Four Teams, Three Games

Saturday's and Sunday's games were so fun to watch, probably none more than Louisville versus Duke. As our bracket contest stood, 250 had Louisville advancing, 86 were in favor of Duke. This one game would help shape the results of nearly everyone's brackets. The game lived up to the hype, or at least the hype in my head. Though, the gruesome broken leg injury from Louisville's Kevin Ware, I couldn't have lived without seeing the replay of that. It reminded me of the Joe Theismann leg injury from the 1980's. (Thankfully CBS only played it twice and that was it) Best wishes and a health recovery goes out to Kevin.

The game was very close from the start, Duke and Louisville each were playing to their strengths. Then the nine minute injury timeout occurred and you're not sure how either team will respond, as it had an effect on many players. I will say, thankfully halftime was close so each team was able to regroup their thoughts and get their heads back in the game. During the second half, both teams came out strong, Duke was down, but went on a bit of a surge to tie the game at 42-42. I'm unsure if the coach called a timeout or if it was a TV timeout, but on the other side of that break, Louisville took the remainder of the game over and easily won. Nothing was falling for Duke and they lost by 23 points.

The other three games, the only other one that was sort of close was Wichita State versus Ohio State. Even then, Wichita State controlled the game with Ohio State coming on strong at the end to make it a game, but still fall short. In our bracket contest, only one pick sheet correctly picked this game.

Michigan won by 20 points over Florida, with 30 pick sheets selecting this one. While 23 pick sheets correctly picked Syracuse to defeat Marquette.

We'll pick this back up this coming Saturday with the championship game to play Monday evening.

Down To Eight Teams

Florida Gulf Coast could not repeat the magic from last weekends rounds of games. They started out hot, were ahead 24-14, and all was looking great for them. Then the tied turned and Florida Gators dominated for the remainder of the game, sending the virtually unknown school home.

We lost another #1 seed with Michigan, who appeared to be on their way to a loss. They found a way to string some points together and mount a comeback to tie the game with under 10 seconds and knock Kansas out of the tournament. Which, oddly enough, was the first overtime game of the tournament.

Stats From Our Bracket Contest

One pick sheet correctly picked 6 of 8 teams. Ryne with 108 points, who incidentally is tops on our current standings.

31 pick sheets correctly picked 5 of 8 teams correct.
351 picked Louisville to win
210 picked Duke
2 picked Wichita St
248 picked Ohio St
70 picked Michigan
191 picked Florida
53 picked Syracuse
54 picked Marquette

Upcoming Tournament Games - all times Eastern

Saturday
4:30 - #3 Marquette vs #4 Syracuse
7:05 - #2 Ohio St vs #9 Wichita St

Sunday
2:20 - #3 Florida vs #4 Michigan
5:05 - #1 Louisville vs #2 Duke

Round Three Is Here

There are four games on the docket for Thursday evening.

EAST: #2 Miami (FL) vs Marquette #3
EAST: #1 Indiana vs Syracuse #4
WEST: #2 Ohio St vs Arizona #6
WEST: #9 Wichita St vs La Salle #13

Round Two Is Over

Four straight days of intense tournament basketball games is finally over. And yes, like I say every year, this is the best weekend of basketball of the year.

Florida Gulf Coast looks really good. First #15 seed to advance to the field of 16 in tournament history by taking out #2 Georgetown and #7 San Diego State. Hopefully you were able to see this team play, they put out a tremendous effort and rightfully won their first two tournament games in their history. They'll face #3 seed Florida Gators next. Florida vs Florida GC. Can't wait. So how many pick sheets had FGCU winning in the second round, only two. Nicely done.

I've looked at quite a few of the pick sheets and the one section that we all struggled with was the West. All that remains is the 2, 6, 9, & 13 seed. Not surprising this bracket has the most red colored team names.

With the second round completed now, Bill Jervis holds a 2 point lead with 86 points. We have two more weekends of games yet to go, but this is a good position to be in.

Check the current standings page to see where you stand.

Round One Has Completed

Round one has completed and three pick sheets have lost their championship team already, ouch!

What a difference between the two days of games. Thursday's games pretty much finished like they should have, couple mild upsets. Friday on the other hand was insane. Hats off to the 95 of you who selected Ole Miss over Wisconsin, I didn't see that one coming. Georgetown losing to Florida Gulf Coast, surprisingly 5 of you picked that one right, how?

Our tournament standings after round one was 25 correctly picked games out of 32. This was done by fourteen pick sheets. Eighteen pick sheets correctly picked 24 games and it tapers off from there.

Friday evening I was able to watch many of the evening games with friends. The early batch of games at a co-workers going away party, followed by the late games with a half dozen or so friends. We had two screens setup, one for the Minnesota game and the other for the Iowa St game. I know, Iowa State. While watching the games, we were talking about how long CBS has had the rights to broadcast the games. None of us could recall a time when the games were not on CBS. So, I did a bit of research and discovered that they've obtained the rights way back in 1982 from NBC, who had aired it since 1969. My quota of useless information is completed.

College Basketball on CBS. (2013, March 16). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18:45, March 23, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_Basketball_on_CBS

2013 Office Pool Contest Is Live

Deadline: Tip-Off, March 19 @ 12:30 PM [EST]
Entry Fee: $0.00

Enter Your Picks Here

Make sure you hit the SUBMIT PICKS button at the bottom of the page or your picks will not be entered into the pool.

NOTE: When entering multiple times, please place a number after your name to make it unique [or it will over write you last submitted picks] For example: Timmy 1, Timmy 2, Timmy 3

2013 Tournament Office Pool Brackets
Blank Bracket
Printable Bracket

2013 Tournament Dates

Pre-Tournament Events
March 17 - Selection Sunday @ 5:00 CST on CBS

First Week Of Games
March 19-20: 4 Play-In Games
March 21-22: Round One Games
March 23-24: Round Two Games

Second Weekend Of Games
March 28-29: Round Three Games
March 30-31: Round Four Games

Final Weekend Of Games
April 6: Round Five, Semi-Finals
April 8: Round Six, Championship Game

NCAA Division I Men's Tournament Dates (2013). Retrieved from http://www.ncaa.com/sports/basketball-men/d1

Automatic Bids - Conference Tournament

Conference	Winner [record]
ACC	Miami Hurricanes [27-6]
American East	Albany Grate Danes [24-10]
Atlantic Sun	Florida Gulf Coast Eagles [24-10]
Atlantic 10	Saint Louis Billikens [27-6]
Big East	Louisville Cardinals [29-5]
Big Sky	Montana Grizzlies [25-6]
Big South	Liberty Flames [15-20]
Big Ten	Ohio State Buckeyes [26-7]
Big 12	Kansas Jayhawks [29-5]
Big West	Pacific Tigers [22-12]
Colonial	James Madison Dukes [20-14]
Conference USA	Memphis Tigers [30-4]
Horizon	Valparaiso Crusaders [26-7]
Ivy League	Harvard Crimson [19-9]
MAAC	Iona Gaels [20-13]
MAC	Akron Zips [26-6]
MEAC	North Carloina A&T Aggies [19-16]
Missouri Valley	Creighton Bluejays [27-7]
Mountain West	New Mexico Lobos [29-5]
Northeast	LIU-Brooklyn Blackbirds [20-13]
Ohio Valley	Belmont Bruins [26-6]
Pac-12	Oregon Ducks [26-8]
Patriot	Bucknell Bison [28-5]
SEC	Ole Miss Rebels [26-8]
Southern	Davidson Wildcats [26-7]
Southland	Northwestern State Demons [23-8]
Summit	South Dakota State Jackrabbits [25-9]
Sun Belt	Western Kentucky Hilltoppers [20-15]
SWAC	Southern Jaguars [23-9]
WAC	New Mexico State Aggies [24-10]
West Coast	Gonzaga Bulldogs [31-2]