HotRod Gasses To Front

Mamas Mia

To A Horse

HotRod (Rodney Dawson), who has been near the top of the leaderboard all tournament, kept the pedal to the metal Saturday and finally earned the top spot.

Dawson did not miss a single game, winning all eight. But although he’s in the driver’s seat for now, he’s left some room in his bracket for others to catch up.

Sunday’s last two games, Ohio State/Houston and UC Irvine/Oregon, are both games HotRod has already lost. He’ll need to build his lead early if he wants to stay ahead of the pack. Detective Peralta is still in hot pursuit in second place and has Oregon and Houston advancing to the Sweet 16.

While HotRod was burning rubber, two wonderful women, outstanding in every possible way, battled toe-to-toe throughout the day Saturday.

I’m talking about MAMA (Leta Corwin) and her stunningly gorgeous daughter-in-law, The Majestic Mama (Valerie Corwin). Both fearsome mamas won the day’s first seven games, steadily ascending the leaderboard.

Kansas vs. Auburn was the deciding game between the two. One would end the day perfect. The other would also end the day perfect but with seven wins instead of eight. All-caps-all-the-time MAMA had Kansas. The Majestic Mama had Auburn.

Auburn won. By a lot.

As a result, MAMA has to settle for 12th place and The Majestic Mama claims third.

Now in her 15th wonderful year, The Majestic Mama’s best finish is 11th place in 2011, and she’s placed in the top 20 four times. Of course, as smart, beautiful, and accomplished as she is, a Chippens title is inevitable.

Will Her Majesty take the crown this year? She’s the only player with a Houston-Buffalo matchup in the championship game, so as long as those two teams keep winning, Her Majesty will reign.

The Kansas loss boosted Her Majesty but deflated a lot of other players, perhaps Bucephalus most of all.

Bucephalus was sure that Kansas, playing in front of a home crowd in Kansas City next weekend, would knock off the region’s #1 seed, North Carolina. He is—sorry, he was—one of only six players with Kansas in the Elite 8.

“I plan on sitting back this tournament until I make my big move in the Sweet 16,” he said Thursday afternoon.

“Going to be a lot of tears when the Jayhawks take down the Tar Heels next week,” he said on Friday morning.

“Kansas officially worse choke artists than Purdue,” he said about 10 minutes into the game Saturday night.

To Bucephalus I say:

But, Och! I backward cast my e’e.

On prospects drear!

An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,

I guess an’ fear!