Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge!

[eagle eye]

Unless you're living under a rock you have to have heard about the Yahoo/Quicken Loans $1 bracket challenge. It's no joke. If you pick a perfect bracket from start to the eventual national champion you will win (best Dr Evil Voice) One BILLLLLLION Dollars! A consolation prize is 100 grand for the top 20 non perfect brackets and it don't cost squat to enter! Well not squat, you are also entering your name to receive emails from Quicken Loans but you can opt out of that any time. The contest is limited to the first 15 million entrants and need to be by tip off of the first game on Thursday. Needless to say, I'm in.

[eagle eye]

How many people are crying because they lost out on their chance for the big money with absolutely stunning upsets in today's opening round games. Dayton (11) edged out Ohio St (6), Harvard (12) upsetting Cincinnati (5) and now Oklahoma (5) has lost to North Dakota State (12). The biggest monkey wrench of all came within a whisker this afternoon when tiny little Albany (16) threw a huge scare into #1 Florida before the Seminoles pulled out a 67-55 win and believe me if a twelve point win can be called "eeked" this was it. My own bracket is down three wins right here.

[eagle eye]

As of yesterday morning after the first round games on ESPN's tournament challenge out of 11,000,000 entries there were only 18,000 entries still perfect. Wow.

[eagle eye]

This weekend has been brutal on my bracket. My favorite college team besides Lamar is Duke. I'm a big Coach K fan. Well, I don't have to wonder if they'll make the sweet sixteen or the elite eight because they got their legs cut out from under them on Friday losing to another small school who have found NCAA success this week, Mercer who was a 14 seed. I have to look up where the heck Mercer is! (It's a college of about 8,300 students located in Macon, Georgia-go Battlin Bears!) Mercer started 5 seniors against the Blue Devils and the stategy according to Bears head coach Bob Hoffman was to force Duke to beat them with outside jump shots and take away everything else. Duke is a team that lives and dies by the 3 point shot so, on Friday night it was a spot-on strategy. BTW previous head coaching stops for Hoffman were Oklahoma Baptist University and UT-Pan American. Right now Mercer is deep in the first half against a Tennessee team that upset UMass Friday night. So far it's Tenn 26 Mercer 18.

[LAZEEK]

How many people are crying because they lost out on their chance for the big money with absolutely stunning upsets in today's opening round games. Dayton (11) edged out Ohio St (6), Harvard (12) upsetting Cincinnati (5) and now Oklahoma (5) has lost to North Dakota State (12). The biggest monkey wrench of all came within a whisker this afternoon when tiny little Albany (16) threw a huge scare into #1 Florida before the Seminoles pulled out a 67-55 win and believe me if a twelve point win can be called "eeked" this was it. My own bracket is down three wins right here.

 

Seminoles? ::) ::) How about the Gators!!!

[eagle eye]

How many people are crying because they lost out on their chance for the big money with absolutely stunning upsets in today's opening round games. Dayton (11) edged out Ohio St (6), Harvard (12) upsetting Cincinnati (5) and now Oklahoma (5) has lost to North Dakota State (12). The biggest monkey wrench of all came within a whisker this afternoon when tiny little Albany (16) threw a huge scare into #1 Florida before the Seminoles pulled out a 67-55 win and believe me if a twelve point win can be called "eeked" this was it. My own bracket is down three wins right here.

 

Seminoles? ::) ::) How about the Gators!!!

 

Ha! right state wrong school! Yes, I meant Gators.

[eagle eye]

Folks waved bye-bye to the billion dollars two weeks ago but it's still be a good tournament. Now the Final Four is set and it will be in north Texas and the building the local Dallas sports media call The Death Star. That, of course is AT&T Stadium home of the Cowboys. Some people refer to it as "Jerry's World" others less kind. Regardless, it's for events like this that Jerry Jones built maybe the greatest event center in the world.

I'm sure Jerry is ecstatic over the last four teams that will be playing for the national championship next week.

 

Florida vs UConn

Wisconsin vs Kentucky

 

Florida is the only 1 seed left in the tourney with Wisconsin next as 2 seed. Kentucky is an 8 seed and it's probably due to the fact that a LOT of people think Kentucky was not seeded correctly and they were put in the Midwest Region that was nicknamed the Region of Death because it such a brutally difficult bracket that many claimed was set up the way it was to stop Wichita State who was unbeaten going into the big dance. Wichita State, Duke, Louisville and Michigan all were in the Midwest and are no longer in the running. People were lamenting the fact Louisville was a 4 seed but Kentucky is the real mistake. All that said It's a really nice bracket that's left with UConn rounding out the Final Four as a seven seed making it to Dallas.

My bracket is toast with only Florida remaining in my bracket. I did pick the Gators to win it all so at least I've got that going for me.

 

 

 

 

 

[eagle eye]

With the upset win by UConn over Florida my 2014 NCAA bracket is now fodder for the trash can. Both finalists, UConn and Kentucky were nowhere to be seen as contenders in this year's tournament but here they are. Both seemed to peak at just the right time and if Kentucky wins, or not, the discussion about how good John Calipari is about manipulating the one-and-done rule and fielding the best set of freshmen since the Fab Five way back in 1991 that featured Juwan Howard, Jalen Rose and Chris Webber will commence. How will this five man electrical band of brothers fare as NBA players? Only time will tell. You got to give Calipari credit, he does do a good job of recruiting but so does UConn's Kevin Ollie who took over after Jim Calhoune retired. The last two champs were Louisville and Kentucky but the team before them was UConn under Calhoune in 2011. You want to talk killer basketball programs you'd better not leave out UConn. The Huskies always seems to be right in the thick of things come tournament time. Should be a good game with Calipari haters all in on UConn.

[eagle eye]

The 2014 NCAA men's basketball champion has been crowned and it certainly wasn't an expected outcome based on the regular season. Heck even the finalists was considered an afterthoughts going in. So, UConn is the big dog on the block. The sports talk shows have been pointing out all day that the Huskies have 4 national championships in the last 16 years and no other school has more than 2. That's darn near a dynasty in college hoops. In the post game press conference the media was already asking John Calipari of Kentucky if he was taking the Knicks coaching job he was rumored to be offered. Sheesh. UConn is the best team and Calipari is the best one-and-done coach. UConn is the highest seed to ever win the NCAA tournament and if it wasn't UConn then Kentucky would have been the highest seed. UConn never trailed and Kentucky's late mojo was broken by the veteran UConn squad. Good game vs two surprise finalists. To say a small conference school can't win just don't tell American Athletic Conference rep UConn or they may take issue with that. Tonight the women's team faces Notre Dame's women in the Women's NCAA finals. Both schools unbeaten and untied. Should be a good game. If UConn wins it will be the second time in the last 4 years both the men's and women's teams have won it all. Not only that it's the only times the men's and women's teams from the same school has won it all---ever. Rebecca Lobo won a national championship with UConn and she had a nice career in the WNBA. I wonder if, since she's 6'4", she likes her guys a little shorter than her?.....................

[KABrother88]

Villanova was an 8 seed when they beat Georgetown in the 1985 final...UCONN was the first 7 seed to win however

[eagle eye]

This thread is over now. The UConn Lady Huskies kicked the living crap out of the Notre Dame women for a UConn sweep of the NCAA basketball championships. Aren't we all a little jealous? Hopefully, Tic Price will be our Jim Calhoune and turn the program around here at Lamar. I will be rooting for Coach Price and Coach Harmony next season.

[Guest boomer]

very strong pick for the Gmen would have rather seen Odel go out of conference.

[Guest boomer]

i would love to see the Cowboys get louis Nix to eat up blocks on the Dline.