NCAA March Madness-

I won't go into an in-depth analysis of the various teams and projected winners of each round. After studying the Brackets for all of ten minutes, and trying to recall the games I saw at least 2 minutes of during the season, and all my bias's and favoritisms, Here are the Mayor's Final Four and the results of the last game of the year...

FINAL FOUR

Georgetown vs Memphis
AND
Wisconsin vs UCLA

With the winners meeting in the Championship Game---

Georgetown vs Wisconsin and Georgetown Takes the prize !!

Before you bet your retirement on the Mayor's Picks, Let me say that I have done this sort of 'Pick the Winner' for 30 years and have only won the pool one time! My secretary would pick the winners by the jersey colors...and averaged better performance success than I did...or our B Ball Coaches who always calculated every factor over and over, then lost everything in the first or second round! Who do you see making it to the final round???

Tennessee

Sincerely I doubt it. I think the Mayor may have something with Georgetown.

The Vols are there for the big dance but I doubt it they make it past the first round. They are a five seed.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

Tennessee plays Long Beach State in the first round. My sister is a L B ST. Grad and I think Ed Sailes is near the SoCal school. I will inquire about the record and performance of the 49'ers to see how they may stand up to the Orange Volunteers.

Wisconsin?

Call it the Brat and Cheese Curd influence, Michael. One of the reasons I enjoy this tourniment as much as I do are the 'off-the-wall' upsets that take some of the top teams by surprise. I will not forget picking Bobby Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers to go all the way... some time in the late 80's, Anyway the Richmond "Spiders" beat them soundly in a major first round upset. I was crushed, but man what a game !!

I'll go with Florida vs. UCLA, and Carolina vs. OSU. Florida and OSU have relativey easier brackets than UCLA and Carolina. A Hansbrough-Oden matchup would be a good one.

we do our pool a bit differently. Take four people and split the teams up into four groups based on their rankings (1-4 seeds, 5-8 seeds, 9-12 seeds and 13-16 seeds.)

Decide who picks first, then draw a name from the hat in round robin fashion, starting with the 13-16 seeds, then moving on down the line until the group picks the final 1-4 seeds.

The one with the most teams in at the sweet 16 gets their initial money back, and of course whoever has the winner at the end wins the rest of the pot.

Kinda fun this way because you end up watching and rooting for teams you never would consider otherwise.

I participate in a normal pool as well. Florida will win again.

Our local NBC TV station has an on-line contest for 'making picks' in the traditional manner. I would have made a link to it here, but it is open to Kentucky and Indiana addresses only. Our family enters each year with most of my kids and the husbands/wives also getting into the pool. We can track the "Buddies" (the family members) so it is like having our own pool as far as the 'banter' of how bad some of us will do, etc. First prize is a nice Hi-Def TV. I think one of my boys finished close to the top ten a few years back. With 8 kids and all but one married we get a pretty good group to follow. One wife is a Kentucky grad. She takes a lot of grief from all my 'Louisville Fan' sons.

This year the University of Oregon Ducks will win the tourney. This will be a repeat of the 1939 tourney where Oregon was the first NCAA champion. Go Ducks!

quote:

Originally posted by mr chips

This year the University of Oregon Ducks will win the tourney. This will be a repeat of the 1939 tourney where Oregon was the first NCAA champion. Go Ducks!

I'd love to see a PAC 10 team win! Ain't gonna happen. Florida.

Congrats to the Ducks for winning the P-10 Tourney this year, BTW.

Final Four:
Florida vs. UCLA
Texas A&M vs. North Carolina

National champion:
North Carolina

In a crowded field, the cream will eventually rise.

1st round upsets:
VCU over Duke
Oral Roberts over Washington St.
Creighton over Nevada
and...
Winthrop over Notre Dame.

So any good food decisions for the games? Can't even wait.

MM is, imo, hands down the best sports event of the year. I set up a brackets manager over at sportsline. please feel free to sign up and make your picks. this is not an official roadfood event...i just used the word in the url so i would know where you found this:

http://roadfood.mayhem.sportsline.com/e

password is: ribs



my final four:

NC
Ohio State
UCLA
Florida

with Florida repeating by beating NC in the final game.

Cornfed,

You ask a good question about food for the Tourney watchers??? The first couple of rounds, that tend to run 'All Day' would be a demanding menu. Trying to have a food associated with your pick in each game, as the network jumps from game to game would be a real challenge, but doing one main dish that would last the full day would be a rather dull session after a couple of games (Think Chili??)

I am glad I bought a couple of cases of Shiner Boch Beer on the Texas trip a few weeks ago...It will make the endurance run of 10 hours of TV Basketball easier on the sitting muscles !!!

We will have a fruit bowl, Beer, Jerky, and some Shrimp Dip and Chips for the first day or two, then start to get serious about a theme menu for the final 8 and beyond!

Carolina will take it.

Hey V, Are you talking about USC????

I'd like to see Roy's Boys from UNC bring it back to blue heaven again. But Hansbrough seems to be having a lot of trouble adjusting to the Duke elbow inflicted broken nose mask. I'm afraid Oden is too much for the rest of the field to handle.

quote:

Originally posted by Al-The Mayor-Bowen


Hey V, Are you talking about USC????

NO...THE Carolina...oldest state supported university, has as a school color the sky's color on a clear day...you know the one.

Go WISCONSIN!!!!!!!

I am certainly no expert on this, but I do enjoy watching the NCAA Tournament. My final four picks:

Florida
UCLA
Texas
Texas A & M

I have UCLA winning it all.

I'm not watching the tourney after Syracuse got screwed. Arkansas? Stanford? puhlease.
I'm not even doing a pool. Walters is a complete moron. When even Gotleib is surprised that the Orange didn't get in, you KNOW something's a foul.

...well, maybe I'll still watch. As long as G'town or Duke doesn't win I'll be happy.
I really want VCU to beat Duke, too. Duke had a terible season in JAn and Feb, they beat NO top teams, and yet were ranked. What a scam. A six seed? for 8-8?

I like Memphis, G'town, Kansas and Florida in the Final Four. The sleepr teams to ruin that (one in each region) could be Maryland in the Mid-West, Southern Ill in the West, the winner of the Vanderbilt/GW game - and possibly even Boston College (the East is tough tough tough to win 4 games to get to final four) and Long Beach in the South - though not to beat Memphis, but rather make Mephis' ride a little easier when they knock off Ohio State.

so, ok, I still give a crap about the NCAA tourney, but Syracuse not being in with Arkansas in the mix? is a travesty.

Scorereader-
As a Big East guy, I agree with you that Syracuse got hammered. I think both them and Drexel should have been included.

Drexel, unfortunately, as a CAA team, needed one more win in the CAA tourney. Losing to George Mason really hurt them (and I'm a GMU grad) even with those early wins against SU, Nova and Creighton.

IMO either SU or Drexel or Both should've gotten in. Here's why

If Syracuse's December loses kept them out, then Drexel's December wins shouldn've gotten them in.
If Drexel's late loses kept them out, SU's late wins should've got them in.
Or, if both early and late wins are considered, they both should get in.
But to discredit early wins and credit early loses, and discredit late loses while not crediting late wins (like Walters and committee did) is a simply biased to the ACC, Big Ten, Pac-Ten and SEC conferences which were represented on the committee. 6 Big Ten teams? are you serious.
I'm a Penn Stater, and Big Ten fan (I only root for SU because I grew up there) and I don't think Big Ten should've gotten more than 4 in, and I only had picked three of them. Illinois? Purdue? what a joke!

Scorereader-
Obviously, you have put a lot of thought into this. Maybe you should be on the committee!

There is no doubt that the Big 10 was down this year. Which is one of the reasons why I am not convinced about Ohio State.

Folks, I'm amazed...there are other conferences where they REALLY play basketball besides the ACC? Amazing, simply amazing.

quote:

Originally posted by buffetbuster

Scorereader-
Obviously, you have put a lot of thought into this. Maybe you should be on the committee!

There is no doubt that the Big 10 was down this year. Which is one of the reasons why I am not convinced about Ohio State.

that's what my buddy said the other day when I went on my soapbox. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get an A.D. job anywhere.

Long Beach could be the dark horse in OSU's region. And even Tennessee could pose problems if Tenn manages to get by Long Beach State. I look to that game and to the Vandy/GW game a the place where the bracket busters will come from. I think Washington State fans have a good chance of being really disappointed after their second game when they get knocked out of the tourney and don't make the sweet 16 as a 3 seed.
I think G'town is playing GREAT basketball (and I hate G'town). I'm picking them to make it to the final four. But that BC game will be huge! G'twon should hope that Texas Tech can get the upset, otherwise and old Big East rivalry will be resurrected. and as much as I hate G'twon, I hate BC even more -those traitors!

I feel bad for UNC, because the East is a beast, and they had a great season. They deserve an easier ride. But, such is the tourney. You can't complain about your ride - and you can't complain about a #1 seed.

But I do complain that SU isn't there.

quote:

Originally posted by V960

Folks, I'm amazed...there are other conferences where they REALLY play basketball besides the ACC? Amazing, simply amazing.

you may, then, be surprised when not one ACC team makes it to the Final Four.

quote:

Originally posted by Sundancer7

Tennessee

Sincerely I doubt it. I think the Mayor may have something with Georgetown.

The Vols are there for the big dance but I doubt it they make it past the first round. They are a five seed.

Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

A five seed should beat a twelve seed in the first round. But, Tennessee got a tough draw with the underrated Long Beach State. Should be a good match-up.
If Tennessee can get past them, don't be surprised when they upset Virginia.

quote:

Originally posted by Scorereader

Originally posted by V960

Folks, I'm amazed...there are other conferences where they REALLY play basketball besides the ACC? Amazing, simply amazing.

you may, then, be surprised when not one ACC team makes it to the Final Four.

Around here we think (corectly or incorrectly) that the ACC Finals are THE TRUE FINALS. They beat each other up so much they really don't have much left for the NCAA.

quote:

Originally posted by V960

quote:

Originally posted by Scorereader

Originally posted by V960

Folks, I'm amazed...there are other conferences where they REALLY play basketball besides the ACC? Amazing, simply amazing.

you may, then, be surprised when not one ACC team makes it to the Final Four.

Around here we think (corectly or incorrectly) that the ACC Finals are THE TRUE FINALS. They beat each other up so much they really don't have much left for the NCAA.

I lived in Greensboro. I know all about the ACC. And this year, it's highly overrated. I generally pull for Wake Forest or Carolina in the ACC tourney, but I don't have any thoughts about the ACC this year, except Carolina. They do have a habit of going to the final four when they win the ACC tourney.

BTW - my Thomasville boys won another State Championship in Basketball. 5th one for the basketball, and second time both the football team and basketball team won in the same year. (the teams share a few players)

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Hoffman

Wisconsin?

Wisconsin's success is a product of a very weak Big Ten conference. They have not won a significant game in 2 months. They definately started strong with wins over Pitt and Marquette - but the weak Big Ten schedule will rear its ugly head starting with their 2nd game. If they make it to elite 8 like a #2 seed is supposed to, then I eat crow, but I don't see them winning 3 games when those games will likely include UNLV and Oregon/ND/or even possibly a very hot Winthrop (which they have a better chance against). If they make it that far, they will to face Florida. If Winthrop wins and Maryland upsets Florida, then Wisconsin has a chance, otherwise, I don't give them hope. In fact, I think UNLV will take them out.
If you look at Wisconsins last 10 games, they started those last ten beating a piss poor Penn State and Minnesota teams, then in their last six games, a loss to Michigan State, and uninpressive win over Mich State and Mich, two losses vs. OSU and a third game against Mich State where they finally took care of business. So, in their final games, they only looked inpressive once. A Far cry from the U-W of december