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Notre Dame really fell apart last night. But strangely, I was pretty much thoroughly impressed with their otherwise extremely disciplined game. Sometimes shots don't fall... I couldn't see any other reason they lost. Sure, Hansbrough took too a few bad jumpers, but at least he's not afraid of the moment. As of right now, I'm still convinced Notre Dame is worth believing in. Louisville will have to prove themselves to me against UConn.

And speaking of UConn, can Kemba Walker be any more amazing? Still, I get really afraid of teams that start to peak during their conference tournaments... especially in the Big East (think 2006 Syracuse here).

Neal, any thoughts in the total destruction of Purdue? I didn't get to watch the game, so the box score could only tell me so much. And by so much I mean "complete punishment."

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I find your lack of faith disturbing...

Quote (Kappa the Imp @ 12th March 2011 07:44)

Neal, any thoughts in the total destruction of Purdue? I didn't get to watch the game, so the box score could only tell me so much. And by so much I mean "complete punishment."

The game started at 6:30 last night...the exact time my flight started to board. When I got off the plane I saw the final score and was just disgusted. They could've responded to the disgusting Iowa loss, but apparently we're just giving up on the season now. We're probably a 4 seed at this point (but at least Wisconsin will be lower).

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

The brackets will be filled this evening, though I'm not 100% sure when. It seems like the actual selections will be from 6 to 7pm Eastern time tonight, which means that you can probably begin making your picks at Yahoo just after that.

Picks still need to be in by noon Eastern on Thursday, just like every year. Don't wait for Thursday morning to get started, though, as Yahoo historically has a bit of trouble keeping up with the last minute traffic rush Thursday morning.

We've only got 22 people in right now, which is honestly a bit sad. I know that some long-time players might not be around any more, but is there really absolutely nobody who's joined in the last year (except World Champion) who likes basketball? Develop some new interests, people.

Here's who we have so far:

Ravenous Ravenous Rhinos - R51
Pop POP - Neal
Potential For Anything - footbigmike
Ancient scrolls unearthed - MeHael
Mr. Flores looks at me funny - Kappa
Xenon's gonna suck again - Quad
LOL Maryland Pt. 3 LOL Hoyas? - Super_Moogle
SkeletonHarvesters - Del S
DP's Ps of D - Death Penalty
Michael Jordan's Bracket - FallingHeart
SD's STDs - sweetdude
Tidu's Triumphant Turtles - Tidu-Who
Lazzie Balboa - Laszlow
You Sunk My Bracket-ship! - Sabin
My name is not Gabe Kansas. - Gabe
Stuart Scott's Eye - World Champion
Go Green as usual - Olly
Galatic Amaru - Dragon Fire
Awesome sauce - Fadien
Bruce Pearl's House Party - Gears
Patrick Warburton's Facepaint - Kane
528491 - GamblingCat
Shamondlatron9000 - Relm
Bigmoney - Anh
Cajun Commando - Nytecrawla
Kawhi Leonard is a BOSS - Baralai
The Theme from A Summer Place - Tiddles
Our Team Name Doesn't Isnt fit - Clock Doc
So easy a caveman can do it. - SSJ_Cloud

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 17th March 2011 14:11

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN? Or perhaps buying a really good looking shirt?

Selection Sunday is here!! I'm pretty excited... feel like it's going to be a really good tournament in general (high quality basketball, upset potential, big-time players).

Maryland has 0% chance of making the field so... already a big heartbreak there. But from a bracket perspective, that helps me make less stupid, illogical homer choices, I guess. I am considerably worried that I won't have much time to look at the bracket beyond Wednesday night/Thursday morning, though.

Edit

AHH! Okay... gut reactions...

East has a serious bracket. GMU/Nova is a great matchup. UNC, Cuse, and Kentucky are all legit 2, 3, 4 seeds (although maybe not exactly in that order). Xavier/Marquette is another great game.

Duke loves their draw right now. Texas is a good team, but the Longhorns always suck in March. UConn doesn't look like they'll have the steam to go the distance, and even in the second round Cincy/Mizzou are both decent teams. And no, SDSU's routing of BYU has not convinced me of anything.

Southwest is secretly the tough road, imo. Kansas is a legit 1 seed and Notre Dame plays some great basketball (although not maybe not F4 level...). Louisville's got a lot of heart, and Pitino really knows how to get to the E8. Georgetown is wishy washy and Vanderbilt is a travesty. How do you feel about Illinois, Josh? Purdue, Neal?

Southeast is a JOKE. Can it be any easier for Pitt? They need it too... I refuse to accept them as legitimate contenders. Florida has no business being a 2 seed. The real storyline here is the middle seeds... Butler, St. Johns, KSU, Wisconsin... all dangerous dark horses, all in danger of upset special.

Oh man. Every year I think I'm ready for it and every year the bracket blows my mind.

This post has been edited by Kappa the Imp on 13th March 2011 23:00

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I find your lack of faith disturbing...

I am very angry with the brackets as is Dicky V. There is no way Notre Dame should be a 2 seed when Pitt is a 1. Hello? Pitt got beat by ND at home and they lost in their very first game in the Big East Tournament to an average team. Sure, Notre Dame lost in the semis, but they lost to a very talented Louisville team which has an incredible defense. Plus, UAB? VCU? Did they even win a game against a top-100 team? I laughed when Florida was picked as a 2 seed too.

Either way, I hope for a Duke vs. Notre Dame championship game (though I am not crazy enough to pick that on my bracket). Can you even imagine the kind of insane shootout that would be?

I agree with Kappa that Pitt got extremely lucky. At 2 Florida is the definition of overrated and 3 seed BYU is not the same without their big man Davies. After that Wisconsin can be really hot or really cold so you never know with them. I think the only team that can challenge in the Southeast is, with the way they finished out the season, K State. Fear the beard.

On a side note, Down With Sullinger!

Well I just went ahead and put them down mostly on gut and with little research. The first round should be ok, the second round could kill my bracket, the third round will kill my bracket, then hopefully I'll just ride the champion all the rest of the way.

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

When your alma mater's team is having as terrible a basketball year as mine did, what do you do? Gloat over your rival being snubbed AGAIN and their coach bitching and moaning about it AGAIN.

I won't set up my bracket for another day or two, but let me say a few words....

I'm disappointed that the ACC has so few teams in, maybe a little embarrassed as well because I'm a terribly annoying ACC homer, but I won't get too passionate arguing about it. It was a weak year in general for the ACC - with Kyrie Irving injured there wasn't even a real championship-caliber dominator. Duke won't repeat.

Kemba Walker terrifies me. 5 wins in 5 days, 3 of them against better teams than his own. Much more worried about Walker than about Jimmer. I'm taking UConn much further than my brain wants it to.

I feel that Ohio State is the most complete team in the tournament. They have depth, experience, and a REAL scary one-and-done. I'm not an OSU fan, but I will probably have them winning it all in my bracket....

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Ohio State looks pretty good, obviously, but I've just felt uneasy about them all year. The kind of uneasy I felt about taking Kansas the distance last year (and look where that got everybody).

Not really that phased by the 1 seeds. Pitt is generally overrated so it's no surprise that they get high value again. Since they were pretty much in the conversation for top 5 all year, it makes sense. Notre Dame might have had the look of a No. 1 at one point this season, but I'm not sure if I would totally agree with them being snubbed. They don't have a particularly sensational talent (Ben Hansbrough is, thus far, good but not great) and their primary strength is their discipline. Not something that generally grabs you a top seed.

2-seeds are obviously where some crimes are. Florida nibbled into the top 10 just once... in Week 2. Meanwhile, Kentucky scorches them and earns a 4 seed. Tells you something about what the committee thinks about regular season power conference champs. I think UNC is a bit of a suspect 2 seed as well.

VCU might/is almost definitely the biggest mistake. Terrible record, terrible conference, terrible last third of the season. The new play-in games must have some sort of shameful significance that only the committee knows about. UAB is less of a surprise... conference champs with a bad stumble in their tournament, but let's face it, C-USA is the ultimate guilt conference since Memphis exploded onto the national scene.

Kansas State is a real sexy pick in my eyes. But is Pullen really that good? Maybe... but it's hard to look at their season and say they're stable enough to win against quality teams. They got a rival win at home (Kansas), a so-so home win (Mizzou), and an overrated win (against the faltering Texas) before collapsing to Colorado. Not convinced yet.

Speaking of Colorado... biggest snub ever.

BYU has two ways to go: play to their expectation and (possibly) stumble into the S16 in the absence of their main big man or explode under the radar behind an improbable team rally. Jimmer Freddette is literally the most selfish basketball player I've ever seen. He gives up 4-on-2 fast breaks to take an NBA three. The problem is that he shoots them at 40% and averages 28.5 ppg (and can go off for 40-50 if he's hot). People think he's JJ Redick, but he's more like a beefier Stephen Curry. Dude can score even better than Curry (probably won't have his NBA career though). That being said, I cannot, will not trust Freddette in the moment... he loves to play but he doesn't seem to have the fire. And his team is pretty much average; they only really played 7 deep (including Davies) anyway. Doesn't seem to add up to a deep run in my mind. With Davies, E8 in a heartbeat, F4 with some guts. Without him? Just not sure...

Duke could have/would have repeated if Kyrie Irving didn't get injured. Thank God.

VTech was a snub until you realized that the ACC has been undervalued all season long. I guess people still refuse to see that the ACC plays the best basketball in the country, but that's okay.

Kemba Walker terrifies me... for different reason. UConn is peaking, right now. Or should I say they peaked, just now. It's just a smidge too early for their peak to come since they are otherwise an unstable team. 9-9 in the (overrated) Big East. Walker literally has to put up record-breaking numbers weeks in a row to see the E8/F4. And yet, sometimes I feel like he can...

Coming full circle now to Ohio State. Over 40% 3PT and nearly 50% FG... star talent... it's all pretty convincing. But nothing really out of conference that impresses me and their "depth" only runs about 7 deep. It just takes one bad shooting night or a couple of bullies to push Sullinger around...

Okay, enough for now. I'll be up all night, though. I've banned myself from chat so I don't talk about this without getting any work done, but that hasn't really helped.

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I find your lack of faith disturbing...

I entered I probably made the worst guesses on the planet, but who knows!


I'm Shamondlatron9000 or something ridiculous

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You're telling me that there's no hope.

I'm telling you you're wrong.

Quote (Kappa the Imp @ 13th March 2011 13:51)

Maryland has 0% chance of making the field so... already a big heartbreak there. But from a bracket perspective, that helps me make less stupid, illogical homer choices, I guess.

I think your fear pretty much sums up my entire strategy (or lack thereof). I've never paid much attention to March Madness, save for the occasional close game I somehow catch (and of course, CoNCAA). Going to BYU means I pretty much have to "support the team" (as Mr. Warburton says, so to speak), but I'm quite certain it's going to bite me on the ass--and not in a good way (if there is such a thing as a good way to be bitten on the ass).

Whatever, never a dull moment in CoNCAA. Good luck, all!

I am Bigmoney.

So, I decided to use my same method as all other times. Either "have I heard of one of these teams" or "Which name sounds nicest?". I filled in my bracket, remembered a winner, a tiebreaker score... And hit submit.

It claimed I had an invalid bracket and sent me back to a blank one. Minutes wasted. Minutes.

Enraged at the time lost, I auto-filled on seeds and then swapped the winners! Go... Kansas?

Oh cock.

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"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

The Cajun Commando is IN!

San Diego State vs Kansas State for the big money!!!

This post has been edited by Nytecrawla on 14th March 2011 13:00

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This is a webcomic and gaming blog where I rant about nonsense. Enjoy.

I was a soldier, now I just play one in video games.

I haven't had much time to parse the brackets yet - for some reason, I decided to play a game with Tiddles and Mike during the selection show, and I just haven't bothered to catch up yet.

I do have to point out in my typical anti-Notre Dame bias that it's a bit silly to think that UND should have gotten seeded higher than Pitt. I don't think either one of them should have necessarily been a 1 seed; however, it's clearly law that at least one 1 seed has to come from the Big East every year, and I'd rather it be the team that lost its five games by a total of sixteen points and didn't get blown out by Marquette.

As much as I hate chalk picks, though, I have to admit that this year smells chalky to me towards the end. I could see three 1s in the Final Four without that much effort; however, I definitely don't see a 12121212 elite eight, because I'm not sure of the depth in the 2s.

I'm half tempted to try to go to Tulsa Friday night. However, I don't feel like fighting for tickets with Jayhawk fans (who are even more irritating up close than I would have imagined), since they're playing the same locale in the same night as my alma mater. Plus, eight hour round trip plus the cost of a hotel and tickets? Yikes. I'll watch my team lose on TV, thanks.

Also, I must have missed this somewhere along the way, so could someone explain to me why three of the play-in games earn 16 seeds and then the fourth one earns an 11? I'm sure there's SOME kind of logic behind it, but I'm clueless as to what it is at the moment.

Edit

Oh, and I nearly forgot: check out http://bracketodds.cs.illinois.edu/ . One of my good friends from my Illinois days (an usher at my wedding, in fact) helped develop this odds generator for a specific group of seeds making it to the E8 or further. Neat stuff.

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 14th March 2011 13:27

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN? Or perhaps buying a really good looking shirt?

Quote (Rangers51 @ 14th March 2011 05:25)

Also, I must have missed this somewhere along the way, so could someone explain to me why three of the play-in games earn 16 seeds and then the fourth one earns an 11? I'm sure there's SOME kind of logic behind it, but I'm clueless as to what it is at the moment.

Four of the play-in teams, in this case the 11s and 12s, are the last at-large teams into the field, and the other four are considered the weakest of the auto-bids. This means that the other two twelves, all 13s, 14s, and 15s, and the other two 16s are all teams that got in because they won their conference tournaments (Memphis and Richmond are the other two 12s, and they won their tournaments, for example).

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

Yeah, I guess that's the only "fair" way to do it. If you made a conference champion play in, you'd have a real poo-storm from all the folks who claim big conference bias in the draw.

For you guys who haven't done this before or don't remember how, check out Yahoo's help files:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/sports/fa..._c/makingpicks/

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN? Or perhaps buying a really good looking shirt?

First games are on St Paddy's Day? Is it worth factoring in the traditionally Irish unis or Irish players? If so, who are they, and will they play better or worse?

This post has been edited by sweetdude on 14th March 2011 17:40

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Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind.

Me on the Starcraft.

Quote (sweetdude @ 14th March 2011 12:40)

First games are on St Paddy's Day? Is it worth factoring in the traditionally Irish unis or Irish players? If so, who are they, and will they play better or worse?

The St. Mary's Gaels didn't make it into the field this year, which is a shame. I think you might be stuck with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, and they don't even play until Friday.

As for Irish players, who knows. We're all such mutts here, yeah?

Edit

Oh, reminder, you can make your picks now. I'm not sure if I can tell as league commissioner who fails to make picks, but if you don't have them in by Thursday, it's your own fault.

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 14th March 2011 20:44

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN? Or perhaps buying a really good looking shirt?

Been gone for awhile, hope everyone is doing well.

I'm in as always my friends.

"Kawhi Leonard is a BOSS" is taking it!

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"The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved."
- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Wow, already an OT game and we haven't even had a real game yet!

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I find your lack of faith disturbing...

Sorry, Awesome Sauce is me. Been crazy lately, didn't get a chance to post it before.

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"And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped” -Sir Bedevere the Wise

Quote (Fadien @ 16th March 2011 02:02)

Sorry, Awesome Sauce is me. Been crazy lately, didn't get a chance to post it before.

No worries, I thought it might be because I knew I'd PMed you because you'd played before. I'll edit the post.

The for-real games are barely more than 24 hours away. Wheeeeee!

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN? Or perhaps buying a really good looking shirt?

Signed up "My Team Doesn't Isn't Fit"

Quote (Clock Doc @ 16th March 2011 18:52)

Signed up "My Team Doesn't Isn't Fit"

Whoa, welcome back, dude. Nice to see you. You bring us up to 28, same number as last year, thanks!

In honor of that, hey, let's have a prize. We'll do same as last year, a $25 AmaCoN gift card to the winner.

Picks have to be in for all 63 games by noon Eastern time tomorrow. Don't wait, if you miss even one, you can't go back and fill it in later!

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN? Or perhaps buying a really good looking shirt?

i'm hangin with MJ right now and he's doin all my picks for me (man this joke just gets funnier and funnier)

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"We're not tools of the government or anyone else. Fighting... fighting was the only thing I was ever good at, but at least I always fought for what I believed in." - Frank Yeager (a.k.a. Grey Fox)

Quote (Rangers51 @ 16th March 2011 17:19)

Picks have to be in for all 63 games by noon Eastern time tomorrow. Don't wait, if you miss even one, you can't go back and fill it in later!

And while it would be nice to have the advantage like we all did against Mike a couple years back, don't forget to enter a champion. It can be easy to miss.

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

Games start in under an hour from the time I write this. Last chance to add or tweak your picks.

Best day of the year.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN? Or perhaps buying a really good looking shirt?

My bracket is fully set. With that said. Go Irish!

I know it sounds like hyperbole, but I've never hated my bracket more than I do this year. I'm not confident AT ALL in my picks but I can't bring myself to change any of them. Hopefully it's an upset-laden tournament with a lot of crazy stuff going down in all rounds and not just the first two.

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Hey, put the cellphone down for a while
In the night there is something wild
Can you hear it breathing?
And hey, put the laptop down for a while
In the night there is something wild
I feel it, it's leaving me

Oh WOW I'm already dead in the water, Louisville is sucking hard.

...I hope for my bracket's sake that this judgment is too soon.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER