I’m sitting here polishing off my second Twinkie, trying to think of how I should begin tonight’s rant. Before I get to the madness, there is one extremely important topic that must be addressed first.
Re-Pick Round Begins Today
Now that the Sweet Sixteen has been determined, you can go back to your picks and re-pick any of the remaining 15 games you wish. Now, please, please, pretty please read the re-pick instructions at this link BEFORE YOU TRY TO DO YOUR RE-PICKS. Every year, guaranteed, I get an email from some confused contestant asking me why their picks page shows a winning team in red. If you do not read the re-pick instructions, that confused contestant will be you. You have been warned.
And now, I think I will begin with some interesting things I’ve gleaned from watching the same commercials ad nauseam for the past four days.
Commercial Madness
- All the Axe commercials need to be axed. The one with the dude with pits spraying sweat like fire hydrants is just plain gross.
- Vikings are the new cavemen.
- Wouldn’t it be great if BW3 really did have one of those magic control panels connected to all the best games?
- I like the geeky white Aussie rapping dude better than Dr. Dre. Biddy biddy boo!
- I wonder if the guys in the Southwest commercial with the letters painted on their chests were offering the old lady on the plane a free flight.
- The Forest Gump technique of taking old footage, overdubbing it, and then using CGI to give the appearance that the historical figure in question is actually speaking is played out. The latest NCAA PSA with Coach Wooden is no exception. At the very least you would think they could have found a better voice talent than the one they used. Good grief, he sounds like a weasel with a head cold.
- Apparently SuperCuts offers a “manly” haircut. I think that UPS whiteboard guy should get one.
- If “Akirameru” is how you say “I surrender” in Japanese, perhaps KGB should have texted it to Wisconsin and Gonzaga.
How Upsetting
In round one there were 10 upsets out of 32 games – a little less than one third. In round two, there were 6 upsets out of 16 games – a little more than a third. If you do the math, that is 16 upsets out of 48 games in total – precisely one third. I do not know how that stacks up historically, but it has to be a bunch.
Go Big Red!
The biggest upset of the day was shocking perhaps only in the margin of victory. I doubt many folks are surprised by Cornell’s victory over Wisconsin, but the nearly twenty point whipping they put upon them was shocking. Cornell could be one of the finest collections of shooters assembled in a long time. Whether they can withstand Kentucky remains to be seen.
Beating The Buzzer
The Boneheaded Play Of The Day award has to go to Maryland who, after hitting the go-ahead basket with 6.2 seconds to play, inexplicably failed to guard the shooter who took the final shot for Michigan State. Sparty had been draining them all night, and the last one was no different. CBS announcer Tim Brando shouted, “Fear the Turtle!” when Maryland’s Greivis Vasquez hit the go ahead basket, but it was Tom Izzo savoring a luscious victory when Korie Lucious hit the game winner. With Kansas out of the way, perhaps we are headed for a Big Ten showdown with Ohio State for a trip to the Final Four.
Kramer vs…just about everybody
No Robbie Hummel? No inside game? No shoe? No problem! Purdue’s Chris Kramer did it all, including hitting the game winner to earn a hard-fought victory over an absolutely brutal Texas A & M squad. I do not know how much further this Purdue team can go, but their heart cannot be questioned. What a game.
Round Two Awards
And now, without further ado, the second round awards.
- The Root For The Underdog award goes to Matthew Hand, who correctly picked 12 of the 16 upsets, more than any other contestant.
- The Last Man Standing award goes to Scott Whitlow, champion of all things Apple and Mac, and the only contestant who has all eight of his Elite Eight remaining in the tournament.
- The Every Black Cloud Has A Silver Lining award goes to my eldest daughter, Andrea Little, for her positive attitude expressed in her alias: “Hey at least I’m better than 77 of you.”
- The So Much For The Repeat award goes to last year’s contest champion, Joseph Jenkins, currently in 109th place.
- The Top Prognosticator award goes to Jen “Jenzo” Burkhardt, who picked more games correctly in the first two rounds than any other contestant. Jen is an impressive 38-10 so far and sits in 4th place.
- The Sopke Dropky award goes to Paul Sopke (pronounced sop-key), who since game 16 fell from 106th to 449th place.
- The Rising Star award goes to Ben Crone, who since game 16 has climbed from 460th to 181st.
- The Not Even Close award goes to Eusi “at least I’m not in last place” Fraser. At least? How about 15th?
- The I Love This Awesome Scoring System award goes to Kyle Klinker who has won barely 40% of the games he picked and yet still made the top 20.
- The What Idiot Invented This Stupid Scoring System? award goes to my brother, Joshua Marshall, who won 35 games and yet sits in 195th place.
- Finally, the Just Call Me Money award goes to youngster Cason “Cash” DiIulio, who not only sits atop our leader board by virtue of a tie-breaker over fellow grammar school participant Lewis Schafer, but also belongs to the contest family whose family name consists almost entirely of vowels.
Closing Thoughts, Week One
And now we take a small repast from the madness which shall begin anew on Thursday. Between now and then be sure to get your re-picks in. The deadline for re-picks is Thursday at 6:00 PM EDT. Parents will undoubtedly need to assist their kids with the re-picks. In some cases, kids will need to assist their parents. In either case, do not either through apathy or ignorance pass up your chance at Jeff’s March Madness Contest glory. Remember, I adjusted the point value of the later games this year, making the re-picks all the more important.
Re-pick Instructions – Read These FIRST