…but I told you so.  In fact, that’s the award I’m giving myself this year, the I Told You So award.  If you will recall, I said that Memphis’ woes from the foul line would eventually come back to haunt them.  Sure enough, they did.  Up 9 points with 2 minutes to play, Kansas began to foul, and Memphis missed 4 out of 5 free throws in that final 2 minutes.  This opened the door for Mario Chalmers’ Most Important Shot Of The Tournament award, a crazy, quick-release, man-in-his-face three pointer to tie the game.  Dorsey had fouled out.  The momentum had shifted.  Game over.

That being said, this is one of the best Finals we’ve seen in years.  The fine folks at CBS told us the last overtime Final was 1997 with Lute Olsen’s amazing Arizona Wildcats who defeated three number one seeds on the way to an improbable championship.  After two consecutive Gator blowouts, this game was a refreshing change of pace.

And even though our contest winner led wire to wire, this year’s contest was also one of the most interesting in years.  Because of the historic Final Four of all four top seeds, we had more people with a stake in the Final Four games than ever before.  Though I cannot prove it, it also seems to me that there was more movement in the standings in the last three games than we’ve seen in most contests.

And now, without further ado, the moment you’ve all been waiting for…drum roll, please….

The Final Contest Awards

The Fabulous Fifty award goes to the two contestants with the best win-loss record of 50 wins and 13 losses, Jason Glassley and Pat Beck.  Winners will receive an autographed photo of Fitty Cent.

The Next Time, Flip A Coin award goes to Bob Hillman, who had the worst win-loss record of 16-47.  In honor of his accomplishment, Bob will receive free tickets to the final Miami Heat home game.

The Best Change Of Alias award, sponsored by Jason Bourne, goes to Kory Wilcoxson – “Still Pickin’, No Longer Grinnin'”.

The I Hate This Stupid Scoring System award goes to Caleb Davis, who tied for third in terms of sheer wins at 47, but scored only 5 bonus points and finished in 93rd place.

The I Love This Awesome Scoring System award goes to Matthew Hand, whose win-loss record was barely above .500 at 33-30, but who scored 64 bonus points including a coveted Scategories bonus.  Matthew finished with 126 points and 5th place.

The Well, Since You Said “Please” award goes to Trevis Litherland, who got his wish and wracked up 60 bonus points from this year’s upsets.  This was good enough for 2nd place overall.

The Give ‘Em A Hand award goes to the Hand Family, who won this year’s Family Feud with an average score of 108.75.  The Hand Family will receive a year’s supply of Hamburger Helper.

This award has to come with a disclaimer.  Normally, I give the Jimmy Neutron Award For Childhood Genius to the top contestant in the 12 and under age group.  Since this year’s “winner”, Mason Ables, is admittedly only 7 weeks old at the time of this writing, and since we know it’s absolutely impossible that he made his own picks, I’m giving this year’s award to the 7-year-old who finished one point lower, and whom I know made his own picks, Elliott Murray.  Incidentally, Elliott had picked Memphis to go all the way, and had they done it, he would have absolutely finished in the top 5.

The Biggest Thing To Hit The Teen Scene Since Hannah Montana award goes to our top contestant in the 13-19 age group, Evan Gidley.  Evan receives an autographed photo of Miley Cyrus, which I’m sure he’ll cherish forever.

The Hey, Didn’t You Already Win An Award? award goes to Jason Glassley for top score in the 20-29 age group.

The Be Nice To Geeks, You Might Work For One Some Day award goes NOT to Trevis Litherland, but to his Computer, for helping him win the 30-39 age group.

The Too Old Play, But Not Too Old To Win award goes to David Blankenship for winning the 40-49 age group.  David will receive a year’s supply of Icy Hot.

Since I make it a policy to never give more than one award to the contest champion, the Aloha! award goes to this year’s winner of the March Madness 5-0 group (ages 50-59), Clark Rivers.  Book him, Dan-O!

The With Age Comes Wisdom award goes to Pat Beck, this year’s winner of the 60 and over age group. 

Pat also was the top woman in this year’s contest, so in the interest of giving out more awards, I’ll give this year’s Margaret Thatcher, Iron Lady award to Jen Burkhardt, who finished second amongst this year’s ladies.

The Rookie Of The Year award is difficult to choose this year, because the top rookies finished 1st and 4th, and have received or will receive their awards.  So, I have decided to give this year’s award to Josh Tolliver, who finished 12th with an impressive 115 points.

Since the contest has grown to 444 people, I think every contestant who finished in the top 10 deserves an award.  To that end, here are the awards for top-10 finishers who have not otherwise received an award already…

The Way To Make Jeff Look Foolish award goes to 7th place finisher Dave Barndt, whose pig Latin alias went right over my head.  LIB.  MR GR8 PICKS!

The Crazy Eight award goes to William “LittleWill” Sedam for his 8th place finish with 118 points.

The I Don’t Need No Steenkeeng Ree-Picks award goes to Jason “Mystery Gaidin” Ritchie, who didn’t re-pick a single game, and still finished 9th.  He finished 9th with Duke and Texas in his Final Four, folks.

The Give My Regards To Bo Duke award goes to Paul Schnaitter (yes, I know the actor spelled it differently), who finished in 10th with a score of 116.  Paul will receive a 1/16 model of the General Lee.

The Best Wife In The Contest award goes to my wife, Heather Little, of course, who finished in 85th, but without whose patience this contest would neverhappen.  Love ya, hun.  And speaking of my wife, ….

The I Lost To HER AGAIN??!!!! award goes to my good friend Brad “Chamomile Slim” Schafer, who complains every year about only one thing…losing to my wife.  It’s become a near obsession, Brad, but look at the bright side.  Your brother finished ahead of her this year.  🙂

The I’m Sorry I Didn’t Give You An Award award goes to the unsung, un-lauded masses who didn’t receive an award this year.  Thank you for playing.  Please try again next year.

And finally, this year’s Gold Medal Winner, the BMOC, the MVP, the Grand Poo-Bah Of Prognostication, the utterly dominant, wire-to-wire leader and undisputed Jeff Little’s March Madness Contest Champion is Robert “Smoke” Tipton.  Robert’s victory is the result of a rather amazing turn of events. 

After leading for the vast majority of the contest up to the Final Four, Robert appeared to be in big trouble.  He had Texas as his national champion, and could only win one more game. What’s more, that one game he could win was Kansas over UNC, which was his only re-pick of the tournament. 

So, here’s the scenario.  He had a two point lead over Trevis with only five more points that he could possibly score for a Kansas win.  Trevis had ALL FOUR Final Four teams correct.  Guess who Trevis’ winners were.  North Carolina and UCLA!  So, Trevis loses both games, and finishes 7 behind Robert.  Here’s the kicker.  Trevis changed his pick FROM Memphis TO UCLA!!!!! Had he stuck with Memphis, he would have scored 7 for the original pick win, and would have been tied going in to the final game.  Alas, since Robert held both tie breakers, it wouldn’t have mattered.  Trevis still would have needed a North Carolina win, or a Memphis championship to win the contest.

You see, the contest was just as exciting as the championship game.  You just needed me to tell you about it.

With that, it is time to sadly say goodbye until next year.  I appreciate so much all the kind emails that many of you sent along the way.  The contest has truly become a labor of love, and I appreciate all the new friendships and invitations to “stop by if you’re ever in my part of the country”.  I pledge to hold on to those invitations and look you up should my travels indeed take me where you are.

May God richly bless you all.

Jeff, Exhausted Contest Manager

I make it a yearly habit of tracking the performance of conferences and mascots in the tournament.  For example, if you take a peek at the Mascot Watch report, you’ll see that, by far, the most successful mascot group this year was the Farm Animals.  Maybe we should give North Carolina the Old McDonald award, since they won’t be getting a National Championship this year.

It occurred to me as I watched the Final Four that perhaps I should add team color to the list of arcane and inconsequential things I relate to overall success or failure.  This year, all four Final Four teams sported some shade of blue.  I bet that made it difficult to discern friend from foe in the stands.  The crowd shots I saw looked like a Kentucky home game.  Maybe careful research would reveal that blue is one of the most popular school team colors.  Fortunately for you, I don’t have time for any careful research on the topic.

I get the distinct impression that Memphishas been sandbagging all along with that bad free throw shooting act.  Perhaps they just wanted to be a little more sporting with the lesser victims in the first two rounds.  In the last three games, whack-a-Tiger wouldn’t even get you one of those cheap carnie prizes.  In fact, all it would get you is anther 10 points behind.  Right now, the Tigers are playing like a one-loss team whose one loss was the fluke of the ages.  Seriously.  These guys are awesome.

Did anyone besides me feel like the second game was a trip to the basketball Twilight Zone?  I mean, North Carolina comes in to last night’s game with an average margin of victory at or near 30 points.  Barely half way through the first half, I had to rub my eyes and make sure I wasn’t watching Memphis vs. Michigan state from round 3 on my DVR.  Kansas led by 28.  TWENTY-EIGHT!  That’s four touchdowns.  My wife went to bed.  My buddy, Zach Richardson, sent me a text message asking for periodic updates.  He was changing channels to watch James Bond.  It was over before it even started.

Then someone whispered in Bill Self’s ear, “Our TV ratings are in the toilet!  DO SOMETHING!” Next thing I know, I’m watching a pick-up game at the local park.  No passing.  No screening.  No defense.  No ball security.  No teamwork.  No strategy.  Just a bunch of turnovers, cherry-picking, 3/4 court passes, one-on-four drives to the basket and 30 foot jump shots 4 seconds into the shot clock.  Ugly.  And so Carolina’s shooters finally started hitting a few shots (Which is amazingly easy when the guy who’s supposed to be defending you is chatting with his girlfriend on his cell phone.  Oh, wait, that is our local park pick-up games.  Sorry.  I keep getting them confused with this one.)

Next thing I know Carolina is within 5.  Now, the only thing that would have been more inexplicable than Kansas blowing UNC out of the gym would be for Kansas to blow a 28 point lead.  Having learned to never underestimate the Jayhawks’ ability to choke in the tournament (can you say Bucknell?), I said to myself, “Self, this will go down in history as the biggest collapse since Jean Van de Veld jacked his tee shot into the bleachers on 18.”

Then Toto pulled the curtain back, Kansas woke up and realized what was happening, and promptly buried the tournament’s overall #1 seed (or so they tell us) for an 18-point victory.  There you go, Roy.  Thanks for the memories, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. 

I will say this, though.  Tyler Hansbrough deserves the Good Sport award for the tournament.  The only place you’ll find more hackers than on the team playing Hansbrough is on the local municipal 9-holer on a Saturday afternoon.  I’ve never once heard him, or really even seen him, complain about the officiating.  He just plays, even when guys are riding him like a cheap Suziki…which is most of the time.

And while I’m on this rant, whatever happened to basketball, anyway?  The pro game has made an absolute mess of things.  With a few notable exceptions, today’s most successful college players are as big (and mean) as NFL linebackers – hulking, overgrown brutes delivering blows that would put normal mortals in traction.  And has traveling been stricken from the rulebook?  Besides the obvious offenders such as the “crossover dribble”, you’ve got the jump-stop, the running-jump-stop, the hop-skip-and-a-jump-stop, the pit-stop, back-stop, when’s-it-ever-gonna-stop?  I was playing a pick-up game many years ago with a high schooler at least 10-years my junior.  After taking no less than 3 1/2 steps on his way to a layup, I called him for travelling.  He dismissed me with a roll of his eyes and began to explain the finer points of modern basketball to me.  “It’s a jump stop.  See, you can…nevermind.”  He waved his hand and walked away.  Obviously the old guy would never be able to understand just how impressive running to the basket without dribbling really is.  I coached my daughter’s second grade girls team, and I saw it all the time. Impressive, indeed.

Where was I….

Last night’s outcomes have led to some interesting results in the contest.  As is my usual custom, I’m not going to make final pronouncements until after tomorrow night’s championship game.  I will, however, hand out a couple of awards to worthy recipients.

The You Gotta Be Kidding Me award goes to 15 contestants who, unbelievably, correctly picked the final two teams with original picks.  Alex “I Guess He Thinks He’s Special” K (since he only have his last initial), Ben McCleskey, Christien Alexander, Christopher Randazzo, Kerry Lehman, Pat Beck, Paul Schnaitter, Ron Pozzi, Sarah Smith, Sean Woodall, Skid “Come On, Tell Us Your Real Name” Booles, Tim Davis, Toby Risner, Tom Ables, and William Sedam. 

The This Is Child’s Play award goes to Elliott “The Man Child” Murray.  At age 7, Elliott is already being recruited by Tom Crean as a power forward.  In the meantime, he’s enjoying 15th place in the contest and a Memphis pick that looks fairly brilliant at the moment. 

The Look Out Below award goes to Olivia Klinker, who I believe was as high as 2nd or 3rd at one point, but has plummeted to 97th since the Sweet 16.

The Your Bandwagon Just Blew Up award goes to the 156 contestants who picked North Carolina to win it all.

The Analyze This award goes to Trevis Litherland, whose brainy computer algorithm looked like it finally might win for him, only to lose BOTH games last night.  Cue the Price Is Right loser’s music here.

The Check The Scoreboard award goes to Jane Stump, whose alias still claims victory over Brock Zagel.  Brock – 62nd.  Jane – 289th.

The Oh, Shut Up! award goes to Matthew Hand, who apparently feels the need to complain even when he’s winning, as evidenced by the alias, “Memphis Blew Up My Bracket”.  Uh-huh.  3rd place.  Yeah, man, it’s on fire.  Yes, I’m bitter.

And so we near the end of another year of Jeff’s March Madness contest.  I will have the final analysis, along with the final awards, tomorrow night.

Adios!