Countdown to the Madness and Last Minute Tweaks
We’re only a couple hours away to the greatest few days of sports, and if you’re anything like me then the work productivity for the week has already stopped.
I know we’ve discussed this all week, but let this be the final frenzied discussions for those making the last minute tweaks before our brackets are set.
Things I am thinking about this morning:
- Is the SEC worse than what we all thought – and is Florida in the final four a bad pick?
- Only a handful of times have all #2 seeds made it to the sweet sixteen – who’s leaving early? I’ve got SDSU over Georgetown. Am I crazy?
- Last minute gut upsets? I’ve put Belmont over both Arizona and New Mexico.
- Anyone else nervously scanning their brackets??
March 21st, 2013 at 10:27 AM ^
March 21st, 2013 at 10:31 AM ^
Every time I do so, I change what was a win into a loss. I'm going to finally follow my own advice and not screw with it at all.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:36 AM ^
It's like the old adage from high school - if you're unsure about an answer, go with your original choice. I, on the other hand, am in full-blown tweak mode and probably will wind up doing more damage. Oh well.
This seems to me to be the most wide-open bracket that I can remember, and I feel like some frenetic addict anxiously awaiting tip-off.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:32 AM ^
Your TV viewing guide, courtesy of CBS's website:
March 21st, 2013 at 10:41 AM ^
I was going to leave mine alone but since you posted this I have to go back and look at it and will probably do some tweaks.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:43 AM ^
STOP, COME BACK!
March 21st, 2013 at 10:50 AM ^
I didn't do much but I'm struggling with Colorado/Illinois. I have Colorado only because I don't trust Illinois enough to play up to their potential. Although Groce is a good tourney coach.
March 21st, 2013 at 11:00 AM ^
Yeah, that's a tough one. I went with Illinois just because I hope that the beatings they took at the hands of Michigan toughened them up. That and they played Staee, Indiana and Wisc pretty tough in some losses.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:42 AM ^
The Gonzaga/(hopefully)Pitt matchup is going to give me fits.
I want to go with Gonzaga, because they are honestly 10x more legit than people give them credit for, but Kenpom is telling me that Pitt is going to the Final Four. This makes or breaks my bracket.
Also, I have no idea what versions of Kansas, Florida, or Minnesota teams we're getting so goodbye any confidence I had in the South.
And I can't bring myself to rationally believe it won't come down to Louisville/Indiana, but I'm guessing that's true of about 65% of the brackets, so naturally neither will make the Final Four.
And so it begins...
March 21st, 2013 at 10:49 AM ^
choking though.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:51 AM ^
Agreed. I have Wichita State beating them.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:52 AM ^
So is Gonzaga/ Mark Few...
March 21st, 2013 at 12:19 PM ^
Seriously, do not pick Pitt, and do not even think about a Final Four apperance. They have burned me so much in the past 5 years so I finally said frack it and picked Wichita to drop them in the 1st round.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:42 AM ^
I like north carolina over Kansas... paving the way for michigan to beat N.C.!
side note: I just filled out 5 brackets on sports.yahoo.com and picked all lower than five seeds to win: I had Memphis, Oklahoma, Butler, Arizona, and St. Mary's to win... Anybody else try any crazy brackets?
March 21st, 2013 at 10:47 AM ^
I'm tweaking my nips in anticipation.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:52 AM ^
Ha! That's funny. I thought you said nips...oh wait.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:49 AM ^
Also, I'm submitting a straight no-upset bracket with Louisville over Kansas. Did this in 2008, when everyone was going upset-crazy in their bracket selections (and no one saw Davidson coming anyway) and won one of my pools in a landslide.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:54 AM ^
March 21st, 2013 at 11:37 AM ^
I agree with the fact that they usually never work.
However, with parity this year, I feel like everyone is a little upset-happy. Everyone thinks that there is no way that #1s can hit the Final Four together and therefore no one is picking them. Everyone is looking for the upset. I've seen more brackets write off Kansas and Gonzaga like they weren't close to being contenders than not.
I'm not saying this is the best strategy, but I feel a little bit more confident putting in one chalk bracket this year.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:52 AM ^
That San Diego State win over GT, would be amazing.
I would love nothing more than a Michigan-San Diego State Elite Eight matchup.
Beilein vs Fisher.
I don't care what anyone says about Fish with the "did he or did he not know what was going on with Ed Martin" business. I'll always love him for coaching that 1988-89 team to the title.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:56 AM ^
Ugh, you just described my inner conflict re: how I feel about Steve Fisher. I love him, but I hate him.
Having said that, I'm also rooting for that Michigan vs. SDSU matchup. I hope we get to see it and Michigan stomps Fisher a new shit-hole.
March 21st, 2013 at 10:58 AM ^
So.... you'll good trading in the one national championship, in exchange for TWENTY YEARS of basketball embarrassment, irrelevance and general depression?
Hmm. Umm... no.
Fisher, to me, is the posterboy for NCAA hypocricy. The NCAA slammed the program -- rightly so -- for "lack of institutional control." Well, who was the Institution? It was FISH. He was the head guy, he was the guy where all this was happening directly under his nose -- in his locker room, with his players taking trips on weekends, etc. So, if "the institution" was at fault, then Fisher has to be #1 guy at fault.
But, the NCAA doesn't want to go around punishing people -- that causes (eek!) lawsuits. Read: Tark the Shark. So, its easier to just punish the program (which wont fight back -- its a member institution), than to punish the actual do-badders.
Dude never got punished for causing all that pain we suffered. Championship or not, he's at fault.
March 21st, 2013 at 11:05 AM ^
I think Michigan's penalties were prior to the NCAA issuing Show Cause penalties, wasn't it? I can't imagine Fisher would have escaped without getting that penalty, like Sampson & Tressel have gotten.
March 21st, 2013 at 12:01 PM ^
March 21st, 2013 at 10:51 AM ^
I'm from South Dakota and have some friends (SDSU grads) that design infographics. They sent me one that compared Trey Burke and Nate Wolters in the lead up to tonight's contest.
Thought you might like to see it, discuss it, poke fun at it.
I've already called him out on the omission of "Maize and Blue"
http://statographics.tumblr.com/post/45912758932/burkevswolters
March 21st, 2013 at 10:56 AM ^
which I am struggling to stick with as my overall winner. I'm still thinking Louisville is the lower risk pick, but this makes it more interesting I guess.
March 21st, 2013 at 11:07 AM ^
Just did the Wall Street Journal blind bracket and picked VCU to beat Michigan.
I also ended up with a final four made up of all the #1 seeds.
I do have some good news to report, however. My 9 year old daughter filled out her bracket last night...and she has both Michigan State and Ohio State losing in the round of 64. When I explained that there is almost no chance that either team will lose and that it would hurt her chances of winning the pool in which we participate, she said that she didn't care...and that she always roots against both teams. She's clearly being raised the right way. I'm filled with nachas!
March 21st, 2013 at 11:08 AM ^
March 21st, 2013 at 11:09 AM ^
I put Cuse in the 'ship...well, because noone else did and I refuse to allow myself to root for IU (even if it is only for bracket purposes)
March 21st, 2013 at 11:12 AM ^
The CBS Sports server has been down for the last hour, so I wasn't able to make any last minute changes. I'm not even sure my brackets got saved, to be honest. I was in the middle of tweaking some picks when the server crashed.
March 21st, 2013 at 11:13 AM ^
does anyone know what time our saturday game would be (assuming, as we should, that we win tonight)?
March 21st, 2013 at 11:13 AM ^
everyone have coming out of the South? Can someone assuage my fears re Florida - or convince me to put someone else there? Would love to go Michigan - but I just don't see them playing well that consistently to get to the Final Four...
March 21st, 2013 at 11:37 AM ^
Good winning streak going; one or two fluke losses (Baylor and TCU) but nothing else too troubling; Withey is tall.
March 21st, 2013 at 11:34 AM ^
I made some minor tweaks earlier this morning, but have largely standardized my brackets to the same picks.
Good luck everyone.
March 21st, 2013 at 11:38 AM ^
but I'm ready to jump ship on Florida. I had them going to at least the Elite 8 in several of my brackets, but it looks like all the "SEC is terrible" memes are true and then some
March 21st, 2013 at 12:00 PM ^
In the three brackets that I have floating out there in space (one of them literally, as it was a spreadsheet), I didn't have Florida any farther than the Elite Eight. It was hard for me to envision that, once they had this opportunity to play teams from higher rated, more competitive conferences, that they would not meet someone better than they are. It was also difficult for me to reconcile their particular #3 seed and yet being closer to 30th (per StatSheet's numbers) in SOS despite being #9 in RPI. I just see a few potential stumbling blocks for Florida.
As weak as I think MSU and Duke are (as in not really, but not dominant), I really should have had someone other than Louisville coming out of the Midwest on 80% of my brackets.
Marquette over Davidson and Cincy over Creighton were my zero-hour tweaks at work.