Friday, March 17, 2006

Bracket-nomics Day 1

In the first day of the NCAA tournament, my head predicted the winners accurately 69% of the time. My heart predicted the winners accurately 75% of the time; meanwhile, my sister finished the first day with an 81% accuracy--and she picked based on which teams had the shortest names to write so she could finish filling out her bracket quicker. Go figure.

The most devastating blows to my "Head" bracket was the Syracuse loss in the first round. I had them going to the final four. In my "Heart" bracket the Wisconsin, Arkansas, and Syracuse losses will be hurting me clear through to the final. What can I say, I had Syracuse meeting Illinois in the final. I said it was my HEART bracket, remember? Hearts don't have to make sense.

Yesterday was the wierdest first day of competition that I can remember. It's not just the Oklahoma or Syracuse upsets. It was all the games where you really couldn't tell who would prevail until the very last second. I was pretty fearful for Gonzaga I don't mind admitting.

No basketball blog of mine is complete without a comment regarding Illinois. I know Illinois will have a tough row to hoe in the tournament. But seriously, one of the commentators said in the first half when the score was close--"Air Force has the look in their eye that says they think they're going to win this." Now I'll conceded that Air Force had made a run and just hit several threes and they looked like they could compete with Illinois for a few minutes. But that run of good luck was a long way from half time, let alone the final buzzer. So, was the commentator misunderestimating Illinois? or just hoping for upset because its a better story? Do sports commentators go to sport commentator school? Because they should. Sometimes they say the dorkiest things forcing me to actually mute the tv and watch the game in blessed silence.

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