KU! KU! KU!

Mentat: 7) Scream obscenities at Gonzaga for farking my bracket.

This usually goes both ways. They tend to win a couple when they're the lower seed and lose in the first round when they're the higher seed.

In before the "this is the year where the chick from accounting who picks the teams based on astrological signs and uniform colors wins the brackets" cliches start getting used.

Even though people say this every year.

Farking Duke has the easiest path ever to the Final Four.

Meanwhile the midwest w/ #1 Kansas is better than all other regions combined.

Fark dook.

Every year I pick KU to win it all (I've been right twice), Duke to lose one round before they are supposed to, then a combination of RPI and playing the odds on upsets (at least two #9s, one #12). I'm generally in first place until KU loses (if they do).

/chick
//not in accounting

I'm in like Flint!

tuna fingers: Ponzholio: Betting odds for the champion...
(not that I would encourage betting on college sports)

xz Field (Any Other Team) 50/1

Wow that Field pick is really shiatty. Absolutely no shot and the payout sucks.
I assume these are all teams that have odds worse than 500:1 (my wife's New Mexico State for instance) but the sum of them comes in at 50:1? That's not how odds work.

That's how they work in Vegas.

I wish you could take the opposite bet for some of these games - I would gladly risk 2 dollars to win 1 dollar betting that Kansas will not win out right. Of course, much like a money line bet, if Vegas made odds for Kansas not to win, it would be more like risk 4 to win 1.

John Wall over Bill Self in the final. Also Kentucky knocks out Duke in the final four. Are their bonus points for brown-nosing?

Pitt all the way!

Houston over Maryland in round 1. Who's with me?

/looks around

Louisville vs. Duke = A Kentucky fan's nightmare.

/you mean I gotta root FOR one of them?

star_topology: Houston over Maryland in round 1. Who's with me?

/looks around

Me

star_topology: Houston over Maryland in round 1. Who's with me?

/looks around

Yeah, they were real impressive winning 19 games while playing a C-USA schedule.

Ohio vs Wisconsin in the finals...

BOOK IT!

/Done

Yanks_RSJ: star_topology: Houston over Maryland in round 1. Who's with me?

/looks around

Yeah, they were real impressive winning 19 games while playing a C-USA schedule.

Fine, you take a helter-skelter Maryland team and I'll take the scrappy C-USA team with the nation's leading scorer.

Man, my bracket looks horrible. I've got two 1's and two 2's making the Final Four. I hate doing it, but I just don't see where the major upsets are coming from.

I mean good God, the 4's are Maryland, Wisconsin, Purdue and Vandy? Does anyone outside of the homers really see any of them taking down a 1? Not to mention the 5's: I would say that out of A&M, Butler, Temple, and Michigan State, given who they're playing, we could expect at least two of those teams to get knocked out in the first round.

If I weren't a KU fan I'd probably have them getting upset by Georgetown or something like that, but gotta ride the Hawks.

kth: Every year I pick KU to win it all (I've been right twice), Duke to lose one round before they are supposed to, then a combination of RPI and playing the odds on upsets (at least two #9s, one #12). I'm generally in first place until KU loses (if they do).

/chick
//not in accounting

So what you're saying is you did really badly when they lost to Bucknell in the first round (the Patriot League's all time high water mark).

Mentat: GAT_00: I found a problem. Mizzou can't win anything.

And yet last year while everyone was crying over their destroyed brackets, Mizzou carried me into the Elite Eight. MY PLAN CANNOT FAIL!

I really want to put Mizzou in like the Sweet 16/Elite 8, their style always plays well in Tourney games, especially down the stretch when teams get tight, but this Mizzou team is lacking a little something this year. You can't shoot 44% from the field as a team and expect to win a whole lot of tournament games. A&M is in big trouble against Utah State for that same reason as well.

star_topology: Yanks_RSJ: star_topology: Houston over Maryland in round 1. Who's with me?

/looks around

Yeah, they were real impressive winning 19 games while playing a C-USA schedule.

Fine, you take a helter-skelter Maryland team and I'll take the scrappy C-USA team with the nation's leading scorer.

Thanks for your permission to pick the better team to win. I don't see how Houston is "scrappy" while Maryland is "helter skelter." Those terms seem pretty interchangeable, and only one of the two teams in this conversation went 7-9 in a two-bid conference.

jayhawk88: Man, my bracket looks horrible. I've got two 1's and two 2's making the Final Four. I hate doing it, but I just don't see where the major upsets are coming from.

I mean good God, the 4's are Maryland, Wisconsin, Purdue and Vandy? Does anyone outside of the homers really see any of them taking down a 1? Not to mention the 5's: I would say that out of A&M, Butler, Temple, and Michigan State, given who they're playing, we could expect at least two of those teams to get knocked out in the first round.

It's a lock that a #1 or #2 will win the tourney, nobody below that line is any good. I hate picking "chalk" too, but it's impossible to see any of the 3's or 4's doing anything, and I'm a Maryland grad.

Mentat: 7) Scream obscenities at Gonzaga for farking my bracket.

Bingo.

Syracuse beats Baylor for championship, Kansas and New Mexico round out the Final Four.

WILD CARD, BIATCHES

I have a brackett buster, it's name is Louisville and they play Kentucky in the Final Four. My other teams are Ohio State and Syracuse.

Yanks_RSJ: It's a lock that a #1 or #2 will win the tourney, nobody below that line is any good. I hate picking "chalk" too, but it's impossible to see any of the 3's or 4's doing anything, and I'm a Maryland grad.

Well in '08 of course we had four 1's in the Final Four, and last year two 1's, a 2 and a 3, so it seems like perhaps the worm is turning back to the "power programs", from the days when you could always expect a 4 or a 5 at least to make the Final Four. Even in '07, Oregon was the lowest seed to make the Elite 8 at a 3, and since '06, George Mason ('06), LSU ('06), and Davidson ('08) are the only teams below a 3 to make an Elite 8. Compare that to '05 when there was a 4 (Louisville), a 7 (West Virginia), a 6 (Wisconsin), and a 5 (Kentucky), and '04 when there was a 4 (Kansas), a 7 (Xavier), and an 8 (Alabama). '03 was close to "chalk" with only a 7, but '02 was semi-wild, that being the year of 12 Mizzou and 10 Kent State. And now I'm going to stop before I end up breaking down 10 years of tourney history, but the point being, yeah, it doesn't feel right, but it probably is.

I don't care if Duke has the easiest region, they ain't going past Round of 32.

/because they suck
//I have the Terps surviving their region

so quick question. espn allows you to have 10 brackets, is the fark league allowing just one?

jayhawk88: Well in '08 of course we had four 1's in the Final Four, and last year two 1's, a 2 and a 3, so it seems like perhaps the worm is turning back to the "power programs", from the days when you could always expect a 4 or a 5 at least to make the Final Four. Even in '07, Oregon was the lowest seed to make the Elite 8 at a 3, and since '06, George Mason ('06), LSU ('06), and Davidson ('08) are the only teams below a 3 to make an Elite 8. Compare that to '05 when there was a 4 (Louisville), a 7 (West Virginia), a 6 (Wisconsin), and a 5 (Kentucky), and '04 when there was a 4 (Kansas), a 7 (Xavier), and an 8 (Alabama). '03 was close to "chalk" with only a 7, but '02 was semi-wild, that being the year of 12 Mizzou and 10 Kent State. And now I'm going to stop before I end up breaking down 10 years of tourney history, but the point being, yeah, it doesn't feel right, but it probably is.

NBA minimum age requirement began in 2006.

LadyBinky: I don't care if Duke has the easiest region, they ain't going past Round of 32.

/because they suck
//I have the Terps surviving their region

Really? Based on what? Their road/neutral court record is pretty unimpressive.

I hope you're right, but Vasquez can shoot them into or out of any game, which isn't really a good recipe against a good defensive team like Michigan State in the 2nd round.

I'm having difficulty deciding who'll win between OK St. and GA Tech. However, I have decided that either one of them will upset Ohio St. in the 2nd round.

I'm in, let's see if I can get an even lower score than last year.

Yanks_RSJ: NBA minimum age requirement began in 2006.

I suppose there's something to that. Players good enough to go straight to the NBA are more likely to sign with a big name program, and even one of those guys is enough to swing the difference between a 1 or 2 playing, say, a 5 or 6. If I had time I'd go look at the percentage of top 3 seeds making the Elite 8 in like the 70's and 80's, back when you'd get 3 years out of a kid minimum, I bet you it would run that way as well.

New Mexico will be the highest seed out in the first round.