The Last Word

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“One shining moment, it’s all on the line

One shining moment, there frozen in time

One shining moment, you reached deep inside

One shining moment, you knew you were alive”

– David Barrett, Songwriter

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, this was the maddest of them all! Isn’t it fitting that in a tournament so full of surprises, comebacks, and and jaw-dropping endings, we were treated to essentially two buzzer beaters in the closing seconds of the championship game? This one will join Jimmy Valvano’s Wolfpack, Keith Smart’s game winner, the other Villanova of 1985, Christian Laettner’s Kentucky killer, and many others in the pantheon of March Madness lore. I could write a novel about this game, and indeed, many pages will be written by folks more talented (and better paid) than I, but before we get to the final contest awards, I offer a few thoughts.

For The Ages

  • Looking for Superman? He’s in the Booth – The X factor in this game was without a doubt Villanova’s Phil Booth. After scoring 27 points in total through the first five games of the tournament, Booth scored 20 to lead all Wildcat scorers. Booth missed only one shot in this game, free throws included. Wow.
  • Tight Rims, Tighter Defense – There was no 70% shooting in this game. As the game progressed the rims got tight and the defense got tighter. The two teams combined for 10 steals, 8 blocks, and 21 turnovers. Villanova still shot almost 60% from the field, which is great, but I was convinced they would need 70% again to beat North Carolina. And you know what? They nearly did need it.
  • Is Belichick On That Sideline? – One of the hallmarks of Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots is that they target your best player and take him completely out of the game. You want to beat the Pats? Forget your superstar. You’re going to have to do it with someone else. I think we saw the spirit of that in Villanova’s defense tonight as North Carolina’s Brice Johnson was nearly invisible for long stretches of that game. His stat line was respectable, but not spectacular, and while he made a key play or two at the end of the game, the Wildcats did a great job of forcing North Carolina to go elsewhere.
  • Holy Late Game Madness, Batman! – If there’s one thing I will remember forever about this tournament, it is how many games were won and lost in the closing minutes, if not the closing seconds. Buzzer beaters, tap ins, overtimes, half court heaves, miraculous comebacks and confounding collapses: these seemed to be on the menu daily. Tonight was more of the same. How many thought Villanova had this one in the bag, up by 10 with 4 minutes left? And then, dumb decisions and mental lapses almost cost them game.
  • The Shot, Part 1 – Marcus Paige’s double-clutch NBA range three pointer with 4.7 seconds left to tie the game is the stuff of posters that ten-year-olds put on their walls. Had North Carolina won this game, some photographer would have made millions for THE photo of Paige, knees bent, suspended in mid-air, releasing the shot that changed the game.
  • THE Shot, Part 2 – But less than 5 seconds later, Kris Jenkins made the shot that relegated Paige’s miracle to the “oh yeah, that was good, too” bin. My reaction to Jenkins’ game winner prompted my daughter, Amber Little, whose room is above my office, to shoot me a text message asking if she should call the paramedics.
  • Apology Accepted – Jason Jones, the star of some new show on TBS that, as far as I can tell from the previews, has about as many redeeming qualities as a car full of crooks on their way to a bank robbery, was a special guest on the post-game show. He said he was sorry that the tournament had served as one long promo for his show, seeing that 97 promos were shown over the three week period. He was joking, but I’m not when I say that one of the best things about March Madness coming to an end is that I never have to mute those commercials again.
  • The Hoopers Should Be An Actual Show – You have to hand it to State Farm. Their ad campaigns featuring NBA super stars have been A+ for many years, but The Hoopers absolutely is the gold standard. If you haven’t seen the latest one, Grandpa aka Kevin Garnett is frustrated that he can’t clip his coupons because he can’t find a good clipper. At that point Dad, aka Chris Paul, quips, “If you look hard enough, I bet you’ll find a couple of good clippers around here.” Mom, aka DeAndre Jordan, heartily agrees. If I have to explain it, it’s not funny.
  • By The Numbers – Only 2.6% of all ESPN Tournament Challenge brackets had Villanova as the national champion. That was right in line with our contest where about 2.5% picked Villanova with their original pick.

Final Awards

And now without further ado, I present to you the final contest awards for 2016.

  • The Rookie Of The Year award goes to Tom Brantner who finished 9th overall with 218 points. As Mr. Miyagi would say, “You beginner luck.”  Tom will receive an autographed photo of Pat Morita.
  • Since our contest winner was under the age of 12 (more on that in a moment), the Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius award goes to Luca Zeoli who finished 2nd in the under 12 age bracket and 33rd overall. Hopefully this award takes a little bit of the sting out of that Syracuse loss.
  • The Head Of The Class award goes to the top finisher in the teens age bracket, Matthew Risner, who finished 2nd overall in the contest with 230 points. Matthew will receive all three High School Musical films on Blu Ray.
  • The Foresight Is 20/20 award goes to the winner of the twenty-something age bracket, Adrienne Hillman, who finished 13th overall in the contest. Adrienne will receive a free pair of designer eyeglasses that she obviously doesn’t need.
  • The Sweet Caroline award goes to Caroline Randazzo-Modarressy who finished first in the thirty-something age bracket and 12th overall in the contest. Caroline will receive an signed copy of the New York Times Best Seller, “Neil Diamond: The Formative Years – How I Got My Start Singing In Wild West Saloons During the 1849 Gold Rush.”
  • The Mid-Life Crisis award goes to Brennan Fairchild, top finisher in the forty-something age bracket and 4th overall in the contest. Brennan, as your reward, go by yourself something you can’t afford. A Corvette or a Harley will probably suffice.
  • The Hawai’i 5-0 award goes to long time contestant Skid Booles, aka, Mike Sines, who finished atop the 50s age bracket and 6th overall in the contest. Of course, this award comes with the obligatory quote: “Book ’em, Dan-o!”
  • The Senior Citizen award goes to the winner of the 60-and-over age bracket, Larry Harman, who finished 7th overall. Larry will receive a lifetime supply of Geritol.
  • The Top Prognosticator award goes to the contestant who picked the most games correctly regardless of upsets or bonus points of any kind. This year’s winner is Jeff Harrington who went 51-12 and finished 32nd overall. Jeff had UNC on a re-pick and thus dropped from 10th to 32nd after tonight’s game.
  • The I Hate This Stupid Scoring System award goes the lowest finishing contestant with a win/loss percentage of at least .700. This year’s winner is Vanessa Sopke who finished 189th despite having the same winning percentage as the 8th place finisher.
  • The I Love This Awesome Scoring System award goes to the highest finishing contestant with a win/loss percentage below .500. This year’s winner is Yadira Martinez who finished 18th overall and reportedly knows next to nothing about college basketball. And speaking of Yadira…
  • The I’ll Never Show My Face In Public Again award goes to 58th place minion Bryson Davis who used his alias to report that he at least wanted to beat his mother, 238th place contestant Angie Davis, and his girlfriend, the aforementioned Yadira. Bryson will receive a DVD copy of every Looney Tunes cartoon featuring Sylvester the Cat’s son, Junior, even though Bryson isn’t old enough to even appreciate the joke.
  • The Yellow Lines And Dead Skunks award goes middle-of-the-road finisher Kelsey Stabenow who finished right in the middle of the pack at 408th.
  • The Century Mark award goes to 100th place contestant Scott Risner. Scott will receive a stylish Century 21 sign to put in his yard.
  • The Little Red Caboose award goes to Connie Randazzo who finished dead last, but it wasn’t for lack of trying. Connie actually re-picked 14 of the last 15 games and missed them all but three, including 0-4 in the Final Four. Now THAT’S impressive, as Darth Vader would say.
  • The High Five award goes to 5th place minion Jack Harper. Jack will receive 815 high fives from all the other minions.
  • The Eight Is Enough award goes to 8th place minion Ray Moritz. Ray’s climb is rather amazing, as he once was as low as 708th. Ray will receive an autographed photo of Dick Van Patten.
  • The They Don’t Call Us Littles For Nothing award goes to my 13-year-old basketball star, Ashlyn Little, whose climb is even more incredible than Ray’s, finishing 3rd overall after being as low as 712th. Way to go, Asho!
  • The Top Ten award goes to 10th place finisher Brian Johnson, aka, Brian Khepri. Brian gets nothing at all because it’s 2:18 AM, and I am fresh out of witty things to say.
  • The Crash And Burn award goes to former contest leader and 20th place finisher Braden Murry. Braden couldn’t win, but the Villanova victory gave him his worst possible finish.
  • The No Good Deed Goes Unpunished award goes to Toby Risner who actually picked Villanova to win, but because it was a re-pick, actually DROPPED in the standings from 28th to 29th. The good news is that Toby didn’t finish 760th, his low point in the standings.
  • The One Way Trip To Mars award goes to Mike “Most Interesting Picks In The World” Desch, who finished 73rd in the final standings thanks to a couple of Villanova re-picks. Stay thirsty, my friend.
  • The Ranking Nobody Wants award goes to 666th place contestant Bob Weber.
  • The I Ran This Contest For Three Weeks And I All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt award goes to yours truly. I finished in 207th place, fourth amongst the members of my Little tribe.
  • And finally, the Kindergarten Cop, the Top Dog, the Big Kahuna, The Hands Down, Pun Intended, Grand Poobah of Prognostication award goes to this year’s contest winner, the 6-year-old kindergarten phenom Bryce Hand. Bryce had Villanova with an original pick, of course, and finished with a whopping 273 points. I was asked by Bryce’s dad if that was a scoring record for the contest, and the answer is surprisingly no. The 2014 contest winner, Michael Weier, scored 314 points in another year where the championship pick earned a Scategories Bonus. Bryce won’t even know who won the game, much less that he won the contest, until morning, as it was way past his bedtime before the game even started.

So there you have it, folks. If you want to win the contest next year, get advice from the nearest kindergartener!

Final Thoughts

And it’s time to say the bittersweet farewell for another year. I want to thank all of you for signing up again this year, putting up with the early technical difficulties, and making the contest so much fun. Thanks for all of the emails, texts, tweets, and IMs. I read them all, and they never fail to make me smile. Someday my friend, Scott Whitlow, and I will bring this thing into the 21st century with an App and Facebook logins and other cool stuff.  Someday. Until then, thanks for taking the ride in my 1977 VW Bus Camper when you could jump on ESPN’s 2016 Lamborghini, instead. I hope to see you all and few hundred more friends and family next year.

Finally, let me give a shout out to my family who endures three weeks of, “Leave Dad alone. He’s watching the games and writing the commentary.” They all play and make the game fun, and I love them very much, even though they usually beat me.

May God’s richest blessings be on you and yours, and until next year, may your makes be many and your misses be few.

Stepping back behind the curtain,

The Wizard of Whiteland

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