KB Will Not Admit Defeat

‘Rise of Bucephalus’ can’t contain surging Turd

Father-Daughter Battle at Bottom of Standings

Rookie player KB (Katy Buoscio), a college admissions counselor, displaced Jeffrey T as the Challenge leader Friday night. Jeffrey T still led after Thursday’s games, but once Michigan State lost it was only a matter of time until someone knocked him off the hill. KB has been steadily moving up the ranks the past few days. She correctly picked 12 of 16 Sweet 16 teams and six of eight Elite 8 teams. No doubt cajoled into the tourney by officemate Buzzard Beater (Brandon Christol), she now has a shot at taunting him with the Grand Prize t-shirt every casual Friday (though I would say the Grand Prize is acceptable formal wear).

Cal’s Vacated 2012 Title (Emperor Ben DeHaan) and Piotr Dabrowski are only two points behind KB. DeHaan is a Hope College alum, and he is no doubt bitter over the fact that Illinois Wesleyan University, KB and Dabrowski’s alma mater, thrashed #1 ranked Hope in the men’s Division III tournament earlier this year.

The key game is Saturday’s Louisville-Florida matchup. DeHaan, Dabrowski, Badger Hoopla (Blake Roter), Beast (Don Tepsa), luvson (Amy Boven), and weavo (Lucas Weavo) all have Louisville, while Turd Furguson (Lee Schmidgall) is the only player with Florida. All seven of these players still have a shot to win it all.

Speaking of Turd Furguson, he delivered a terrible blow to Bucephalus (Tim Corwin) Thursday night. After Bucephalus’s beloved Florida Gators advanced, he was sure he still had a shot to win it all even though Michigan State had lost. After all, he had climbed an impressive 32 spots all the way to 11th place. He triumphantly called it the “Rise of Bucephalus.”

“Miraculously, I can still win,” he texted me.

I told him he shouldn’t get so excited since I had yet to update the Player Scenarios. Turns out, though, he didn’t need the computer report.

“I added in my head,” he said. Extremely impressed that he had hand-counted the scores of all 40 players who also picked Kentucky as the champion, I said no more.

For a couple minutes.

Then I updated the Player Scenarios and noticed Bucephalus could only finish in second place. Wanting to let him down easy, I waited a good three minutes before I sent him a consolatory note.

“Best you can do is first loser,” I said.

His shock was evident in his one word reply: “What?”

It was like his record Jenga tower had just come crashing down only moments after he was sure the rickety structure had stopped wobbling for another turn. Just when he felt it was safe to exhale, the whole thing imploded, leaving him staring in disbelief at the pile of rubble that was once his championship bracket.

“Who can’t I beat?” he said, and so we began the search.

After a few likely suspects were exonerated, Bucephalus had a revelation. “Who has Florida in the Final Four?” he asked.

As if we were panning for gold, one brilliant, dense item refused to be flushed downstream with the rest of the deposit: Turd Furguson.

“Yep, that’s what did it,” Bucephalus said. You see, there was one major flaw in his calculations. He forgot that when one team loses, the other team wins. He knew he could win if Florida and Louisville both lost. The only problem is, they both can’t lose.

Ironically, Florida has to win for Bucephalus to finish second, but if they do, it means he can’t finish first. Such is the drama and the tragedy of the Challenge.

But we shouldn’t give all the attention to the players at the top, for there is no less of a drama happening at the bottom of the standings. The Silver Fox (Maynard Thompson) and his daughter, Liz, are currently in 69th and 70th place, respectively. Since day one it has been a dog fight down there for who will be the least worst. Just when Liz had built a comfortable lead, The Silver Fox cunningly climbed 24 places to snatch it back. It could all come down to the winner of a possible Ohio State – North Carolina matchup. Liz has North Carolina while the Fox has Ohio State.