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Wow! What a Tournament!

Monday, March 22, 2010

This has been a crazy NCAA Tournament. The number one overall seed, Kansas, went down in the second round to Norther Iowa (who?). Mighty Georgetown falls to Ohio University (not Ohio State - Ohio University is located in little Athens, Ohio - the closest town with a Wal-Mart to where my in-laws live in Ohio). An Ivy League team - Cornell - makes it to the Sweet 16.

I have not been able to watch very much of any game, so far. I was able to listen to the last half of Northern Iowa's shocker over Kansas, however - what a game.

I think my bracket is the worst bracket of my life of picking brackets. I would say it was obvious that I have not seen much college basketball this year, but with the unusual nature of some of these games, I am not sure watching the games would have helped much.

After the first two rounds of The Thinking Man's Tourney Time, we have a new leader and a new person on the bottom - sorry, Andy.

Taking over the lead of The Thinking Man's Tourney is Sarah Nething. Way to go, Sarah. Sarah has Kansas as the winner and has lost another Final Four team, so this is not over yet and Ron Bean (last year's champion) is right behind her. Sarah nailed every one of the 7-10 games in the first round, which is pretty impressive - especially since 3 of them were won by the lower seed. She also nailed Cornell's first round upset of Temple. I figure at least someone else involved knows you, but if you would give us a brief intro in the comments, it would be great to meet you.

Ron Bean is in second place. His most impressive bracket was the West - where he nailed 10 of the 12 games played there over the last four days. He also picked the Cornell upset of Temple.

So, after the first two rounds, here is the standings.

1. Sarah Nething - 170 points, 32 correct
2. Ron Bean - 155 points, 32 correct
3. Jon Knisely - 151 points, 31 correct
4. Don Johnson - 147 points, 30 correct
5. Andy Rupert - 145 points, 30 correct
6. Matt Jury - 137 points, 30 correct
7. Frank Sansone - 121 points, 27 correct
8. Andy Efting - 115 points, 24 correct

I will note that Sarah & Jon (Kansas), Don (Clemson) and myself (Maryland) have all already lost our predicted champions. Randy, Matt, and Andy E. all have Kentucky - who seems to be doing well and Andy Rupert has Ohio State, so there is a chance that someone will still have picked the eventual champion.

Anyway, just an update.

Frank

8 comments:

Andy Efting said...

This tournament has been brutal! I'm now rooting for Cornell -- they look pretty good.

Strategy for next year: make my picks and then submit the opposite of each pick. I'm sure I would do better that way.

Frank Sansone said...

Andy,

Thanks to that comment, Cornell might as well pack their bags :)

Frank

Don Johnson said...

I have to confess that I mostly picked top seeds then fiddled with a few upsets. My Clemson pick was a bit of a lark. "What larks, eh, Pip?"

I like the new look, are you sticking with this one?

Maranatha!
Don Johnson
Jer 33.3

Frank Sansone said...

Don,

Sounds like a legitimate strategy to me. (And even if I didn't think so, how could I criticize it since you are beating me pretty handily.)

I am glad you like the new look and thanks for the feedback. I have been wanting to update from the old look, but it took me a little bit to find something with a look I liked that still allowed me to have four columns. I liked the look of one of them I tried the other day a little bit better, but I could not get the layout to do what I wanted.

Anyway, I think I'll keep this one. I do want to make a couple of "tweaks" still, but nothing major.

Frank

sarah said...

Wow, after Kansas's loss I'm shocked I'm in first place! The funny thing is that I've only seen one college bball game this year-a KU game over Christmas. I've been a Jayhawks fan since before I was born-my parents are both alumni. As for an intro, I'm a 2005 BJU grad teaching music and coaching at a Christian school in Puerto Rico.

Frank Sansone said...

Sarah,

I think I read/heard somewhere that over half (I believe it was 52%) of all brackets submitted had Kansas as the National Champion, so you are in good company!

Thanks for introducing yourself. I was in Bryan society when I was at BJU and we had a number of folks in our society from PR at the time - Ken Casillas, Paul & Jamie Stiendurf (sp?), Danny Cortez, Don & Jon Henderson, the Backers, etc.

If I connected the dots correctly by looking at the blogs you follow, I think your dad (?) may teach at the same Christian school as my friend Andy Henry. (I was in his wedding many years ago.)

Nice to meet you. Keep up the good work.

Frank

sarah said...

Too bad those 52% were wrong. Oh well, now to look forward to next year.

I've met 2 of those you've mentioned and heard of a couple of others. You're right-my dad does teach with Andy Henry-Dad teaches science and Mr Henry teaches history. small world.....

Andy Efting said...

This is an interesting story:

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/8632/autistic-teen-picks-perfect-bracket

Perfect bracket so far -- he has Purdue winning it all...