March Madness 2009

[Grey Fox]

Barack-etology
http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=3992869

What a gutless bracket! I've given him the benefit of the doubt until now, but this seals it. I hereby withdraw my support.

It's not about guts, it's about how hot their cheeleaders are.

[jimmy olsen]

Cleveland St. beat Wake!  ???

[Benedict Arnold]

Suck it Ed Anger/Monkeybutt/Cindy Brady!

[Ed Anger]

Suck it Ed Anger/Monkeybutt/Cindy Brady!

What am I supposed to suck? If it is over the Ohio State University losing, meh. I follow Wright State basketball son, and have since Bobby knight was unfairly demonized and fired in Indiana.

You people really need to pay attention to who I like in each sport.

[PDH]

Brackets busted, teams losing, need to eat my way back to mental health...

I am thinking of deep-fried twinkies.

[Grey Fox]

How in the world is UCLA, East?

[grumbler]

How in the world is UCLA, East?

It isn't.  It is in California.

The brackets, and thus where the games are played, isn't based on where the schools are located.

[Grey Fox]

So this is no different then football & makes no damn sense.

[grumbler]

So this is no different then football & makes no damn sense.

I have no idea what the first phrase means (there is no tournament in NCAA Div 1A football) and the placement of teams in divisions makes perfect sense, given the desire to avoid rematches of conference games.  The Big East, for instance, produced three of the top four teams in the tourney.   If you were to arbitrarily assign them all to the East Region, then they would be ranked 1-3 there (and less deserving teams would get a #1 ranking in the other regions) and the battles between them would be repeats of games they had recently played.

Teams are seeded by how well they perform, opponents beaten, styrength of schedule, and whatnot, and then the highest seeds get the most desriable berths, working down until the #64 team plays the top-seeded team.  By definition, this cannot work unless you ignore the physical locations of the schools 9except to give the better-seeded team a berth closer to home when possible, like North Carolina getting the #1 seed in the South rather than, say, the West).  The idea is to make the games get increasingly more competitive and exciting, so they don't want two of the best (perceived) four teams eliminated until the Final Four - which they would have if they were to "make sense" in the GF universe. 

[Grey Fox]

Okay, it makes more sense then the BCS.

Why is it named East/West/Midwest/South, if it has nothing to do with that?

[grumbler]

Okay, it makes more sense then the BCS. 

Anything makes mjore sense than the BCS! 

Why is it named East/West/Midwest/South, if it has nothing to do with that?

That is where the games are played.

Midwest Regional – Indianapolis, Indiana
West Regional - Glendale, Arizona
East Regional – Boston, Massachusetts
South Regional – Memphis, Tennessee

The Final Four will be in Detroit, if the city is still standing by then.

[Benedict Arnold]

This year's games are actually taking place at the following locations Grumbler:

Greensboro, NC (Greensboro Coliseum)
Kansas City, MO (Sprint Center)
Philadelphia, PA (Wachovia Center)
Portland, OR (Rose Garden)

[PDH]

Everybody knows that the four regions are, in reality:

The East
The East
The Kinda East
The Eastern teams that have to go west to play

[grumbler]

This year's games are actually taking place at the following locations Grumbler:

Greensboro, NC (Greensboro Coliseum)
Kansas City, MO (Sprint Center)
Philadelphia, PA (Wachovia Center)
Portland, OR (Rose Garden)

Nope, those are just the first and second rounds.  The regionals take place at the cities I mentioned.

[jimmy olsen]

I fear the Timmay effect is alive and well. When I entered the local sports bar yesterday, Pitt was only up 3 with 3 minutes left. Upon my arrival however, Pitt quickly pulled ahead.