2007

I am psyched for the 2007 NCAA Pool! Some things that are sure to happen

- Gonzaga will underachieve
- Kansas will lose. That have taken the "good team that loses in the first round" crown from Arizona which had taken it from DePaul.
- UWM will win a game
- Wisconsin will....I dont want to even go there.

Brackets come out Sunday, March 11 2007. First game is on Thursday March 15 at 11:15.

I already hate my picks.

Badger Hockey

Now that my Hoops picks are completely destroyed (Ill never forgive you JJ) time to tunr attention to Badger Hockey.

The Wonen's team is int he Frozen Four. They play at 3pm this afternoon. It will be webcast on uwbadgers.com. I think its on TV in Madison as well. The play the St Lawrence Whatevers.

Tommorrow the men take on Bemidji State at 1:30. Thats supposed to be on one of the FoxSportsNet stations but Im not sure which one.

I dont want to put the gooch on this or anything but theres a chance that both could do very well in the tourneys. Oh crap, I just put the gooch on it didnt I.

LSU

9 people had LSU over Duke. Props to them!
97 people had Duke winning that game. Ummmm...not good.

0 people had Bradley winning ANY game.

My neice T is 5 years old. She doesn't know a whole lot about college basketball (she mostly a pro fan) but she made her picks. SHe's in 95th right now. So if you're below that you're getting beat beat by a 5 year old who's biggest concern is When does Dora come on?

J.J.

I feel bad for J.J. Redick. By all accounts he had a stellar career at Duke. One of their all time greats. But the first thing people are gonna remember about him is that he went 3-18 in his final game.

Actually I dont feel bad for him at all. I feel bad for me, who picked Duke and had to suffer through his 3-18 in his final game.

Coach K

This is pretty funny. And its safe for work.

http://www.newsobserver.com/content/multimedia/sports/coachkommercial/

Guest Blog

My officemate Robbo is a HUGE college basketball fan. Heres an email I got from him.....

So...a friend and I decide to put a bunch of bets down on the first round of the NCAA tournament. Here is the pain I endured on Thursday and Friday (granted, it's not a lot of money, but it sucks nonetheless):

$50 on UNC-Wilmington (+2.5) over GW...
I had no doubts on this game. We saw Wilmington almost beat the Badgers at the Kohl Center (pre-landry/steimsma). Wilmington is up by 18(!) in the 2nd half. GW goes on a 19-0 run. Overtime. GW wins by 3. I lose $50 by a 1/2 point.

$25 on Ohio State (-10) over Davidson...
OSU wins by 9. I lose.

$25 on Wisconsin (even) over Arizona...
What a ******* joke. Wisconsin chokes badly.

$10 on Oral Roberts to get to 10 points first over Nova...
It was almost tied at half, but Nova went up like 11-2. Yes, this was silly bet, but you know how these little teams like to start strong.

$35 on Michigan State (-6) over George Mason...
That ********** Izzo will have his team ready for the tourney, right? George Mason goes on to thrash them (and North Carolina two days later).

I lost all of my bets.
Gambling sucks.

Pulse Back to Normal

Ok my pulse is back to normal after that weekend. 48 games. 128 pool points available. The action just never stops. Didnt seem to be alot of blowouts this year. Lots of upsets though. The top of the Mid-Major conferences are creeping up on the middling of the BCS Conferences. A couple notes from the weekend.

- The Big Ten....ummm how do I say it.....The Big Ten.....lets see..........The Bg Ten......SUCKS! There I said it. WHat an embarrassment. And Wisconsin was the worst.

- One Wisconsin team one and it was UWM. My new favorite team. Markette lost and I called it so I was happy about that. My hatred of Markette has multiplied. People ask why. Well here it is. Im trying to elevate the Wis-Markette rivalry. Take the #1 Rivalry in College Hoops, Duke-NC. Can you see a Dukie under any circumstance, root for NC. Or even admit that NC is "good" or even admit to not hating them with the white hot passion of a thousand suns? No. Thats a rivalry. We need that to promote hoops in Wisconsin. We want people to say, "Hmmmm Wis vs Markette, those 2 teams dont like each other. Ill tune in to watch"

- Markette is still a big pile of wussies for not scheduling UWM. You now how some citizens vote on one issue, lowering taxes, abortion whatever, they just look at that one issue, well my issue is making Markette play UWM. If some candidate says he or she will pass a law requiring Markette to play UWM each and every year, they get my vote.

- So we're at BW3 on Friday. March 17th. St Patricks Day. Big drinking holiday. Probably second only to New Years. And what is the Americanized version of the traditional St Patricks Day drink? Thats right, Green Beer. SO we started ordering up our green beer at 10:30 for the first round of games. So its getting to the end of the 2nd set of games and we go to order more of the green nectar. "Oh we're out of green beer." It was about 4pm. 2nd biggest drinking day of the year. Traditional green beer. And they run out at 4pm. And where were the green wings? Somebody missed a big opportunity here.

- The Big Ten sucks. Did I do that one already? Well it bears repeating.

- CBS still cant figure how to time games so they dont all end at one time. It seems easy to me. Start them at staggered times. Like maybe a half hour between them. Is that difficult? I mean am I the only one to think of this? I want to see the end of every single game. The last 5 minutes at least. I dont know how many times I had to look at their little scoreboards at the top to follow the games. And heres another thing they like to do. Make us watch a game with a big name team that has like 10 minutes left when theres a close game with 1:30 to go. Great UConn is tied with 10 left, but Bradley might upset Pitt is under 2 minutes? Overall they have gotten alot LOT better than years past but these couple glaring errors need fixing.

- When Im at home I often turn the sound down. Announcers seem to think they have to talk constantly. They dont. Theres a picture right there to show whats happening.

- Badger Hockey. After being a main contributer to Black Friday by losing 4-3, they bounced back to beat Minnesota 4-0 on sat. That win secured them the #1 overall seed in the NCAA Tourney. They play Bemidji State on at. Ummm, when did Bemidji become a state? Do they have an Inerstate system? Are they on the power grid? When does their state quarter come out?

- More Badger Hockey. The Bucky women are in the final 4. I dont want throw a gooch out or anything but a Mens-Womens hockey sweep would be some sweet action.

Round 2 starts

Im visibly distraught by yesterdays results. Even so, I wil solider on. Dr Dave still in the lead but nobody is completly out of it. Actually Im just saying that. I have no mathematical basis for it.

How about that Wisconsin Badger squad? Not pretty. 8 games today worth4 points each. Same thing tomorrow.

I have added Kansas, Mich State and Iowa to this years "teams I hate" list.

Wings yesterday were awesome! The wireless connection was good too. Just fired up the laper and it automatically connected. I was deinately the biggest geek in there but I think people somehow accepted it as it was tourney realted. It also came in handy a couple times when we needed to look up the answers to various trivia questions that came up. The only real danger was when Braz spilled the two 23 ounce beers. Luckily they missed the technology.

I need Duke to beat Uconn and to have every other game end in an upset. I think I have a chance.

BW3

Ok it turns out that the BW3 im at ha wireless access. Being the forward thinking geek that I am, I put my lapper int he car "just in case"

So here we are. Dan and I are 42 wings in. WIsconsin was indeed overrated. We're bugging the place to put the hockey game on. Awesome end to the Iowa game. Nobody knows where Northwestern State is. Ok my battery only has so much juice. Ill be back after the next 4 games.

Day 2

Ok day one was awesome. Turely the most anticipated day of the year. Dr Dave went 15 for 16 to lead the pack. But everyone is still in it so have no fear.

Ill be spending the day watching the games at New Berlin's own BW3 on Beloit and Moreland. Buck starts at 11:40 and then Buck Hockey starts ar 2:35. Good afternoon of sports.

Im having a collegue update the winners in my absence so the standings should be up to date. Unless he forgets.

GW-NC-Wilm

Great game! Wilm withstood 3 mistakes in the last 10 seonds, fouling a 3 point shot, taking a bad shot with 3 seconds left, not corraling the board and letting GW get a shot off.

Then GW makes the shot right after the horn to end regulation. On to Overtime....

Long day. Im going to bed. Ill update the winners of the last 4 games first thing tomorrow.

Markette

Quite an ending to Markette-Bama. When Novak was open at the end there I figured that they tied it up. But *clank*.

We have one person who is perfect through 7. Way to go Shelly!

One person had Markette in the final game. Meatball LoCoco is the only person to lose a Final 4 pick thus far.

I have to get some cookies and take a shower.

Tennessee Escapes

Wow! What a shot with .4 seconds left. Amazing finish!

The pizza and garlic bread is gone.

All afternoon during the snow, there has been 2 robins frolicking on our patio. So that means its spring. With 4 inches of snow.

Pizza is here!!!

The pizza is here. Alabama is up 11 over Markette. Theyre hitting 3s and Novak hasnt had a chance to go off yet.

Garlic bread too!!!!!

BC!!

Holy cow! Double OT! There were 6 people really sweatin that one! 6 people have BC winning the whole thing. Clean out those knickers BCers.

Hockey note. Badgers play North Dakota at 2:37 tomorrow. Live on FoxSports North. (CC sucks!)

Im thinking of ordering a pizza. With garlic bread!

FInals

2 finals so far. UWM played great all day and Witicha pretty much handled Seton Hall day.

Pacific hit a late 3 to tie BC with 9 seconds left.

Both teams had a chance to win it in those last 9 seconds. The BC guy traveled bringing th ball up court. Then the Pacific guy dribbled into a triple team at the 3 pt arc and lost the ball. BC then got a shot off with .2 secs left that missed.

SO off to OT. Nobody scored in the first 90 seconds then BC hit a shot that they took like 10 minutes to review.

Im hearing that the Markette game will be starting at 3pm.

California Area Evacuated

The arena where Markette is playing is being evacuated. There was a suspicious package found.
The shockers are still up 13 but SH is making a push.

UWM is looking real good. Up 12.

BC up 9

CBS Free Streaming on the Net

So CBS has been advertising that they are going to stream all the games this weekend on the net. So one of my work guys tries to connect. He was 136,475th in line. Thats worse than waiting for Packer season tickets.

SIngular at the half.....

UWM game is at halftime. UWM up by 2. Theyre playing well. The highlight was when one Oklahoma guy smacked another Oklahoma guy in the face going for a rebound. The guy had to go to the lackerroom. Its things like that that make the tourney so unpredictable.

BC and Pacific are tied with about 3 left in the first. The Shockers are up by a boatload at the half over Seton Hall.

I bought these buffalo chicken nuggets at the pig. Theyre not even close to good. Yet theyre almost gone.

The Remote!!

Found it! Got UWM-Okla and Seton Hall-Whitcha on the split screen.

UWM is holding their own. Oklahoma is obviously trying to cheat.

The BC-Pacific game is also just under way.

Whitcha is up 12 after 10 minutes.

Theres like 2 inches of snow out there (its snowing here in WIsconsin) SO Im watching a nice storm during commercials. A wonderful day.

112 entries!

Pool entry is closed. We now have 112 entries! I actually wouldn't be surprised if a couple more show up via email or regular mail. But for the current 112 we have these useless stats

Unanimous 1st round picks
Duke (1st seed)
Texas (2)
Memphis (1)
Kansas (4)
UCLA (2)
Uconn (1)
Illinois (4)
VIllnova (1)
Boston College (4)
Ohio State (2)

Potential Singletons
Pam is the only one to pick Murray State over North Carolina
Stacy Hemming is the only one to pick South Alabama over Florida

My clock reads 11:00!!!!

And we're off! I still havent found the special split screen remote. I just had a yogurt for a calcium kick.

Under one hour.....

The first 3 games up are
(10) Seton Hall (65 picks) vs (7) Witicha St (47 picks)

(11) UWM (63 picks) vs (6) Oklahoma (49 picks)

(13) Pacific (0 picks) vs (4) Boston College (112 picks)

Looks like everyone remembered the rule about never picking teams named after Oceans.

9:00am

2 hours to go. The Wisconsin High SWchool tourney gets started at 9:30. Its a good warmup for full Pool action. Hartland is in the DI tourney. Eisenhower lost in the sectional finals, one game from state.

Im just about out of ham so Im gonna hot the Pig for some last minute provisions.

7:30am

Ok just got back from exercising. I successfully took my mind off of the tourney. I spent most of my time running up and down the court trying not to throw up.

3.5 hours until Greg Gumbel starts off the tourney on your local CBS stations. My cable ciompany has 4 different feeds available to me. The channels are up in the 580 area. I may take a power nap.

Its 4:12 am

Woke up at 3:30 this morning. Couldnt get back to sleep. Theres just too much Madness around here to sleep. Im going to do some morning exercise to try to spend some of this nervous energy. After that Ill come home and try to find the remote that I never use with the picture splitting button on it. Ill spend a good half hour pn that. WHen I find it Ill spend another hour or so perfecting its use. Then I will begin to eat. Oh who am I kidding, Ill be eating that whole time.

Upsets

Another useless stat. Since 1991 the average amount of upsets that the winner has picked is 12. The average number of upset points is 33. The low is 4 upsets and 4 points. The high is 16 upsets for 64 points.

There. Arent you glad you know that.

Watching 2 games at once

During the tourney you will find that the ability to watch 2 games at once is key. Picture in picture only works so well. You always lose track of some data, usually the score, under the little picture. Newer widescreen TVs have the split screen feature which is nice. You can pretty much see both games at a somewhat normal size (at least you can if your TV is 65 inches)

But on non wide screen TVs, the dual games is a difficult ability to master. The best way ends up being by use of the "last channel" button on the remote. Flipping back and forth during breaks can keep you pretty well update on all the action. Skillful practitioners are difficult to come by. The reason is that there is rarely a sitiuation to practice. It isnt very often there are 2 games on at the same time that you have an interest in. SO Im going to give you a practice tip. I have used this for the past year in preparation for the tourney.

Here it is: try watching 2 Law and Orders at the same time with the channel switcher. You have to follow both stories. TNT and USA will have somewhat staggered commercial times so its a perfect practice scenario. Now go watch Jack McCoy nab the bad guys!

17 hours....

Need to watch basketball.... Wake Forest vs Minnesota in the NIT.... not NCAA tourney...... not real basketball... Looking for video tape of 2000 tourney when Wisconsin made the Final Four... Ahhhhhh, thats better.

20 hours....

And counting..... Things Ive done trying to make the time go faster.

- I've re-alphabetized my mp3s by artist then album name. It previously had been artist then year of album release.

- Ate a half canister of really bad taco dip

- Packaged up my latest eBay sales.

- Went over my picks and realized that I have no chance.

- Ate some bad buffalo chicken rotini salad. What was I thinking when I was at the store this moring. Madness I tell ya.

Some Madness...

So I'm sitting here in my office. Trying to concentrate on work but having a difficult time because we're under 24 hours till tipoff now. So I decide to put on some music. Maybe it'll calm me down. I wrote this program that randomly selects mp3s from the music on my hard drive. So I tell it to grab 20 random songs and play them. So what comes up first.....Our House by.....wait for it......Madness!

Could it be more perfect! So for the rest of the day by my house its all Madness all the time. Now if you dont remember or are too young or too old to know about Madness, they are an 80's British Ska band. Which means all their songs sound pretty much the same. Now I cant decide if all Madness, all day is a blessing or curse. Imagine listening to the same song all day and its *NOT* George Thorogood's One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.

Payment

As you may or may not know, the enrty fee for this little pool party (in my pants) is $10 (American, you can take the Euros and shove'em). But "how do you pay?" you may ask. Well Im here to tell ya.

Send that entry fee to me, Jeff Crucius, at the address that follows.
200 Woodlands Ct
Hartland, WI 53029

In addition, because it is the electronic age, I will accept payments via the worlds largest on-line payment service, PayPal. My PayPal account is jcrucius@facstaff.wisc.edu.

Again this year I will be publishsing the Deadbeat List on the second Sunday of the tourney. Thats March 26th. So get those payments in by then. I can think of no fate worse that being on the that Deadbeat list. Its just devestating.

Useless Stats

You want Useless stats, I got useless stats!

I went throught all the pool entries since 1991 and calculated which teams were picked in which rounds the most times. Somewhat interesting, comletely useless.

There have been a total of 720 entries (when I ran this program)

Round 1 Picks
693 Kansas
676 Duke
671 Kentucky
663 Arizona
576 North Carolina

Round 2
632 Duke
585 Kentucky
541 Kansas
474 Arizona
468 North Carolina

Round 3
507 Duke
434 Kentucky
356 North Carolina
318 Kansas
310 UConn

Round 4
364 Duke
263 Kentucky
246 North Carolina
200 Kansas
136 UConn

Round 5
255 Duke
168 Kentucky
151 North Carolina
122 Kansas
83 Illinois

Champ
150 Duke
97 Kentucky
77 North Carolina
70 Kansas
47 Illinois

Interestingly Stanford is 6th here with 31.

My Picks Are In!

Ok so I just entered my picks. And I go back and start analyzing them a little more. And I discover that I must be some kind of moron. I pick Kansas, a team that starts 2 freshman, to go to the final 4? The same Kansas team that lost to #13 Bucknell in the 1st round last year? That is some special kind of stupid.

Bracket Contests

Here's a batch of Bracket COontests that seem to be legit. At least from big name sites.

CBS Sportsline

ESPN

CNN/Sports Illustrated

USA Today

FoxSports

Sporting News

Bob and Brian

Gametimes

UWM is first up at 11:25 on Thursday morinng. They opened up as a 2.5 point underdog to Oklahoma.

Markette is next up at 1:40 on Thursday. They opened as a 2 point favorite over Alabama.

Wisconsin tips at 11:30 on Friday. I have them at +1.5 against Arizona.

The Badger Hockey team plays North Dakota at 2:35 on Friday as well. (CC sucks!)

First Entry!!!

Dan Collins wins the First Entry of 2006 Contest. Its a ceremonial title only.

Cant Get Traction...

I can't get tracion on filling put my bracket this year. In previous years I had pretty much the entire things done as I was watching the selection show. But this year has so many strange matchups. GW-UNC-Wilmington. I mean who knows anything about either team?

Wichita State (The Shockers) against Seton Hall? Whats up there?

I havent heard jack aboout Oklahoma all year. Can UWM beat them?

Im just gonna have to sleep on these for another day.

We're Up and Running!!!

The bracket is in! Start entering those picks!!
As I meander through the net looking for contests to enter. The biggies like ESPN and CBS Sportsline are obvious. Ill post any other ones I find.

At first I was surprised to see Buck was a 9 seed. But if you think about it, a 9 seed is the same as an 8 seed. In fact the 9 seeds in the past have fared better than the 8s. So I think theyre in about the spot they earned.

Geeze Jim Nance is really taking the committee to town on the TV show. He's not happy. Its kind of funny.

Guest Blog Entry!

4 or 5 years ago Voegs mentioned that he met some guys at Champs for a First Friday Funday at Champps. I attended and had a blast. Done it every year since. John officially declared a venue change for this years event.

This years First Friday Funday will be held at the new New Berlin BW3. Festivities start at 11am. Heres John's recap of the history of the event....

Previous venues in this 16 year history of First Friday include:

Major Goolsby's-Chirs Leinon & I went their for lunch the first time; noted
all the guys not leaving after lunch and we hunkered in for the night. Koko
later joined us. Chris and I have been in every year since....Dan has
joined us most of them. Hosts of people filter in and out

Luke's Sports Spectacular followed after that for the next 10 years. At one
point Dan and I, after one of these episodes, lifted a 300lb. bar from our
apartment basement to the family room for no other reason than we were
drunk.

Champs Brookfield had been the location the last five years but the screen
location sucked. Personal highlight here was attending a custody hearing
for Noelle when the birth mom gave up her parental rights. 20 minutes after
that, Julie and Noelle were home and I was on my way to Champs to get
liquored up.

BW3's offers a new start and a place to crash within walking distance.