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Saturday, March 22, 2003
Time to shred brackets yet?
As seemingly expected, two of the teams I expected to lose in the first round, came away winners today. Oh well, the NCAA Catholic League is representing itself well, even as Gonzaga nearly showed that Cinderella streak again. Yup, this is the real round where brackets get busted. Not the best way to follow up a 25-7 first round.
The last two games of the day were dogs, but it was interesting seeing how Matt Guokas let Kareem talk a lot more as the Duke blowout came to an end. However, a few times, I could hear Kareem channeling Roger Murdock. "No, Dick, my name is Roger Murdock, I'm a basketball announcer."
posted at 11:02 PM
Pool reporting
After whiffing on a bunch of the early 7-10s/8-9 games (plus missing on the required Ivy League pick), I made a nice recovery thanks to some great games in the final time window of the first round. I can't believe it took until the end of the first round for a 12 seed to win a game, given past history. Butler had a big chip on its shoulder from being snubbed last year and probably can thank Georgia for getting into the field this year. However, I've always found it hard to accept Mississippi State as a legitimate contender, even the year it made the Final Four.
The end of the Maryland win will be on highlight reels for years to come, although it's too late to be in that Pontiac promotion that's been showing during the tournament.
posted at 1:07 AM
Friday, March 21, 2003
Hoops or war? An easy decision
Yup, it was a stressful day in the office. But it would've been that way war or not. The only difference is that the war cut into some television issues. However, ESPN did a good job in picking up the CBS games in the afternoon. Plus, the fact that ESPN had some schedule conflicts later in the day almost seemingly forced CBS to pick up the games in the evening. And, if you want to believe in the fact that money and entertainment prevails over news, think about the money CBS is losing with war coverage compared with the ad revenue it picks up by showing games. CBS even showed The Late Show (with guest host Bonnie Hunt) hours after war started.
On a side note, it was a bit strange seeing ESPN telling viewers to watch CBS News for the latest on the war during the afternoon games (done by the CBS crews) and then watching Sportscenter minutes later and having the crawl asking people to watch ABC News for the latest on the war.
As for the games themselves, I did pretty well for myself in the first day of tournament action, just missing on the Marquette-Holy Cross game and the Wisconsin-Milwaukee-Notre Dame game, plus whiffing on Arizona State-Memphis. Of course, that means that Marquette and Notre Dame could go far (oh well, go Catholics!).
(I'm sure I missed a few picks in other pools, but I've got to base my picks on the office pool I run. I'm still trying to figure out how I've got a couple of executive-types in the pool.)
It was fun seeing the first three games of the day all coming down to the final seconds. Then came the parade of usual tournament games: the "sexy" upset picks almost, but don't, happen (see Holy Cross, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, San Diego, Weber State); blowouts by the top seeds (poor snowbound Vermont, couldn't they have skiied to Salt Lake City?); major scares for top teams like Kansas and Duke; a high-ranked but low-seeded mid-major team getting upset by a fellow mid-major in the first round (doesn't the Central Michigan upset of Creighton seem a lot like Wyoming's upset of Gonzaga last year?); and Tulsa pulling off another wild but not unexpected upset. You really could script some of this stuff, although the excitement is always fun.
However, I'm sure many bracket folks are happy that BYU went away quietly.
posted at 12:51 AM
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
The madness continues ...
A number of folks have already gone into the whole BYU mess. As someone who runs an office bracket pool, I'd rather not get into the whole mess should the Cougars make the Sweet 16. But, geez, the NCAA handled that like so many quizbowl fiascos in the past. Hopefully, my job as bracketologist for TRASHionals doesn't turn out like that.
Speaking of the tournament, the play-in game turned out to be another close-fought, exciting game to watch. It's odd, though, that I'd watch this game because it was a tournament game, but this game barely registers anywhere if it's in the regular season, given it's a contest between two small-conference teams. It's almost like some of the low-end college football bowl games. To think, some of those televised NIT games have more drawing power but are sometimes boring contests.
Thankfully we'll have the tournament to create separate stress on top of a potential war. It will be interesting to see how CBS handles this should it go to war coverage. One of our writers is searching out hotels that may carry ESPN2 and/or TNN -- stations that may show the games if CBS dumps out of coverage -- while he's on the road. What we both discovered is that better hotels actually shaft you in terms of channels available on the TVs. I've been to my fair share of cheaper motels, and in most cases, they'll pipe in the local cable (40-50 channels at least). The better TVs go with the Spectravision or similar systems. Those limit the cable channels to the local networks, CNN, ESPN, The Weather Channel, HBO and maybe one or two "general interest" channels (USA, TNT, TBS). Or as we determined, you can either get more cable channels (E!, Game Show, Food Network, etc.) or you can get porn/PPV/video games.
posted at 11:55 PM
Sunday, March 16, 2003
Don't look a gift horse ... ?
While many of us await filling out our NCAA tournament brackets, check out the disclaimer on the bracket on the NCAA site, which asks people not to use this for gambling purposes. It's well-intentioned, but unfortunately, the ratings/excitement/buzz over this cash cow wouldn't exist without it, and I'm pretty sure the NCAA knows this.
Speaking of big money and college athletics, an interesting nugget in Tim Layden's suggestions for overhauling college sports was the possibility that the major conferences could break off and form a super league, which would serve as an NFL and NBA minor leagues not under the watchful eye of the NCAA.
In football, it already seems like Division I-A football is above NCAA control. The schools have been able to resist a playoff (which is in place in every other division of football) and keep the riches of bowl money primarily to itself. This whole fight over a playoff shows exactly how different major college football is really run. Why are the rules for something simple as a playoff so different for I-A football? You might as well just break off football from the auspices of the NCAA and make it a free-for-all. It would remove much of the stigma of scandal. You cheat? So do we?
It's a bit harder to control in basketball, especially since some of the excitement that comes at tournament time comes from upsets by small schools over major powers. Then again, it would solve some of that strength of schedule problem when it comes to bubble teams.
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