USSM bracket pool
Dave · March 13, 2006 at 9:53 am · Filed Under Off-topic ranting
Already filled out 182 brackets today? Make it 183, and join the USSMariner blog pool.
Group Name: USSMariner
Password: wfb
No fees, no prizes, just a bunch of baseball geeks pretending like we know basketball too.
March is a crazy time for sports. Crazy good.
I LOVE March Madness. I am not talking about allowing WFB to compete for a starting job at 2nd or considering the rotation set already- that kind of madness lasts well beyond March, unfortunately.
Best. Password. EVAR.
Three characters isn’t too secure, though. You could have used something like this to be more secure:
WFBisTehSuck
Sorry.
Jimmie
Guys…here’s a hot insider tip….the Cincinnati Bearcats will win it all-or NOT. 😛
March Madness is my earliest childhood memories of bigtime championship sports, since I was a bit young to carry the Supersonics’ title in 1979 much further the next minute.
In 1985 I was lucky enough to witness Villanove upset Georgetown for the National Title in the dome.
In 1987 and 1988 I saw the West Regional Semis and Finals. In 87 the UNLV squad was stacked with their first stud team, led by point guard Mark Wade, center Armon “Hammer” Gilliam and company.
In 1988, I fell in love with the University of Arizona Basketball team.
Here’s why:
There’s 40,000 people crammed into one corner of the Kingdome surrounding the court. About 18 or 20 thousand of them were right on top of the playing surface – decked in red and blue. The four teams left in the region were North Carolina with JR Reid, Iowa with Roy Marble, Michigan with Vaught, Rice and Mills, and the U of A with Sean Elliott and Steve Kerr.
I wasn’t rooting for anything but good games until Zona took the floor and Kerr nailed what appeared to be a normal three-point bucket to get Zona up 5-4 just two minutes into the game.
No, it wasn’t the three that won me over. it was transpired immediately after. The PA announcer did his thing… “Threeee point basket by number 24, Steeeeeeeve Kerrrr!!!!”…
In unison, the entire building, or so it seemed, repeated: “Steeeeeve Kerrr!!!”
I was hooked. Hooked on college hoops, and hooked on Lute and the U of A.
Enough to travel out of my way and take out personal loans to attend school in the desert.
Hearing the crowd dupe the PA announcer after every three Kerr made was amazing. Zona won the region and lost in the National Semis. Kansas defeated Oklahoma in the title game.
But when the Cats won it all in 97 with me on campus…
WOW… just WOW.
Baseball will always go down as my favorite sport for so many reasons. Tradition. My father. The general spirit it brings on a nightly basis. The explosive subtlety.
But there is nothing… nothing on the planet like college basketball. Such a kid-like nostalgia about it all.
18 years later I’ve been back to two final fours (95 in Seattle – UCLA – and in 97 of course), and I’m a lifelong fan of Kerr and Elliott.
Not even Dick Vitale and Billy Packer can ruin it for me.
How ’bout that, eh?
[i]But there is nothing… nothing on the planet like college basketball.[/i]
March madness is very good, but I think baseball is pretty good too.
(go gonzaga)
Bleh. Tall freaks run to one end, wave your arms around, everybody jump, run to the other end, repeat. March can’t be over soon enough. When is opening day again?
Some of the players are short, joser. Some of them don’t jump. And some of them don’t even run to the other end.
But enough about the Knicks.
Ba-dum-bum.
Never liked basketball. The constant repetitive action gets boring.
Oddly, this is exactly my complaint regarding the new hockey rules. They were seemingly designed to make hockey more like basketball.
College basketball, specifically the dance, is just magic. It is invariably the single most exciting, momentum-driven, edge of your seat sporting season year in and year out. I can’t think about Duke-Carolina at Cameron without getting goosebumps. Along the same lines, I can’t even compare the pathetic NBA to college hoops. I can completely understand not caring for the NBA, but the NCAA?! Blasphemy.
There should be a pool up for the actual greatest single sporting event, the World Cup.
Go Buckeyes!
I’m thinking about writing a Monte Carlo simulation for the tournament this year. If it gets completed on time, I’m definitely jumping in the pool.
#12….here you go!
From Espn.com: http://games.espn.go.com/fsl/front
ESPNSoccernet.com will be giving you the chance to compete against your friends and the fantasy community in the World Cup Challenge, coming next summer. Your first task will be to predict the winners of each of the group stage matches. Then it gets interesting as the final 16 teams enter the knockout stage, and a chance to bring home the silverware. You will predict the winner of each tie all the way through to the final! Your pick to win the World Cup may be correct, but will it be enough for you to lift the Challenge Cup?
World Cup Challenge is one piece of ESPNSoccernet.com’s 2006 Soccer coverage. This new Fantasy Soccer page will be your home for all fantasy soccer offerings and your portal to claiming your piece of the glory.
So, check back here often for upcoming games and articles about your favorite teams. Don’t forget to enter your email address below
So, I did one of those brackets that was a mix of what may happen, but mostly what I want to happen. I’m cheering for Gonzaga, but I just couldn’t get myself to have them win it all. Having them defeat Duke in the Final Four was as far as I could go. It’s all quite a stretch, actually.
I think my favorite ESPN fantasy league to date has been their Fantasy Fishing leagues.
http://games.espn.go.com/basschallenge/bass/frontpage
You can’t even make this stuff up.
Northern pike all the way, baby!
Shouldn’t that be
NORTHERN PIKE Bayyyyyy-beeeeeee!!!!!!!
?
okay,m I filled out my bracket but how do I find your group, the group directory is blank no matter what I enter in the search feild.
Sorry, Churchill, but unless you lived in Kentucky you did not see Georgetown v. Villanova. You probably watched Georgetown v. Houston
What? No WBC talk about Team Japan’s lose when Ichiro clearly showed his being upset. I think Japan was robbed, imho.
Hopefully this’ll help a bit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/sports/ncaabasketball/13score.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1142295106-vFYfNcC6Yz46pwWYxu1mFQ
No, i just jumped the gun on the word Seattle.
I saw Rumeal sink a pair on a ghost foul in 89… just got ahead of myself.
Rice MVP, Higgins the frosh was a stud. What fun.
Thanks, kcw2.
I need to write about some experiences with former and current UW Basketball players. They are subtle, but they make me chuckle.
I have so little knowledge about college basketball that I couldn’t even do this correctly. I accidentally created two entries; hopefully “Delete this please” will go away when espn’s program catches on that I didn’t actually, y’know, pick any teams.