Day
Three Recap & Day Four Preview
They say the excrement always
rises. That is what they say,
right? Anyway, like a scene out of Caddyshack,Excremental (Jeff VanDellen)
currently finds himself floating at the top of the pool. He rose 21
places in
the standings yesterday, helped by his upset pick of Washington over New
Mexico.
However, Excremental may soon sink to the bottom because he has Kansas beating Villanova in the finals. As you know, both teams were upset yesterday.
Bone also has Kansas going all the way, but for the time being he is in second place. Tara Peterson (Pete’s Picks), who just this year learned what the seeding numbers mean, is in third place, and Myszka (Myszka) is still holding strong in fourth.
Myszka is the top-ranked player who does not have Kansas as the champion. In the top 12 places, WHAC (Angela Penney), Double a-ron (AaronAtchison), Wang (Wally Waltz, III), Jeffrey T (Jeff Marlin), Mkizzle (Mary Kate Gergel), and Stumper all have a team other than Kansas winning it all.
Of those players, though, only Jeffrey T has Kansas getting upset early. He has Michigan State advancing all the way to the championship.
Besides Myszka and Jeffrey T, be on the lookout forpolar bear (Loren DeHaan). DeHaan also had Kansas bowing out early. He is currently hibernating in 18th place, but he still has six of eight Elite Eight teams alive and all of his Final Four. He has a team left in each of today’s games, so you could see him make a big move today. However, I will note that because polar bear is a big Michigan fan, any success will be bitter-sweet because he’ll have to root for Ohio State to make a big run.
While Kansas’s loss was a setback to many, it also gives new life to many who were low in the standings (except for Colonel Sanders, who sent me an e-mail last night saying, “The Colonel is fried”). Every game now takes on added importance. A lot of today’s games have about a dozen players on one side and three or four dozen on the other. Upsets will be huge today, especially Michigan State/Maryland,Gonzaga/Syracuse, and Cornell/Wisconsin. One game that is evenly split is Texas A&M/Purdue. Twenty-nine players have TAM and 30 have Purdue.
For Big Momma (Faith Lambrecht), the biggest game of the day is Duke/California. She is the only player who picked the Golden Bears.
If you are one of the 37 players that had Kansas winning it all, do not despair yet. In 2006, no one in the entire pool picked the right champion. After tonight’s games I will post the Player Scenarios report, which will tell you your best and worst possible finish, as well as tell you which teams to root for.