. Carly picked BYU to win it all, unsurprisingly. Good girl! Jason Davies (who is also beating me) picked BYU as well. Good man! Carly and Garrett are both in the bottom 1% nationally. Garrett had all four 15 seeds in his Elite Eight, and two (Northern Colorado and Akron) in his Final Four. And, like me, he lost a bunch of points by picking Ohio State to beat Pitt in the last game of them all. I hate you Pittsburgh!! Both Garrett and Carly have 680 PPR. Which is 240 more than Ryan Anderson. For reals.
A tribute, in memorium, to those who have lost their Winner:
Star- Pitt (she still loves them)
Nathan- UCLA
Rachel Roller- George Mason
Ryan Anderson- Pitt (call me, we can talk trash)
Kelly- "A" is for Akron
You know, March may be over in a week, but Fear Not, the Madness does extend into April! Lauren will be happy to hear that "Mustache March" ends for me tomorrow though (yes, I've been growing out a creepy 'stache since last Monday). I should take a picture. Although, who knows what will happen in May..... Peace out!
Tied in 3rd place with 450 points apiece are my sis Kier, my bro-in-law Adam Erickson, Bryant, and my cousin Joel Roller. They've all picked Ohio State to win this thing, and all but Joel picked them beating Kansas... he picked Notre Dame. Ohio State over Kansas was also the strong national consensus coming into the tournament. All four are in the top 4% of the nation. This is also Adam and Joel's first time filling out a bracket.
As for me: After the first day of games, I was tied for first place. After the second day of games, my bracket was shot. My only hope left was Ohio State beating Pitt in the championship game. On the third day of games, Pitt became the first #1 seed to lose. So... I'm out. Out of 34 brackets (and not all of them serious), I am left down in 24th place, in the bottom half of the country. I would like to thank you all for competing against me, and most of you for beating me. I appreciate the humbling process. This would be the 3rd year in a row Bryant has beaten me, after never filling out a bracket before in his life. Others beating me include: Karen E., my Mom, my Dad, my lil' bro Russ, his fiancee Star, his roommate Rob, my dirty wife Lauren (haha), my cousin Nathan, my buddy PhilRad, and finally, sadly, Maranda Anderson. Congrats Yos! To those I am beating: Ryan Anderson- You are really bad. For reals. Actually, Russ, Star, and Nathan, I have a tiny hope of passing again someday. My points possible remaining is a poor 920, but it still beats Russ' 840, Star's 560, and Nathan's 440. Bryant's wife, Kelly, has just 320! Sorry Kelly. She picked by the alphabet, I've been told. http://games.espn.go.com/tcmen/en/group?groupID=75639&entryID=626583
I guess this brings us naturally to those dwelling at the very bottom of the heap. To those unique souls, we salute your adventuresome spirit and thank you for entertaining the rest of us by playing! Kelly has just 280 points total. Garrett Erickson, my smartest BIL, who we continually nagged and nagged for days, finally picked according to a pretty, decorative pattern scheme, and thus has 250 points, only HALF of his dad's total. And my dear sweet Carly picked according to which names she liked the best- She has 240 points (less than half of our top contestant, her grandpa on Mommy's side). She really liked Xavier, who I guess may be some cartoon character (on Caillou?). She liked Temple, because she likes the Temple. She liked Princeton, because she's a princess who likes princes. She liked LIU, because it sounds kinda like BYU. And she also really liked Bucknell... we still have no idea why. And oddly enough, she picked BOTH South-east region Sweet Sixteen match-ups 100% correctly: Butler-Wisconsin and Florida-BYU. Not even our Steve Erickson did that!! She has Wisconsin and BYU advancing. Carly picked BYU to win it all, unsurprisingly. Good girl! Jason Davies (who is also beating me) picked BYU as well. Good man! Carly and Garrett are both in the bottom 1% nationally. Garrett had all four 15 seeds in his Elite Eight, and two (Northern Colorado and Akron) in his Final Four. And, like me, he lost a bunch of points by picking Ohio State to beat Pitt in the last game of them all. I hate you Pittsburgh!! Both Garrett and Carly have 680 PPR. Which is 240 more than Ryan Anderson. For reals.
A tribute, in memorium, to those who have lost their Winner:
Star- Pitt (she still loves them)
Nathan- UCLA
Rachel Roller- George Mason
Ryan Anderson- Pitt (call me, we can talk trash)
Kelly- "A" is for Akron
You know, March may be over in a week, but Fear Not, the Madness does extend into April! Lauren will be happy to hear that "Mustache March" ends for me tomorrow though (yes, I've been growing out a creepy 'stache since last Monday). I should take a picture. Although, who knows what will happen in May..... Peace out!
~Mars
Fact of the Day: There are 8 basketball players left in the NCAA Tournament named Justin. There's Only One Jimmer.
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