Bucky Survives
Warlock treats us to a paradox
For the second day in a row, Ryan Drengler (Badger Fever) is atop the standings. He went 13 for 16 on the day and got big wins from Illinois and Marquette to keep a precarious one point lead. His big upset pick tomorrow is Cincinnati over UConn. He’s one of only eight players with Cincinnati. If they win, he could pull away from the field. However, there is one chink in his armor: at least three players in contention—ChiTriathlete, Tournament Challenged, and BrutalBrutis—all have Richmond winning tomorrow. A win by the Spiders would be enough for any of them to overtake Badger.
Eric Sturgeon (Bone) and Van Miller are tied for second place. Bone only missed one game—Georgetown—and moved up 13 places. He’s been in this position before: in 2009 he placed second overall (Blizzard T. Husky beat him by one point), and last year he went 15 for 16 on Day Two and looked to be in control of the tournament before Northern Iowa upset Kansas and dashed his hopes.
Van went 14 for 16 and narrowly missed taking over the lead when Memphis couldn’t hold its lead over Arizona. Van’s average place over the last six years is 42.3, so he’s due for a good year—but so are travis (Travis Rogers) and ChiTriathlete (Adam Dickens), who are currently in 4th and 5th place, respectively. Of the 29 players who have competed at least five of the last six years (Van, Travis, and Adam have played all six), Van’s average place ranks him 27th, Adam’s average place of 47.5 ranks him 28th, and Travis’s average place of 54.8 ranks him 29th. So if you want to root for some underdogs, root for these guys.
A couple new players in the top 10 are Izzard and Probable Winner. Izzard (Valerie Corwin), who named herself after her Boston Terrier puppy, Izzy, scampered up 34 places to 6th. She only missed one game today and has 15 of her Sweet 16 teams still alive. Probable Winner (Garrett Davey) also only missed one game and climbed an impressive 46 spots to 8th.
Rabbit (Justin Thompson) had moved up 38 places early in the day before going over 0-4 in the late games and crashing back down to one place behind his Day One finish. He’s starting a new web site, TallUnited.com, but first needs to decide on a logo. Help him out by voting for your favorite at http://bit.ly/gRsvce.
Finally, congrats to Warlock (Alex George) who performed a bit of magic by climbing one spot in the standings yet remaining in last place.