Madness

I filled out my bracket today for the NCAA tourney. Since I'm not in a pool this year -- because I follow the law and don't support illegal gambling on collegiate athletics* -- I could afford to be bold with my choices.

*Yes, in fact, office pools ARE illegal. If you are taking part in one, you are a criminal and you should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Along with the other 200 million people who participate in these things.

Some highlights from my bracket:

-- VCU makes a tough run into the Elite Eight, with wins over UCLA, Villanova, and Duke.
Everyone remembers VCU upsetting Duke 2 years ago in the 1st round, so the upset over UCLA in the 1st round this year is the one upset that everyone and their brother is picking. Eric Maynor is quite possibly the best point guard in the tournament this year, and UCLA is not very good. However, Villanova and Duke are 2 very good teams, so picking VCU to get past both of them is extremely bold and probably just plain stupid. So be it. I'm going with the hometown favorite.

-- My 12-seed over 5-seed upset: Wisconsin over Florida State.
Every year there's at least one 12/5 upset. Often there are 2. The trick is picking the right one. It seems this year everyone is going with Arizona over Utah. Mostly because FSU beat UNC in the ACC tournament. But they only did that because UNC was missing their best player.

-- Another upset: #11 Utah State over Marquette.
I don't have much reasoning for this one, other than for some reason I think Utah State is underrated and Marquette is over-rated, and I wanted another upset.

-- Other first-round upsets: #10 Maryland over #7 California;
#13 Mississippi State over #4 Washington;
#9 Texas A&M over #8 BYU;
#10 USC over Boston College;
#11 Dayton over #6 West Virginia;
#10 Minnesota over #7 Texas; and
#9 Butler over #8 LSU (this one's already wrong).
Hopefully you can read all that.

-- Arizona State with upset wins over Syracuse and Oklahoma gets to the Elite Eight before losing to UNC.

-- After all my bold early-round upsets, I have all four #1 seeds in the Final Four, with Louisville beating UNC in the championship.

So there you go. After a blog absence of over a month, I hit you with a boring NCAA tournament post. It's as fun as listening to someone talk about their fantasy team.

I've started several posts in the last few weeks that I never got around to finishing, editing, fully researching and completing. Maybe I'll get to them sometime soon. Or I'll just give you posts on my fantasy baseball team. Deal with it.