Backtime remembers March 14 in Oklahoma City. Missouri handled Baylor easily (as I had correctly predicted) for the Big 12 Championship. Over a few postgame pints, I was feeling my oats and I threw out a few prognostications to several somewhat lucid colleagues:>UConn (not Memphis) would get the 4th #1 seed.
>Syracuse would vault to a #3 based on their Big East performance.
>Tiger Woods would rally from the middle of the pack to a tie for 9th at Doral.
By 7 PM Sunday, all three were on the money. Tiger actually finished with a T-9 even though my point was he’d rally to crack the top 10.
At 8 PM Sunday, I filled out my bracket and posted it.
By 8 PM the following Sunday, Backtime’s bracket was #308 out of #308 in the network pool. Now that’s embarrassing.
I picked a few early upsets and missed on practically all of them, so the points deficit is likely insurmountable. But with 8 teams remaining, we’ve got 7 of them, along with only 7% of the entries.
The one I missed is Sparty. You’d think the years I lived in Michigan and all the trips to the Breslin Center would have tipped me off.
Michigan State looks better right now than my pick, Pitt. Are the Panthers now battle-tested or just lucky? Anytime you've got high-quality guys like Blair and Fields, and you've got a great shot.
My other finalists, the Missouri Tigers, clearly are not just lucky and have a great chance against Connecticut. Their defense focuses first on “shutting off the water…” which translates to the opponents’ lifeline. Once they have successfully flustered AJ Price, everything else will fall like dominoes.
Oh yeah…Tiger Woods will rally to take Bay Hill this weekend.
Oh yeah…Tiger Woods will rally to take Bay Hill this weekend.
My final four is L'Ville, Pitt, Memphis, and UNC. Obviously, the bottom left of my bracket is done. I'm concerned about Pitt. They've been lollygagging around scaring people to death. Could be Villanova smokes them tonight.
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