Not Overrated: NCAA Tournament
And it begins…
The SuperBowl is great… opening day is awesome… but nothing is like the NCAA Tournament and especially the first four days and two rounds. Despite CBS’s overt efforts to destroy the tournament with Billy Packer, Greg Gumbel and terrible switches between games, this remains the best days in sports overall. Luckily Directv has saved us with their package but CBS continues to mess things up with their cutaway from the local game and blacking out the local on directv and CBS elimination of the midnight game for those who can’t get enough was a bad idea for hoops junkies. That’s my CBS rant for now … until they cutaway from Syracuse tomorrow, hopefully because they are up by 30 at halftime.
I would list my bracket picks here but I’ve done too many and done them differently to look at all the variations. I can assure you, with the obvious exception of Syracuse, I will take a little less chalk then our newly-embattled president, Barry. Instead, I’ll focus on a couple of more interesting selections/pools. As many of you know (and the reason you are on the site to begin with) you can check out this year’s version of the 23rd annual Countdown tournament on NCAA tab in the header. For those past participants, I will eventually list all historical years on there at some point. This pool is a draft of 20 players by 12 teams and score points based on the number of points the players score in the games in the tournament.
The other pool and my first time as a participant is the “Survivor Pool”. How does it work? Pick one team each round that will definitely advance. Sounds easy, except you can use the team again… so don’t get stuck with teams in the Final Four that you’ve used already or you are eliminated. Pretty cool. Like I need more opportunities to be interested in games.
Loading ...
Nice, Def the best time of the year, Yankees Playoffs are close for me too though but the Yanks are not the same team anymore, especially with Gay Arod and his Mirror Pictures.
Like Cuse to make a serious Run, have them in the Finals, too bad couldnt get anyone, I wanted Flynn was one or two picks away………………..
Best time of the year for Sports is September opening day for the NFL.
i
That Ranks up there……………….
Intereresting thing I found…..
Binghamton’s Guard DJ Rivera is Hank Gathers’ Nephew, LETS GO BINGGGGGGGGG
Robin is soooo very happy to have us here. Can’t you tell with her Facebook posting?
ROBIN: I’m so sure you wish you could be here to share in this weekend!! What is this – like 23 years of these guys doing this?! And I think the last 10 years have been at my home! What’s wrong with grown men screaming at 9 TV’s, eating crap, drinking like they think they are in college, playing poker, and a bonus of a men’s locker room smell in my basement when the whole weekend is over! LOL! That reminds me I have to go make sure the bathroom is in top functioning condition for those clowns – I mean those great guys. Actually, I do like college hoops but since having kids I don’t get a chance to enjoy the madness!
Everything is updated. See the NCAA – 2009 Tab or http://glengarvin.com/?page_id=24
Wow great games last night with Siena taking the cake with two huge threes! Too bad Evan wasnt there to see it. Thats a bad job Mikey a bad job!
By the way not only is my team looking strong I abused Marvin all night in bets and knocked him out in poker. Then I combined that with a lesson for young Geno and Steve in poker taking home the $200 pot. Ahh life is sweet!
Your lucky I wasnt there, i Know all your tells, espically when you start playing with your wedding band .
UCLA Wins were looking nice.
A few tournament comments:
1) Just when you think CBS “gets it” they miss a potential game winning basket forcing overtime and cut the game in the middle of the airborne shot.
2) How do you let yourself get beat by Cleveland State twice. First, Syracuse’s shocking December loss to them and then Wake getting slobberknocked
3) Evan can’t hang
4) Predicted order of finish: 1) Kenny D 2) Brian Davies 3) Phil DeAngelo.
Survivor Pool Update: About half the entries are gone. Here’s my selections:
First Day: Memphis & VIllanova
Second Day: Missouri & Xavier
Today: Duke
Tomorrow (hopefully): Kansas
Glen,
Here is what I am thinking for suicide. Let me know your thoughts about the split.
Uconn – Sweet 16 – Thur
Mich St – Sweet 16 – Fri
Memphis – Elite 8 – Sat
NC – Elite 8 – Sun
Louisville – Final 4
Pitt – Champ
For the first time ever all 12 teams seeded 1,2,3 all made the Sweet Sixteen.
For the Countdown Player Pool, Brian Davies crushed the record for 2nd round scoring and took over first place. He’ll have a shot, along with 2x defending champ Steve & Derek, and Ken DeAngelo.
For the survivor pool, as long as you didn’t pick an underdog like Cleveland State (duh), you moved on… next round gets tougher.
I’ll split it with you, if you want… works for me, but I think I’m in trouble after mapping this out…
Pittsburgh – Thursday
Syracuse – Friday
UConn – Saturday (looks like we would clash here)
Lousville – Sunday
North Carolina – Final Four
OUT – National Champ.
Steve and Derek? haaa ……..
Our team ride or dies with Uconn, also need Carolina to get to the Finals, Not too many upsets this tournament alot of chalk , 3 5 seeds went down but None were really upsets……I guess Cleveland State was the biggest upset at 13 and Dayton at 11 but no Cinderella’s in the Sweet 16…………Gonna be alot of great games though……………..
Who’s gonna take it down??
Cant you work it out so you have a pick for the title game? With this many people left I think you have to win the whole thing. I dont mind clashing on Saturday bc that guarantees us to be alive. I think you have to take Michigan State on friday maybe and Syracuse on Sunday which would save Louisville?
Your thoughts?
College basketball is stupid. Glen, I put a stop payment on my check…
Uconn with Recruiting Violations…………Not good.
Potential Violations……………Don’t Matter tho , Nothing to do with the players!!!!!! LET”S GO UCONN!!!!
Uconn has always been a bunch of cheaters. Let’s take away some of Calhoun’s victories, so Boeheim can catch him easily!
On another note, could you imagine the conversation between Blake Griffin and Eric Devendorf? There may not be to more different people on the planet.
Hey Fellas, Your Man gary Has dropped a breakdown just in time check it out at
http://garyplonderson.wordpress.com/
Let me know your thoughts
Get ready Fellas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcglOItcKoM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlJfQqvVg24&feature=related
I will be on the Plane tomm, but I got Jetblue So I can watch!
That was some impressive research Gary…I forgot about the entry I had with Werner back in the day. I think I grabbed whoever had $200 bucks back in high school to enter with me…haha.
Good luck everyone…
Syracuse out of the tournament.
I’m out of the survivor pool.
Stats updated.
Congrats to Steve and Dennis again! this is getting ridiculous!
This might be the worst team that I have ever had in any fantasy league. We started off with the first 5 points of the tournament from some dude named Bo Spencer from LSU and quickly went dowhill from there. i think I made one good pick with Johnson from Purdue and the rest sucked. I even was going to pick Blake Griffin when all of the sudden Dejaun Blair popped out of my mouth. Glen, did you with all your fancy analysis know that Paul Harris was going to suck that bad? He averaged 12.3 pts game during the regular season but only 5 during the tournament! He even had around 26 during that 50 OT game in the big east and should have had 20 more with all the layups that he missed. I probably should have known that he sucked so bad then. Maybe, one day I will see him in person so I can run up to him and kick him in the stones because he and the other jerks that I picked might cause us to buy the dreaded keg for next year. Oh well, anyway good luck to everyone that has a shot to win this thing. Also, a shout out to Gary Plonderson- I won the league in 1989 when Glen Rice with a still record 184 pts led me and my partner Dan Sawyer to the title but for some reason it has been sticken from the records and the commish does not that acknowledge that it happened. We even picked Jerome Lane in the first round and got cat calls from the audience because we didnt get points for rebounds. Adios suckers
Also, the stadings dont reflect that Ken Sullivan has a partner who also has drafted with us the last two years. He was the tall red haired guy that sat next to Ken and his name is PJ but his friends call him cakes. Lets acknowledge that he is part of the league and I do think that team Sully/PJ was third last year so they had a much better showing than this year’s squad. You can just refer to them as team sullycakes going forward and hopefully they will be buying the keg and not Dusty and I. Welcome PJ!
ray, it is WE. the worst team WE ever had…. we is a team. a life team, if you will. you are my sunshine, the reason i get up in the morning. looking forward to that keg sully will be buying next year. if sully is still living at your parents next year maybe we can do the draft there.
i love you dustycakes
Dusty, I don’t live with my in-law’s. I live with an older, married couple. It sounds cooler.
PJ’s nickname is Big Red and I predict we avoid buying the keg by a single three-pointer.
Whitey & Derek-
Three in a row is extremely impressive.
Congratulations and go f yourselves.
Its not over yet. I just need the MSU Nova final and then my two studs from Michigan State to score 20 points a game!
Don’t Crown us yet, Still need some points and either Uconn or Unc to advance, do like our chances tho………….
Wheres the update?
Looks Like Ellington Is High Scorer by a point or two I think
Me and Devin
Ken
Davies
Congrats to Steve and Dennis on a truly amazing three championships in a row. Dusty and I were never in it after taking a 5-0 lead to start the tourney off. At least we do not have to buy the keg next year which we looked to be odds on favorites for at one point. We are going to try a new strategy next year. No more fancy spreadsheets or sagarin ratings mumbo jumbo. Nope, we are simply going to do three things 1) buy the USA Today NCAA tourney section and show up for draft 2) try and position ourself as close to Steve and Dennis for draft position and simply draft a player from the same team that they drafted with their last draft pick with. 3) Stay the hell away from any team of which team Sullycakes picks a player from. They got lucky that Ellington was high scorer so they played for free but man, do those guys stink or what? I am already looking forward to the cold natty ice keg next year. I think that this strategy will at least get us second place. Good times again and thanks go out to Ken and Robin Deangelo for having us stink up their basement again, Evan for letting us have the draft at his house and of course for the commish, for running the tourney for the 20th or something year although were the heck was the update before the final game? He must have been busy eating a nice blueberry scone while reading Cal Ripken’s autobiography. Happy Easter to everyone
Wow 3 years in a row!!!!
I Would like to thank Glen who started this tourny and hosts it every year, he has made this all possible. Thank Ken for hosting the best Thursday-Sunday of the year every year and Ev for Hosting the War Room at his house. Also want to thank my Partner for Keeping me balanced and coming through with some good picks and to the rest of league for Giving us some props. Also want to Thank God, because when you win 3 in a row he def has blessed us! (Looks to the Sky)
Looking forward to next year, The Tournament is truly the best time of the year, we will see if we can do this New York Yankee, Boston Celtic Style and go for 4 in a row. Until Then Be Prepared for Me and Den rocking 3-Peat T-Shirts Next year!!!!! If anyone is interested in purchasing one from us please let us know……haaa
Good to see everybody and Can’t wait for Next year –
-Steve
Hey ya know what else is Overrated? You starting this website and having the kickoff be awesome and then not updating it since March Madness!
Worst pick of the 2010 draft? Marvin’s selection of Luke Harangody…
I can’t sleep crazy night!!!! I missed the Nightcap and I can’t believe how many good games were on today. I think this tournament might be setting up to be one of the best.
What happened to G’town must of been mental, no reason for them to lose. This opens it up for Ohio State and possibly Oklahoma State.
I will see you guys at 12 tomm I need a nice whole day of College Ball, My team has some serious work to do. I’m bringing some energy tomm!!!!!!!!!!!!
Season low for Anthony Johnson for Montana – 6 points. Had 42 last game
Season low for Luke Harangody including the game he got hurt in – 4 points
But it’s okay because Jamar Samuel from K State pitced in a career low 2 points.
Awesome.
Let’s do this again today.