Final Thoughts

Though not particularly close, the game was nonetheless reasonably entertaining.  The following may be something of a reiteration of my halftime post, but I offer these observations as my final thoughts on the basketball side of this year’s madness.

• The George of the Jungle award goes, hands down, to Greg Oden.  The man is a gorilla.  I was impressed with Oden.  25 points.  13 rebounds.  35 minutes.  That’s a triple double.  :)  We got a glimpse tonight of what he can do when he’s not in foul trouble.  He’s by no means a complete player yet, but look out when he is.
• The Hey Corey, Your Agent is On The Phone award goes to Corey Brewer, who is absolutely brilliant handling, shooting, and passing the ball.  He is certain to be a lottery pick.  Here’s hoping the Pacers make the lottery.
• The Great Game, But You’re STILL Butt Ugly award goes to Joakim Noah, they guy with the game and the name of Biblical proportions.  This guy didn’t even play ball in high school, so his shooting fundamentals are atrocious.  He’s still a menace and changes the complexion of the game whenever he’s in there.
• The History Maker Three Times Over award goes to the Florida Gators for (as far as I know):
  • Being the first school to ever hold both the Div I football and basketball championships at the same time.
  • Being the first team to repeat in Div I hoops in over 15 years.
  • Being the first team ever to repeat with the same starting five.
• The Missing In Action award goes to all Ohio State players not named Oden or Conley.  No one showed up for the Buckeyes, and that ultimately spelled their doom.

And now, without further ado, the part you’ve all been waiting for (drum roll, please…)

Final Contest Awards

I think the most fascinating aspect of this year’s contest is how the sheer lack of upsets and surprises lead to such a logjam in the standings.  Game by game people would move up and down 25 spots or more, especially in these final games that were worth so many points.  Also, the lack of upsets made the only two major upsets that did happen in the first round more important than anyone could have imagined.  I liked this year that the winner, and indeed the top 10, really wasn’t settled until after tonight’s game.

• The Upset Stomach Award, sponsored by Tums, goes to Kyle Gratz, who scored more upset bonus points than anyone else, with 22, and finished 6th overall.
• The I Hate This Stupid Scoring System award goes to 52-game winner Alan Theile.  Alan won just as many games as the contest winner…and finished 34th.
• The I Love This Awesome Scoring System award goes to Jason Glassley, who lost just as many games as the (nameless) guy who finished 190th, and yet finished 11th himself.
• The Almost Famous award goes to Patty “Pabby” Darnall, who started tonight in 4th, had a chance at 2nd, and ultimately finished 9th.  Great job, Pabby, on your top-ten finish.
• The You’re No Florida Gators, Dudeaward goes to last year’s contest champion Richard Scrhimpf, who finished 62nd this year.  Apparently, it’s harder to repeat in the contest than it is to repeat in the Madness.
• The Schizophrenia award, sponsored by Zyprexa, goes to Tom Gidley, who seemed to change his alias more often than I change clothes.  He also seems obsessed with the Colts’ superbowl victory, which isn’t all that bad a thing to be obsessed about.  His latest moniker?  “Manning wins the Emmy for SNL appearance”.
• The Jimmy Neutron Award For Childhood Genius goes to Austin “Kentucky Rules” Stickney.  Though Kentucky didn’t exactly rule, Austin sure did, winning the Kidzone grudge match for contestants 12 and under, and finishing an impressive 5th overall.
• The Talk To The Hand Cuz The Face Ain’t Listenin’ award goes to Kristin “George” Schafer, the winner of the Teen Mania grudge match for contestants 13-19.  The You Wish award goes to Caleb “Don’t Hate me because I’m beautiful” Davis, who finished one point behind Kristin.  I would say that any unfavorable opinions of Master Davis would stem from losing to a GIRL and not from a handsome face.
• The Top Twenty award goes to Neil Harrison, winner of the 20-something grudge match for contestants 20-29 and 3rd overall in the contest.
• The Generation-X award, sponsored by Ginger and Mary Ann, goes to Angie Davis, who squeaked out the win by the win/loss tiebreaker over Mike “Super Saint” Regina in the 30-something grudge match for contestants 30-39.  While we’re at it, we might as well mention that Angie is a multi-award winner this year.  Angie also gets the Joan of Arc award for top woman finisher, and the Rookie Of The Yearaward for finishing 2nd overall in her first year of participation in the contest.  As Mr. Miaggi would say, “You Beginner Luck!”  Angie will receive a sailor hat autographed by Bob Denver.
• I have a policy of not giving additional awards to the overall contest winner, so this year the Not Quite Over The Hill Award goes to Jim “March Basket Case” Burris, the 2nd place finisher in the Middle Aged Spread grudge match for contestants 40-49.
• The Hang Ten, Dude award goes to Patty “Pabby” Darnall, for winning the March Madness 5-0 grudge match for contestants 50-59.  Patty will receive a Hawaiian shirt autographed by Jack Lord.
• The Super Senior award goes to Fred “Purdein08” Cordes, who won the Senior Prognosticators grudge match for contestants 60 and over and finished 15th overall.  Fred will receive an autographed, scowling photo of Gene Keady.
• The Maybe You Should Just Guess Next Year award goes to my old friend and retired sportswriter, Graham Taylor, who finished 237th this year.
• The Just In Case Somebody Cares What You’re Talking About award goes to Trevis “Not The Daihatsu” Litherland.  Normally, Trevis’ claim to fame is his infamous statistical model that he uses for picking games.  This year the electrified button box spat out picks that landed him solidly in 234th.  As for the alias, go to http://www.daihatsu.com/, and you will, sure enough, find a model called the Trevis.  Cute.
• The Tim The Tool Man Award For Unbridled Chauvinism goes to the men, who once again beat the women by 6 points on the average.
• The I Brought You Into This World, And I Can Still Take You Out award, sponsored by Bill Cosby, goes to the parents, who put the hurt on the kids this year.
• The It’s The End Of The World As We Know It award goes to all my fellow Hoosiers, as I pass along the sad news that we were beaten by the Kentuckians by less than one point on the average this year.
• The Old Oaken Bucketgoes to the IU grads this year, even though it could be argued that Purdue looked better in the actual tournament.
• The Me Tarzan, You Jane award goes to the husbands, who defeated the wives in general, though this is not the case in every family, to wit…
• The How Will You Ever Show Your Face In Public Again award goes to Tim Davis.  Once in the top ten, Tim finished 27th, 25 places behind his 2nd place wife, Angie.
• The Don’t Break My Heart, Read My Blog award goes to your humble contest manager, who at the risk of spamming is mailing this final commentary to the entire contestant list.  I decided to blog my commentary this year to cut down on email traffic, and much to my dismay, discovered along the way that most folks just aren’t reading the blog.  Look, folks, I don’t do all this for nothin’, you know.  🙂
• The What, No Trash Talk? award goes to my friend Jason Snyder, who didn’t make a peep all contest this year.  I guess with no Oklahoma representation in this year’s tournament, there wasn’t much to say, huh?
• The Hey, Where’s My Award? award goes to everyone who didn’t receive one.  Look, there are 316 of you now.  If you want an award, you have do something to get my attention.

And finally, the Blue Ribbon, the Gold Medal, the Grand Poo-Bah of Prognostication for 2007 goes to Randy “Ranman” Cowell, our contest champion with 52 wins, 11 losses, and 127 points.  Randy also gets the Sure, Rub It In award for sending me an email right after the game was over.  The email essentially said, “Hey, I just logged in and realized I won.  I don’t know how I did it.  I didn’t even do the re-picks!”  Great.  Just great.  The contest winner checked the standings as an afterthought when it was all over, while some of us have been wringing our hands and wracking our brains for three excruciating weeks.  Next year, it’s on, pal.

And so ends another year of Madness.  Thanks to all for engaging in my yearly distraction from reality.  I look forward to the next go ’round in 2008, the Lord willing.  In the meantime, be blessed, be safe, and be glad you just get to play and don’t have to manage this beast.

 Signing Off

Jeff, Exhausted Contest Manager

“Historic” is an interesting word.  It might go without saying that few of us would consider this year’s NCAA tournament “historic”, especially considering the sheer lack of significant upsets.  However, there are facets of this year’s rendition of March Madness that are significant from a historical perspective. 

For example, I forget the exact quote, but I heard one of the sideline sports babes on Saturday saying that this was the first time since something like 1979 that no seed higher than a 2 had reached the Final Four.  The success and outright dominance of better seeds this year goes beyond what we’ve seen in years, and far beyond what we’ve seen in recent years.  I’m not sure I even heard the word “Cinderella” even uttered by Clark Kellogg or Seth “The Genius” Davis.  There simply wasn’t one this year.  2006 may have been the year of the Cinderella.  2007 will be remembered as the year of the Ugly Step-Sister.  And speaking of ugly…

The two biggest, ugliest dudes in all of college hoops are going to collide about 18 hours from now.  There’s nothing historic about that, but the two schools they represent have certainly made some history this year.  Last year there was some talk about the possibility of Texas winning a football and a basketball championship in the same year.  That opportunity never materialized for the Longhorns, but it has materialized for the Gators, who can become the first school ever to win College Athletics’ two biggest prizes, the National Championships in Football and Div. I-A Men’s Basketball, in the same year.  Not only that, but history gets the double-whammy in that in doing so, they would have beaten the SAME SCHOOL in both sports.  I am quite certain thathas never happened before.  And as if all that weren’t enough incentive for Florida, a win will also give them the first repeat championship in basketball since Duke did it in 1991-92, 15 years ago.

Speaking of College Football, I was musing today about the uniquely bittersweet nature of the Men’s Basketball Tournament.  In football, 64 teams play in 32 bowl games over the course of about 2 weeks.  32 teams finish the season as winners, and 32 finish as losers, while one finishes as the oft-disputed National Champion.  In basketball, 64 teams play in 63 games, and 63 teams finish their season with a loss.  One and only one team finishes with a win and the (essentially) undisputed national championship.  Imagine the emotions these guys go through.  Just one week ago Georgetown shocked the nation with their stunning comeback against the favored UNC Tarheels, and then their demolition of them in the overtime period.  They cut down the nets and walked out of their regional site wearing their regional champion hats and T-shirts, heads spinning from the euphoria of reaching the Final Four.  One week later they are slinking back to their locker room, vanquished and forgotten.  Perhaps it is the unbending cruelty of this harsh reality that makes March Madness so great, so captivating for we, the spectators.  These are not NBA superstars (yet) who will get their shoe endorsements and fat paychecks win orlose.  For many of these kids who realistically will never see the inside of an NBA locker room, this is their legacy, and they will give everything they have, and then a little more, to be the one team that doesn’t have to go back home defeated.

I think the NBA would be a lot more interesting if the players only got paid when they won. 🙂

Finally, let’s take a quick peek at the contest standings and find out what’s at steak in tomorrow night’s national championship.  I have but one award to give away today, and the rest-the final contest awards-will be given out tomorrow night.

• The It Was Good While It Lasted award goes to Brooke “Carrrr-ne Asada” Johnson, who, unfortunately for her, picked UCLA as national champion.  Take a good look at the scoreboard today, because this is the last day she will be atop it. 

So who’s going to win?  It will be either Kory “Jack Bauer of the Hardwood” Wilcoxson, currently in second place, who picked Ohio State, or Randy “Ranman” Cowell, currently in third place, who picked Florida.  65 contestants have a chance to move up in the standings with a Florida win, while 98 contestants have a chance to move up with an Ohio Statewin.  That means that just over half the contestants still have a chance to score 10 more points.  It is also interesting to note the biggest heart-breakers from the Carnage Report.

• Kansas– 160 had them in the Final Four, and they were 41 people’s champion
• North Carolina– 141 had them in the Final Four, and they were 32 people’s champion
• Georgetown – 17 people’s champion
• UCLA– 14 people’s champion

One more game.  One shining moment.  One contest winner.  One more blog entry with lots of awards.  See you tomorrow.