Yeah, I knew.  I'm already pretty much out of it for the 100K, unless I run the table from here.

I didn't know that until after I signed up....I only signed up because a co-worker goaded me into it.  But I am going to be all over that next year if they do it again.   

It's a shame our culture has come to such a  level of sensitivity   

I truly hope that trend reverses, because it's pretty freaking ridiculous IYAM

Did you know that it pays the top 20 $100,000 each? 

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/19/the-billion-dollar-bracket-challenge-is-really-a-hundred-thousand-dollar-lottery/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0


Forget the billion, which for all practical purposes is impossible to get, that's not a bad consolation prize at all!

There currently are only 3 perfect entries out of about 8.7 million  entries.  Technically I am tied for 4908th, having picked 21 of 24 correctly.  Unfortunately there are about 400,000 other people tied for 4908th, lol.

But with 20 prizes I have a random chance of about 1 in 20,000 to win 100K.  That's not bad at all for something like this.

Of course, a long way to go...by the end of next weekend I will likely be out of it.

But this is a much, much better contest than ESPN!  The prize there for the top person only, is a 10K gift card from Best Buy.  Not too shabby, but I like trying win one of 20 $100K prizes a lot better. 

How am I supposed to continue hating Duke when you do shizzle like this?

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2014/03/mike-krzyzewski-mercer-locker-room-congratulate-duke/

Oh I don't know....he seems so egotistical when I hear him talk.

Here is how I interpret that..."you guys must be a hell of a basketball team because you beat me and I'm obviously a fizzleing genius"   

But wait...imagine that it's in a sing-song nasally twang that manages to sound at once both bored and pretentious, as if it's owner was tired of explaining things to "the little people".  Such a burden, being a genius!

Then it would sound like this "you guys.  must.be  a he.ell of.a bask.  et.  ball. team  be.cause you.beat.me and I'm ob.vious.ly a fizzle.ing gen.i.us"   

Final Four baby!   

you do realize 16 is a Par 3???

Okay, put him on the green then.   

yeah they are in Macon, AKA BUBBAVILLE North

I suspect you haven't followed them either, but any insight into how they play?

["It's amazing the way that, you know, defense has kind of been my thing, and it's amazing how it's going to end with a kid getting the game winner on me," Craft said.]

I was not aware or had forgotten that Aaron Craft is the guy that turned Bruce in.  It gives me great joy to link to this pic:

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/mar/21/march-madness-goodbye-aaron-craft-hello-harvard-texas

Of Aaron lying on the ground despondent.  I heard an interview of him on ESPN radio this morning on the way to work.

It turns out, he not only took a really stupid shot to lose the game, he also gave up the winning bucket on the play just before that.  I found the quote:

Referred to as the best on-ball defender in college basketball more times than anyone can venture to remember, Craft allowed Dayton reserve Vee Sanford to hit a tough runner in the lane in the final seconds. That play lifted the No. 11-seeded Flyers to the upset of No. 6 OSU in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday.

"It's amazing the way that, you know, defense has kind of been my thing, and it's amazing how it's going to end with a kid getting the game winner on me," Craft said.

Now, you can't tell tone from that, right? So I will tell you...his voice was quavering and he was on the verge of crying. 

This is the guy that ratted out Pearl because he was butt hurt when we beat OSU in the tourney.

Hey Aaron.....

KARMA BITCH!

And I say this in part because this painful loss to end his career coincides with Bruce getting another job.  Not at a place  any of us wanted to see him, but we all love him and it's good to see him get back into coaching, even if it is at Auburn.

And if nothing else, Cuonzo and/or future coaches no longer have the pressure of feeling like Bruce is waiting in the wings.  The school and we fans can move on also.

All that and we have this nice tournament run also. 

Somehow, it feels like that big dark cloud has finally lifted.   

That they were seeded 3rd over Louisville is a huge freaking joke...and evidence of bias by the committee chair - the AD of Wake Forest - IMO.

Pitino made some angry comments that he ended by saying "though, I am sure that the committee has integrity and honesty".  I believe he was being sarcastic without being really obvious that he was.  Just MO, lol.

The thing is, I can't stand Pitino.  One of the things he was also complaining about was that Manhattan should have been seeded higher.  The coach at Manhattan used to be his ballboy when he was with the Knicks.  The thought of Pitino losing to his former ballboy is one I really like...

The thing is, he almost DID lose.  Manhattan was up 3 with 4 minutes left.  The look on Pitino's face was priceless.   

Vern needs to be stationed at the 16th at Augusta and that is it.  His misses are now becoming noticeable in basketball.  Gary D. has to correct him all the time in football.

Yeah, in the fairway about 250-300 yards from the tee.   

Ohhh, that was ugly...

Mercer???

Thank goodness we won.   

He always seems to say good things about the team that likely has the majority of fans watching the game.  I guess he thinks that's a way to help ratings. OSU fans watching probably outnumbered the Dayton fans  8 to 1 or so.  In other words, he's a fizzleing hack, but we all already know that.   

I hate tOSU anyway.  Hated them growing up in Indiana, they were like bammer, quite obnoxious only not nearly as bad. 

But specifically to basketball...I'll never forget the BULLshizzle calls against us a few years ago.  We took a 17 point lead at the half, and their ENTIRE OFFENSE the second half consisted of their point guard (Conley) driving the lane and having ticky tack fouls called.   He shot 14 free throws in that game.   Their other starting guard shot 17 shots! They out-shot us at the free throw line 35 to 17, and made 23 to our 8.  It was RIDICULOUS.  So biased....I know whining about refs is a  "what comes around goes around" thing and I usually don't do it, but in this game we got screwed SO BADLY that yes, I am pissed about it. 

Think about it this way...we were ahead 17 at the half, and OSU made 17 more points off free throws than us.  The refs HANDED THEM that game.   

Of course, it was sweet that we got revenge two years later....but as I understand it, it was being butt hurt over that game that probably caused Craft to turn us in.   

A quote from govolsxtra.com: "Ironically Aaron Craft's college career ends just a couple days after Bruce Pearl's starts again."

Yeah, fizzle YOU Aaaron Craft!   

 

That would be me.  OSU was weak down the stretch, and Dayton is an instate rival, but it was more of a hunch actually.  It just felt like Dayton was going to win. 

Others are saying this also.  I think Pomeroy is suggesting luck has played a role, but he also mentions that we struggle at the end of close games, which could be a trademark.

Maybe we dodged that bullet last night? 

Below I jokingly called for us to go to the Final Four.  A joke yes, but one with a grain of truth, as this article shows.   Stranger things have happened.   

I have mostly refrained from commenting on the coaching, but...

It's easy to forget that two years ago the program was in shambles.  The two best players left, the rest of the team had little or no morale, and Cuonzo had to follow arguably the most popular basketball coach...and perhaps COACH, period, in UT history.  Everyone gave him a pass, but I think the season was still disappointing.  But should it have been?  I mean, looking back, I think it went about how it should have, given the circumstances.

The following season, having built the offense around Maymon (which I thought was a bad idea, but...), there was no Maymon.  Conventional wisdom says that past a certain point, the Maymon injury was not an excuse.  That is certainly true, but at the end of the day, being without Maymon DID matter, and Stokes was still developing. Could we have done better last year?  Certainly...but we did only miss the NCAA by the narrowest margin.

I guess I would say first season, who cares, the program was in shambles and Cuonzo had to pick up the pieces.  Unbelievably, some would point to Pearl's first year and say that he exceeded expectations so Martin should have also.  That is just BEYOND ridiculous.  Pearl exceeded expectations because he was an outstanding coach following a bad coach.  Should Cuonzo follow the best coach in Tennessee history after it's two best players quit and morale is destroyed and exceed expectations?  GMAFB!

So now to this season.  Were there unexpected losses?  Yes, but also a couple wins we didn't expect also (or maybe just one?).  Could his performance for most of the season be described as mediocre?  Absolutely.   But this run at the end is nice. 

For whatever reason, Cuonzo Martin has been for the last three years a guy that is mediocre and struggles at times for much of the season, then turns it on at the end.  If that part at the end often involves deep tourney runs, then who cares?  Of course, the danger is that because of part A, the unexpected lapses and mediocrity earlier in the season, we might not MAKE the tourney.   That's an obvious downside and with the talent we are losing this year....

But I do want to say that I think fans are forgetting to factor out 2011-12, his first year.  Anyone with expectations of ANYTHING that year was on crack.    And while it's much less of a factor, Maymon was in fact out all last season, and he was our leading returning scorer if I am not mistaken.   

Is it possible that it just took Cuonzo this long to get his shizzle together? 

LOL!  I say no, he is kind of mediocre other than at the end of the season, but a deep run in this tourney (which likely would include an upset of Duke) could change my perception of that.

and can get the ball inside or create a shot for themselves. This tends to create better shots for everyone, and also gets us to the foul line and we're a good FT shooting team. We tend to sometimes pass it around the perimeter and jack up a 3, which is when the offense gets stagnant. We don't have a real PG - Barton is really a 2, and I'm not sure what Thompson is. However, Richardson and McRae can kind of be like PGs for this team, and that can work.

We also need a little better bench play. They're not giving us much offensively. Moore is pretty good and I'd like to see him play more, but Reese is basically a rebounder, and Thompson seems to have regressed, needs to get more aggressive.

We can beat UMass. I'd love to see what this team, when on, can do vs Duke.

I agree we are much better when we try to penetrate the lane.   I do think Barton has done well as a PG though.  However he was hot at the end of the regular season and has cooled down a bit.  As for the bench, they didn't do much last game but IMO our starters are so good I am not sure who I want to come in, other than Armani and Thompson.  Reese is a decent role player IMO.  I guess I would like to see more bench scoring, but I don't really want McRae and the rest to sit that much, other than Barton and maybe Richardson. 

We will need more from our bench in the tourney. That is the starting 5. Moore comes off the bench and does well, but Thompson needs to get more aggressive, and Reese doesn't provide much except a warm body and an occasional 3

Reese is pretty good at fouling...lol.

Thoughagainst USCe he grabbed quite a few rebounds, and even scored a few IIRC.

You too.  I am usually not an "SEC guy", but I think our league - weak or not - has been fizzleed by the NCAA two years in a row on invites.  I mean, is uga really worse than Iowa or NC State?  I sure don't think so.  I actually believe that some of it is "football blowback"...the SEC has dominated football so much that other leagues on the selection committee take a "fizzle the SEC" approach.

In any case, I have y'all picked to win it all in my bracket, so do well, okay?   

Well, I'm already in Raleigh, so I think I'll mosey on over and watch them play UMass on Friday. I'll even root for them. My way of saying thanks for letting us get Pearl. Maybe Vinnie will like me then.  

If we lose, I'm blamin' YOU!  

McRae's scores were kind of quiet...for me  at least.  I didn't seem to notice him shooting that much, but I guess that's his style...smooth.

Well he started out 1-7, but did provide a lot of the spark and played better down the stretch.  And yes, incredible defensive game too.   

Yeah that really sucks.  If it's a play in to Raleigh, why not play the dam thing in Raleigh?