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March 27, 2005

In case you haven't been keeping up with the Challenge, my bracket sucked. If Illinois loses to Louisville on Saturday I will not only finish in last but I will do so with the lowest score ever recorded in five years of the Tournament Challenge, lower even than Nemo in 2002 when he picked Marquette and Cincinnati to meet in the finals and both were gone by the first weekend. (He did turn around and win the next year, so maybe there's hope for me yet.) Thankfully, in lieu of my bracket being worth a damn, we've had a pretty fantastic tournament. A good number of upsets in the first round, followed by plenty of shockers in the next couple rounds and a lot of great games - we haven't had this much overtime since 1997 and 1998, both highly enjoyable tournaments (except for the part in 1998 where Kentucky won). The West Virginia/Wake game was masterful, and three of the four Elite 8 games going to OT? Wow. Especially the Illinois game... amazing. It would be great to see them match up against Michigan State in the finals - take that, Big Ten detractors! But we'll see what we see. I bet it's good.

March 15, 2005

I've got a bracket I'm pretty happy with. It contradicts what a lot of the experts are saying in many places, but I think it has a good mix of upsets I think could happen and chalk I think actually will happen. At any rate, I think I'm done spending time on this - a day and a half is probably more than enough. Drew actually suggested tonight that we not make picks this year and just watch the games - he was at least half-joking, but were it not for the fact that I run this pool and backing out of it would be, well, more than a bit dick, I might be inclined to do just that. Whatever, I finished.

March 14, 2005

I've finally completed an initial run-through of the bracket. It may or may not stay the way it is right now (probably not), but I think there's a decent mix of upsets in there, though I'm not especially convinced by any of them. One of the first orders of business once I get a job is getting ESPN's Full Court package for next year, because my struggle with this year's bracket is mostly due to not knowing enough about a lot of the teams, and that's due to not watching enough games during the season. I watched some conference tournament games, of course, but that only tells you so much.
That said, time for a little bracket analysis. I usually don't do this for the tournament because of the pool, but I'm mostly just talking about the first couple of rounds here. Anyway. My impressions, with the already mentioned caveat that I only watched so much basketball this year:

Midwest Region

Final Four Contenders: Illinois, Oklahoma State, Arizona. Between the one seed's three-guard attack, the two seed's experience, and the three seed's Salim Stoudamire, I'd be shocked if this region's representative in St. Louis were any team but one of these three.
Paper Tiger: #4 Boston College. They probably won't lose to Penn because this year's Quakers aren't as talented as in years past, but the Eagles have slumped down the stretch and could well go out in the second round.
Sleeper: #6 LSU is too popular a sleeper pick, so I'm going with #5 Alabama. Remember that this team went to the Elite Eight last year as a #8 seed, including knocking off a #1 seed that had one loss coming into the tournament (Stanford). Assuming they get to the Sweet Sixteen, they could give Illinois trouble.
X-Factor: The winner of the 7-10 game between Southern Illinois and St. Mary's. Most of America knows next to nothing about either of these teams, especially the Gaels, meaning they could break a lot of brackets if either somehow finds a way past OSU in the second round.
Upset Specials: I'm not expecting any major upsets in this region, but keep an eye on Utah State - from 1995 to 1999 an average of one #14 seed a year got out of the first round, but we haven't seen one since '99, meaning we're overdue. Arizona is a strong team, but Utah State is better than their seed indicates - they pounded Utah 71-45 back in December - and could at least give the Wildcats a tough game.
If You Can Only Watch One First Round Game: Arizona/Utah State could well be a blast. Aside from that, expect Texas/Nevada to be very competitive as well.

West Region

Final Four Contenders: Wake Forest, Gonzaga, Louisville, Georgia Tech. The 2-5 seeds. #1 Washington could certainly make some noise befitting their seed, but I just can't picture them as a Final Four squad.
Paper Tiger: #1 Washington. Athletic, fast, and high-scoring, but it usually takes a reliable big man to win in the tournament and the Huskies' tallest player is 6-8. They're susceptible to being knocked around by big men, which is why a second round exit to the survivor of Pacific/Pittsburgh isn't out of the question at all.
Sleeper: #5 Georgia Tech. A lot of people aren't sure what to make of Tech, and rightfully so, because they were so up and down all year. Put it this way: their run to the ACC tournament final was much closer to showing us the real team than their 9-7 conference record. And let's not forget that this is pretty much the exact same team that ran to the finals last year.
X-Factor: #8 Pacific. Playing on the west coast and in a mid-major conference that gets no respect, the Tigers probably wouldn't even have found their way into the top 20 this year if not for their close loss at Kansas back in the early season. Pacific upset a Big East team in last year's first round, and could easily win again over a slumping Pitt - if they do, the inside tandem of Christian Maraker and Guillaume Yango could give undersized Washington fits. But with Pacific so invisible on the national stage, who really knows what to expect?
Upset Specials: Not feeling one in the first round here. Creighton might upend West Virginia, but a ten over a seven isn't really an upset.
If You Can Only Watch One First Round Game: Pacific/Pitt is the most intriguing to me, but WV/Creighton should also be good.

East Region

Final Four Contenders: North Carolina, Connecticut, Kansas. Florida and Villanova both played well down the stretch, but neither inspires me as a title contender.
Paper Tiger: Could very well be #4 Florida. The Gators have a recent history of folding like a cheap card table in the tournament (since their surprise run to the 2000 finals, the Gators have been seeded third, fifth, second, and fifth, but have never gotten out of the second round and have lost to a lower-seeded team in all four outings), and #13 Ohio has some guys who can play.
Sleeper: The winner of the 7/10 game between Charlotte and NC State. Both are strong teams that could give problems to a young, rebuilding UConn squad.
X-Factor: #12 New Mexico. Not much is known about the Lobos this year, but they did beat Utah twice and have a legit All-America contender in Danny Granger. With Villanova experiencing some injury woes right now and Florida always ripe for an upset, New Mexico could end up facing the Tar Heels in Syracuse if things break right for them.
Upset Specials: The 4/13 and 5/12 games both need to be watched, but so does the 6/11 game between Wisconsin and Northern Iowa. The Panthers were one of the last teams into the field and drew the (undeserved) ire of Notre Dame supporters, but look out - UNI very nearly toppled eventual finalist Georgia Tech as a #14 seed in the first round in Milwaukee last year. The Panthers took down Iowa State earlier in the year and just fell short of Iowa (back when the Hawkeyes were still a Big Ten contender), and Wisconsin's recent tournament history is inconsistent.
If You Can Only Watch One First Round Game: The Charlotte/NC State game should be very interesting.

South Region

Final Four Contenders: Duke, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Syracuse, Michigan State, Utah. The Austin bracket is probably the most wide-open in that any of the top six teams could make it if they play to their full potential while other high seeds don't. I expect the last team standing to come out of the top four, though.
Paper Tiger: Could be #2 Kentucky. The Wildcats seem to get less impressive every year, and this team is even greener than last year's second-round stumbler, starting two freshmen, including at point guard. The Wildcats' half of the draw is stacked with perennial underachievers, but a team that can handle UK inside can probably beat it - Cincinnati could do it in Round Two as long as Bob Huggins' sweaters don't shrink in the wash like they do every year around this time.
Sleeper: #3 Oklahoma. I guess it's hard to call a three seed a sleeper, but when the top two seeds in the region are the ever-present Duke and Kentucky, you can see how a three might get overlooked. Oklahoma tied Kansas for the Big 12 regular season title and has a lot of experience, getting through a strong Big 12 with just four losses, pummeling UConn on January 10, and playing (albeit losing to) one seeds Duke and Washington back in 2004. With the top two seeds in this region potentially playing above their heads, it could be the #3 that comes out.
X-Factor: Either Utah or UTEP. The winner of the 6/11 game will not let Oklahoma waltz into the Sweet 16. Utah has one of the nation's best players in Andrew Bogut, but they themselves could be down for an upset at the hands of UTEP's terrific guard play. PG Filiberto Rivera had one game this year in which he recorded 18 assists and exactly zero turnovers.
Upset Specials: Aside from UTEP, keep an eye on Vermont. The Catamounts have been in the tournament three years in a row, improving their seed each time, from 16 to 15 to 13 this year. They're also playing close to home in Worcester, Massachusetts, and have maybe the deadliest inside-outside punch in the nation between Taylor Coppenrath and T.J. Sorrentine. They'll have their hands full with Syracuse, though, a team that certainly has its own inside-outside combo of Gerry McNamara and Hakim Warrick.
If You Can Only Watch One First Round Game: Syracuse/Vermont should really be fun - it's a couple of veteran teams with tournament-tested players who, during the season, seemed to score at will. Both teams struggle without consistent production from those two players. Syracuse has a tendency to hit the snooze button during first round games (though they haven't actually lost one since they were an 8 seed in 1999), and the Catamounts could burn them if that happens.

March 14, 2005

I just went through the whole bracket once and my picks suck. Not that they suck per se, but they're just far too chalky (I don't think I had a team lower than a 5 seed in the Sweet 16). It's hard to talk ourselves into upsets, of course, but we all know that there have to be at least a couple. Excluding 10 seeds for obvious reasons, every tournament yields at least one double-digit seed winning. There seem to be high and low periods of that, though - in 2000 there was only one upset in the first round (#11 Pepperdine over #6 Indiana, an upset I picked), followed by seven in 2001, then six in 2002, three in 2003, and two last year. So we're probably due for a big year of them. On the other hand, maybe we should root against it. The more first-round upsets, the duller the rest of the tournament, as it turns out - remember that 2000 produced a Final Four with two eight seeds, while in 2001 Duke won. At any rate, I erased the whole bracket and will try again tomorrow.

    On Saturday Alma's school had a talent show, which was a surprisingly big production replete with awful Oscar-like introductions and frequently odd interstitial videos, most of which were only funny if you actually attended the school, and even then it seemed to help if you knew half the people in the medical department. They were surprisingly well edited, though.
    As for the actual talent pieces, the school has a lot of good musicians but almost no one who can sing worth a damn. Alma was far and away the best performer in the latter category, getting multiple rounds of applause during the performance itself and receiving various compliments from people after the show. For those who weren't there, you can check out this MP3 (2.7 MB). The quality isn't the greatest because it's taken from my video camera's audio feed, but you'll get the idea. She was great.
    The other people, maybe not so much. One guy did Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" - the guitar was almost note-perfect, but he probably should have been singing in a lower register or something, because he kept losing the key. An a cappella group performed in which most of the girls were pretty good and most of the guys were mediocre. One girl sang as part of the opening montage - I don't know if they intentionally asked someone tone deaf to do it, but she was never anywhere near the right key.
    That said, the show as a whole was pretty enjoyable. One guy played "Maple Leaf Rag" on the piano, another played some Iranian classical music (he was really good, probably second to Alma for overall enjoyment), and the opening act was a comedian who was actually funny (a difficult task for amateurs most of the time). Certainly it was a relief that it wasn't just "90 minutes of boredom until my girlfriend gets on stage".

March 13, 2005

Selection Sunday, one of my top ten favorite days of the year (with all due respect to it, the first two days, if not the whole first weekend, of the tournament are probably better, and I do have something of a soft spot for my birthday and anniversary). Not only do the NCAA tournament brackets get announced, but I get a guaranteed update topic!

Things the Committee Did Wrong

I'm starting with this because they did do some things right, and it's only fair to end on a higher note, since the tournament rules whether the committee messed stuff up or not. That said, there were some obvious problems.

1. Conflicting use of conference tournament results to seed teams. It's possible that the seed lines as they stand aren't telling the whole story, because teams do sometimes have to be moved around due to location and conference considerations (you're not allowed to play a team from your conference until at least the Elite Eight as long as there are eight or fewer teams from said conference [no conference has ever gotten more in and it's very unlikely they would, though when the Big East expands to 16 next year all bets are off]). That said, explain to me how all of the following results can occur:

a) Georgia Tech, a bubble team by all accounts just a week ago, gets a five seed in the West after its run to the ACC tournament finals.

b) Duke wins the ACC tournament and bumps up to a #1 seed.

c) Washington wins the Pac Ten tournament and bumps up to a #1 seed (easily the shock of the day), while Arizona's loss drops them to a #3.

d) Louisville, despite having just four losses all year, being ranked #6 in the country in both polls, and winning both the Conference USA regular season (by two games) and tournament titles, gets only a #4 seed.

e) UAB gets in over DePaul, most likely on the strength of beating the Demons in the C-USA quarters.

f) Northern Iowa, despite losing in the quarters of its conference tournament, gets into the field.

I don't necessarily disagree with all of these, but the fact is they're more than a little contradictory. The committee says that conference tournament games should matter the same as any other game, and then I guess they get a little bump because "how you're playing lately" is always a big factor when separating bubble teams from non-bubble teams. Okay, Georgia Tech is returning almost everyone from last year's national runner-up and they didn't have B.J. Elder's 13 points for ten games, so their 19-11 record is maybe a little misleading. But a five seed? Maryland did the same thing last year, turning a run from the #6 ACC tournament seed to the title into a four seed in the tournament. So, Maryland, how'd that turn out? Oh, right - you nearly lost to UTEP in the first round and then got bounced by Syracuse. I'd fear GT more than that Maryland team, but let's face it - being hot in your conference tournament isn't the whole story. Just ask Louisville, who is suffering the brunt of the perception that C-USA wasn't as good this year as in years past. Okay, UL's OOC schedule wasn't the toughest, but they did beat Stanford on a neutral court and Florida in Gainesville, not to mention giving Kentucky all they could handle. They romped through C-USA, going 14-2, sweeping Cincinnati and beating UAB, Charlotte, and DePaul. They've also lost just once since January 5th. Yeah, a four seed isn't bad, but you're telling me they couldn't have made a 3? At least the second round opponent would have been a little easier, in theory.

2. Washington gets a #1 seed. I like Washington a lot, but this has "fiasco" written all over it. Besides that, though, it's hard to see how their overall profile justifies this. Yeah, okay, they beat Utah, Oklahoma, and Alabama in consecutive games - but that was in Anchorage in November, for crying out loud. Gonzaga outscored them and pushed them around (+10 rebounding for the Zags), and they didn't even tie for first in their conference during the regular season. Meanwhile, Wake Forest was in line for this seed all year and yet lost out. And why? Presumably the Chris Paul-less loss to NC State in the ACC tournament. Wake's profile was no less impressive than Washington's, with wins over Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico, and their only OOC loss coming to Illinois. They also went 13-3 in - despite what the RPI says - a stronger conference, including beating UNC in their only meeting with the Heels. Shrug. This could have been worse, but it was certainly surprising.

3. Certain conferences get the shaft. We've already discussed C-USA, though really it did okay in terms of getting teams in. The Mid-American got hosed, though, as it usually does because its teams beat up on each other. Buffalo, at 22-9, probably deserved an at-large bid over UAB. On the other hand, the committee only seeded Ohio, which beat Buffalo in the MAC final, at #13, so they clearly didn't think much of the conference.

Things the Committee Did Right

I guess I had a rather small complaint list this year, all things considered. So what did the committee do that I agreed with?

1. Notre Dame: on the outside looking in. This was the cause célèbre for Vitale and Phelps when I switched over to ESPN, but I just don't see it. Last year's Notre Dame team probably had a better case than this one - 17-11 overall record, a terrible nonconference schedule whose only even slightly big win was against Indiana, and a 9-7 conference record that proved only that ND can't win away from home. Sure, they beat UConn, Villanova, and BC - they also did all three in South Bend. They were thoroughly mediocre on the road in conference and bowed out to Rutgers - the worst team in the conference and one they had beaten a week earlier in South Bend - in the opening round of the Big East tournament. In other words, they were a bad road/neutral team and had an OOC schedule that apparently ranked in the bottom 60 in the country. That's not a team I'd let into my tournament.

2. UAB over DePaul. It's disappointing that the local team didn't get in, but DePaul lost to UAB twice this year. Neither team had much else remarkable in their schedule - DePaul beat Cincy once, while UAB really had no notable scalps other than the Demons' - but when two teams are that close and one beats the other twice, that's gonna be your difference. Had DePaul won the C-USA quarterfinal, I've no doubt the roles would have been reversed today.

3. Out-diana. The Hoosiers had 13 losses and just 15 wins, for crying out loud. I don't care how tough the OOC schedule was. (They also lost to Missouri and Notre Dame, both non-tourney teams and one not even on the bubble, and played a variety of supposed pushovers way too close). As for the 10-6 conference record, big whoop - only three of the ten came against tournament teams and all three were at home. (For that matter, Michigan and Purdue were the only two places Indiana won on the road all year.)

4. Pretty much no subregional where a lower seed has an edge. There are a couple of borderline counterexamples - Syracuse vs. Vermont in Worcester, a potential second round tilt between Utah and Oklahoma in Tucson, Boise tossups between Washington/Montana and Arizona/Utah State - but by and large either the top seed has the biggest advantage or no one really has one. Certainly there's no horrible mistake like last year when Wisconsin, placed in Milwaukee as a 6 seed, had a second-round all-but-home-game against #3 Pitt, though Pitt won anyway. And there's certainly nothing like the women's tournament, which every year provides several inexplicable road trips for top seeds (idiocies were way down this year due to improved unbundling, but we still got this gem: #2 Ohio State gets shipped to College Park, a home regional for #7 Maryland).

All in all, it should be a good year. I know I say this every year, but it will probably be one of the hardest to pick in recent memory, though I get the sinking feeling that first round upsets will be light again.

March 9, 2005

"Holy shit, a minute thirty-seven on the message. That's way too long."
-- Nemo, as the last thing he said during his message from Tuesday night

Really, this is all the people we're going to get? No movement on the 2005 BigFlax.com NCAA Tournament Challenge recently, which I believe leaves us with the following confirmed entrants: Myself, my dad, Rudnik, Nemo, Tyler, Drew, NJ Dave, Justin, Craig, and Ryan. That's only ten, which is the smallest field yet - there are a couple of peripheral entrants who might join, including Chris, NU Dave, and Alma, but it's still not a big field. I suppose we'll live, though.

March 6, 2005

Not an entirely uneventful day, which is somewhat atypical for a Sunday. First of all, it was gorgeous. It got over 60 today, and I went out without a jacket of any kind. The walk to and from Leah's apartment was beautiful, though it's not exactly a very long walk. I was there to retrieve Alma's umbrella which was left behind after the Oscar party, but we also caught up a little bit before she had to go. Then I came back and watched the end of Duke/UNC. The neat thing about this rivalry is that I don't really like either team, so I don't especially care who wins. Thus I can just watch and appreciate whatever drama happens to occur. And there was certainly some today, as Duke went up 73-64 and then proceeded not to score in the last 3:07 of the game while UNC stormed back. The key play was a missed free throw by Raymond Felton with 20 seconds left and UNC down one; Marvin Williams got to the rebound and then was fouled while making a short jumper. Duke had something like 17 seconds down two and got a couple shots off, but neither fell. Also, Kentucky lost, which is always good.
Then I talked to Rudnik. The motivating factor behind the conversation was that I was looking for advice on making a clip tape to send to radio stations, but the fact is that Rudnik is one of my all-time favorite people and I hadn't talked to him in ages. He had some sound advice and also recommended I call Nemo (another one of my favorite people and someone I had also thought about contacting), so that's the next order of business.

March 5, 2005

Championship Week is officially underway. Okay, it's not officially amazing until we get to the field of 65 (blah). But I do love my small-conference tournaments. The first four ended today - Winthrop won the Big South, Central Florida the Atlantic Sun, UT-Chattanooga the Southern, and Eastern Kentucky the Ohio Valley. The last one was the only one where I cared all that much, as EKU hadn't been to the Dance since 1979. The next finals are on Monday; I'll probably be TiVoing them just in case they're any good.
Meanwhile, remember that there's still plenty of time to sign up for the BigFlax.com NCAA Tournament Challenge. Come on, people, don't make this the lamest prize money to date.

In other news, the final 20 of the complete Beatles song ranking is finally ready for perusal - see it here. If you need to catch up, try starting at the beginning.

March 4, 2005

The BigFlax.com 2005 NCAA Tournament Challenge is still open and looking for participants. It will be a paid tournament this year, so don't enter if you can't find a way to get me five bucks, but I don't see why not. The field so far (remind me if I'm forgetting you): Me, Dad, Drew, Rudnik, Nemo, Craig, Tyler, Ryan. That's eight? NJ Dave may want to get in on the action as well if he reads this. Remember, the deadline is Selection Sunday, so you've still got over a week, but no reason to wait around.

    Alma and I went to an Indian restaurant in Gurnee tonight because the Epicurean Club at her school was doing an event (the event being, show up and pay slightly less than usual). We decided to go because Indian is probably the easiest cuisine in which to get vegetarian dishes, and it's a Friday in Lent so Alma wasn't eating meat. We get there and I think three people are there; they happen to be people we know from Alma's class. So we're thinking that maybe a few more people are going to show up. The girl (woman? I guess woman, though it's really hard for me to refer to anyone that way who isn't at least ten years older than I am) running the event shows up and tells the manager that she thinks more than the 15 people she predicted might turn up. He says fine.
    Within the next 30 minutes, about forty more people showed up. It was like watching people get out of a clown car. The grand total that passed through the door was probably around four dozen; a couple of times, a group showed up, realized that it was just crammed, and left. There were no more seats (I have been in very few Indian restaurants that looked like they could hold more than forty people, and this was no exception); trays of basmati rice were vacuumed up far faster than they could be replenished; the restaurant's supply of silverware and glassware was used up, so that latecomers found themselves using plastic forks and styrofoam cups (I had a real fork and real water glass, though), and plates were almost gone by the time we left. I would venture to say that by our departure, around 7:30, there were still people in the place who had yet to eat, really, anything at all. Alma's classmate Kyle made a joke that this was probably more people than the restaurant had seen in the past week - that's likely a bit of an exaggeration, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was at least a couple days' worth of dinners, and that's all descending on the place at once. We were lucky we got there early enough to be able to eat without having to wait forever.
    I talked briefly to Priya, the girl running the event, and she said that the last event they had, two people showed up, even though the e-mail for that event had also gone out to the whole school. So she hadn't bothered worrying about RSVPs for this one. I guess the lesson here is that graduate students really love Indian buffets.

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This page last updated: Monday, March 28, 2005 05:49:37 AM