Michigan State Magic

How do they do it? How does he do it – Spartans coach Tom Izzo, that is?  For a guy whose name sounds like the punch line of a Snoop Dog joke, his March exploits are downright legendary.  This year makes two consecutive Final Four appearances, and six appearances in the last twelve years.  There is not another program in all of college basketball that even comes close unless you go back to a certain dynasty with a coached by a legend whose moniker your contest manager has unscrupulously appropriated for himself.

Take a look at how Sparty arrived in Indy this year.  In the first round they had to stave off a late comeback, benefiting from a bizarre lane violation, to beat New Mexico State by 3.  Next came the buzzer-beater that sunk Maryland by 2.  They beat a plucky Northern Iowa team by a "comfortable" margin of 7, and then today they beat Tennessee by 1 in a net-blistering shootout.  That’s four games won by a total of 13 points, and it sets up a match-up that has never happened before in the NCAA Tournament, a five versus five for a chance at the national championship.  Don’t look now.  The mean, green wrecking machine is coming to town.

Poise Triumphs Over Power

I had to watch the latter half of the Duke-Baylor contest on DVR, and I am glad I did.  That Baylor team is big, strong, fast, long, and exhaustingly brutal.  At one point I saw a graphic showing their points in the paint nearly doubled those of Duke.  In the end, however, they lacked one key component of a championship contender – the poise that comes through experience.  Duke’s Nolan Smith could do no wrong and miss no shot, almost single handedly willing the Blue Devils to victory, but it was two consecutive three pointers late in the game after the score was tied that seemed to send those Baylor Bears into hibernation.  At that point they seemed to either panic or lose their minds, forcing bad shots, bad passes, and ultimately losing their cool in a shoving match that earned them a technical and a bus ticket home.

Thus, those hated Duke Blue Devils balanced the mathematics of an otherwise statistically deviant tournament as the only #1 seed to advance to the Final Four.  I would take issue with the assumption that they are the favorite to win it all, but I am certain the media will make them the presumptive favorite if for no other reason than the K factor.

So Who’s Really Going To Win?

I can think of at least one good reason why each of these teams will win the championship and one good reason why they won’t.

Michigan State

• …will win because Tom Izzo doesn’t lose two years in a row.  After being run out of the gym by North Carolina in last year’s final, the man who has nothing to prove will prove it nonetheless.  Big East, schmig East.  Sparty shows the world that the Big Ten is not to be trifled with.
• …will lose because you cannot run from the math forever.  No Kalin Lucas.  Other key injuries.  Role players are exactly that – role players.  You can only go to that well so many times before it runs dry.  The Spartans play a spirited game against a Butler team they are supposed to beat but find themselves on the opposite end of the box score this time.

Butler

• …will win because despite proving repeatedly that they actually are as good as their best-in-the-nation winning streak says they are, no one really believes it.  I heard a radio "expert" this evening say that, "on paper, Butler has absolutely no chance, but anything is possible."  Really? No chance?  The same Butler I’ve been watching for two weeks?  These guys are for real.  They are just as skilled, if not more so, than any of the four teams.  They’re smart.  They play stifling defense.  They play team basketball.  These are all hallmarks of a champion.
• …will lose because they’re a collection of smart kids with a GQ coach who just happen to be pretty good at basketball and drew really good teams who played at really bad times when they faced the Bulldogs.  UTEP? Come on, anybody can beat UTEP.  Their win over Murray State was lucky.  They caught Syracuse without their star center.  They caught Kansas State after a double-overtime cage match that ended after midnight barely 24 hours earlier.  When they play Michigan State on a week’s rest and preparation, the pressure of an entire city’s expectation upon their shoulders, there is just no way.

West Virginia

• …will win because they are the meanest, baddest, strongest, fiercest, most experienced, most battle-tested crew left in the field.  The Big East really IS the best conference in the country, and that proving ground will prove to be the difference as they find a way…just plain find a way to win two more games.  This time Bob Huggins exorcises his demons and finally wins the big one.  The school that gave us Jerry West, whose silhouette graces the NBA logo, finally has its day. Take me home, country road.
• …will lose because they have no point guard, and you cannot win a championship playing point guard by committee.  Point guard’s make decisions, and the ones who make the best decisions lead their teams to victory.  Committees do not make decisions.  They just look at each other and ask who’s picking up the tab for lunch.  That lack of floor leadership will be their undoing, especially against a formidable opponent such as Duke.

Duke

• …will win because they are Duke.  Coach K is tired of hearing the ESPN crew talk about Duke’s lack of tournament success over the past several years.  Their last title was 2001.  That is way too long of a drought for a program like Duke.  But fate isn’t the only reason they will win.  Of the four remaining teams, they are, without question, the most talented.  They can shoot, defend, rebound – you name it.  When they got hot, no one is scarier.  Now that John Scheyer has found his shot again, no one is going to beat them.
• …will lose because they are streaky, and one cold spell against any of the other three remaining teams will doom them.  West Virginia will frustrate them with unrelenting physicality and in-your-face defense. 

Lightning Strikes Twice

It stands to reason that the craziest, most unpredictable tournament in recent memory would result in the most exciting, most unpredictable contest we’ve ever had. 

The Scategories Bonus, the largest and most influential bonus of the contest, is designed to hard to earn.  It rewards risk, and the higher the risk, the higher the reward.  By definition it ought to be rare, because it rewards the unusual, unpopular, long-shot pick.  Entire contests have gone by in past years without a single Scategories Bonus being awarded.

This year has been very different.  Four games have earned contestants Scategories bonuses, with the unusual situation that either winner of the Michigan State-Tennessee was going to earn someone a Scategories bonus.  It doesn’t end there, however.  The same thing has happened again in the Michigan State-Butler match up.  No matter who wins, someone is going to get an amazing 48 points for picking the winner with an original pick!

As if that weren’t amazing enough, when a pick qualifies for the Scategories bonus in the championship game, I have dubbed that the Ultimate Scategories Bonus, the most points anyone can earn with a single win in the contest.  This year the situation is beyond improbable.  Only a win by Duke will result in someone not earning 96 points for their championship pick!  That’s right, if you consider each of the four team’s chances of winning it all to be equal, there is a 75% chance that at least one person in the contest will get 96 points for their championship pick.  In fact, there is one true Scategories pick in our contest this year, a truly unique, one-of-kind prognostication.  One, and only one contestant, picked Butler to win it all.  Go buy your Butler hat and jersey, JulieH.  Your fortunes are tied to them.

And now for tonight’s awards…

Final Four Awards

Each year I give awards to contestants who performed the best in each of the tournament’s four regions.  This year is no exception.

• The Gene Hackman Award For Hoosier-Like Midwest Dominance goes to Nathan Kopp, who won 13 games in the Midwest with original picks.  Honorable mention goes to Shane Vaiskauskas and Kevin Wilson who also won 13 games but needed re-picks to do it.
• The How The West Was Won award goes to Rob Barta, who won 14 games in the West with original picks.  Honorable mention goes to Ben Watkins and Lynn Scofield who also won 14 games with the aid of re-picks.
• The Beasts Of The East award goes to Toby Risner and Connie Randazzo for winning 14 games in the East with original picks.  Honorable mention goes to Christina Klinker and Jordyn Glassley for doing the same with re-picks.
• The Mouth Of The South award, sponsored by Jimmy Heart, goes to Jeff Little, Travis Garrison, Brian Miller, Tony Smurlo, Steve Borkowski, and Matthew Risner for picking 13 games correctly (with original picks) in the apparently hard-to-pick South.  With that many winners, there are no honorable mentions.

I find it interesting that no one got all 15 games correct in any one region this year, even with the aid of re-picks.

• The Dick Vitale, Jay Bilas, and All You Other ESPN Experts Eat Your Hearts Out award goes to Cayden Bauschek, who is the only contestant to pick all four Final Four teams correctly and did so without the aid of a re-pick.  That’s right, folks, this little fourth-grade phenomenon picked Michigan State, Butler, West Virginia, and Duke from day one.
• The Call The Dog Catcher award goes to Christina "Mad Dog" Klinker who vaulted to second place on the strength of her Butler pick.
• The George Jefferson award goes to Eusi "moving on up" Fraser who is, indeed, moving on up the standings to 8th place.
• The You And Your Accursed Re-Picks award goes to Matthew Hand who originally picked West Virginia to go to the championship game but switched it to Kentucky.
• The Just Do The Math award goes to Chris "I Don’t Get How My Wife is in 3rd Place" Randazzo.  It’s pretty simple, Chris.  She has collected more points than 484 other contestants, yourself included.
• The I Bet You REALLY Hate Them Now award goes to Sammy "Sam I Am I Hate Green Eggs and Duke" Brauen. 
• The Yeah? Well, 114th Place In The Contest award goes to Kathy "2nd place in the science fair" Deaver.
• The Fail To The Chief award goes to George Lockett who used the President’s published bracket to enter our contest.  George is in 82nd place with no remaining winnable games.
• The Green Jacket award goes to Evan "A tradition unlike any other-this contest" Gidley.  Evan will receive a dart board bearing Jim Nantz’s portrait.
• The Most Improved Contestant award goes to Chris Bechtold who has climbed from 473rd to 62nd since game 16 of the contest.
• The Triple Threat award goes to seven contestants who can still win all three remaining games: Janell Hoeppner, Christina Klinker, Sam Glassley, David Gaffney, Ben Watkins, Cayden Bauschek, and Chris Randazzo.
• The I Hate This Idiotic Scoring System award goes to T. Money, who has won 42 games out of 60, only four wins less than the contestant who has picked the most games correctly, and yet isn’t even in the top 100.
• The I Love This Awesome Scoring System award goes to Julie Harman , who is in 49th place and has only one team remaining in the contest, and yet that one team, Butler, can earn her 144 points with two more wins and, undoubtedly, the contest championship.
• And finally, the Dash Incredible award goes to fourth grader and contest leader Cayden Bauschek, who has confounded the odds and the adults in this contest and leads his closest competitor by 22 points.  Cayden is definitely in the driver’s seat, but victory is hardly assured.  Cayden went with the safe pick for national champion, Duke, and thus could still conceivably lose even if Duke wins the whole thing.

Now, hoops addicts, we take a five day break from basketball.  Many of your spouses are incredibly thankful.  There are still a lot of points to be had in our contest as the last three games of the tournament are played, so stay tuned.  I must say this has probably been the most enjoyable contest of the 15 I have administered. 

See you next Saturday.