nothing edifying » sports

OH YES! Kansas!

mim — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 05:21:35 +0000

So FINALLY! FINALLY! the Kansas Jayhawks managed to not let me down. Every year I pick them to go far, every year they get knocked out. This year, I have to confess, I picked them partially out of sheer stubbornness. I mean I thought they were good, but some part of me kind of thought they would choke and I’d be screwed again. But they didn’t! They were wonderful! Completely blew out UNC in a snoozefest of a Final Four (Memphis also beat UCLA rather handily), then beat Memphis in overtime. Overtime! Good stuff, really. And luckily no one else believed in them either. At least not in this pool. So… I roxored it, is basically what happened.

So the final official standings:
me: 85!!!
yut: 74
misa: 73
SpecK: 68
Ant, Lew: 67
Al, YB: 66
Seth: 60
CT: 59
Steve: 59 (69)
Jimyo: 46
Shio: 45 (74)

So… by turning in his bracket so late (missing the first two rounds entirely except for the points that everyone got), Shio saved Jimyo from being last! And only by 1 point! Geesh. CT is tied with Steve for second to last, also because Steve turned his in late. So yay? But you know what’s really yay? Let me just repeat, I WIN! And you know what, in fact, I had it sewn up by the Final Four cos no one called Memphis to the Finals and hardly anyone called Kansas. So yeah. And I already picked my prize, Yut’s gonna take me to Chicago. Okay we sort of planned it anyways, but now it’s my prize. And I got a handshake from Yut already. And now I’m the champion until next year. Gosh, I don’t think I’m going to get sick of that. :)

Last thought:

misa sent that to me; I think it’s apropos.

No More Cinderella

mim — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:23:50 +0000

Well that’s that. For the first time ever, all four #1 seeds have made it out of the regionals into the Final Four. Blech! The funny thing is, there were 2 games between 1 and 3 seeds, and 1 between 1 and 2 seeds, but none of them were even close. It was the 1 (Kansas) vs. 10 (Davidson) game that went down to the wire, 59-57. Go fig.

Yut: 74
misa: 73
me: 71
SpecK: 68
Shio: 68 (36)
Ant, Lew: 67
Al, Yan: 66
Steve: 63 (53)
Seth: 60
CT: 59
Jimyo: 46

Important things first: for the first time ever I am in the running!!! I think if Kansas wins I really have a chance! Same with misa, if UCLA wins, then she has a chance. I really can’t figure out how she manages every year to be in the running, especially this year when she was at the bottom at some point. Yut needs UNC to win, then he’ll win. I’m still hoping UNC loses! But I’ve been saying that since the beginning and it hasn’t worked out so well, so I dunno. Actually come to think of it, if Kay (who’s in fourth somehow) had picked Memphis to win, she might’ve had a chance too. But as it is, she picked UNC so there’s no way. I guess it just all comes down to who picks the winner, and maybe the final 2 if Memphis wins it all.

For the rest of y’alls: Shio should’ve turned his in on time cos he’s tied with SpecK! And ahead of Ant and Lew, both of whom were in first at some point, now tied. Al and Yan are tied, but both beating Steve, who also turned in his bracket late, but surprisingly not last cos Jimyo has basically sewn that up. I mean, he can’t get any more points, and no one’s even close to how low he is. CT can’t get any points either but I suppose she’s ahead of Jimyo at least (and Shio and Steve). Seth is down there too, but he can still earn points so he’s definitely going to do better than the jokers at the bottom. Maybe one year some crazy games will happen, but not this year (this year if you picked chalk you woulda done well which is ZzzZzZzz). It woulda been awesome if Tennessee beat Louisville and then beat UNC for instance… the standings woulda been crazy different! :p

Thanks for Sharing

mim — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:31:21 +0000

I thought y’all might like to see how my left knee looked a few hours after the previous picture.

Lovely, right? I have to say, I’ve had worse abrasions (like the time I fell outta the car, yes:p) but this is one of the worser bruises. Unless I’ve misremembered — honestly it’s hard to keep track. It looks much better now (iced it when I got home and slept with some pillows under my leg to elevate it).

I’d like to thank those of you who commiserated or admired my talent (to add to your admiration I would just like to add that I was holding a cup of frozen yogurt which I did NOT spill — priorities!). Oh and I liked how so many of you decided to share anecdotes about previous times when things came outta nowhere and hit me. Seriously though, I don’t know how it happened. The whole thing was a little like Crocodile Mile, I don’t know if anyone remembers the ads… “you run, you slide, you hit the bump, and take a diiive!”

Full basketball update tomorrow. Only the first two games of the Elite 8 have been played, 2 more tomorrow. Although Yut would like me to point out that after the first two games, he is back in first! For now.

Corrections

mim — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 08:29:06 +0000

I realized I made a mistake with the pointage. Well I never claimed to be any good at arithmetic. (That’s the official excuse.) Basically I added the total through Round 2 Day 1 to the Round 2 (Days 1 and 2) scores instead of the total through Round 1 (Days 1 and 2) plus Round 2 (Days 1 and 2). That was confusing, but whatev, the point is, I double checked the numbers and fixed things. Which goes to show, you should be calculating your own numbers just in case! Aaaand! To add to the excitement, Shio emailed his bracket to me last week and said, “Am I too late?” which I took to mean that he’s know-nothing enough for this pool. But I am doing that same thing, subtracting all the points unless everyone called it right from the first 2 rounds (since those are the games that he missed). I don’t know how he can catch up, but Jimyo is making quite a concerted effort for last, so you never know! :)

The new, correct standings:
Ant: 45
Lew, Yut: 44
CT, Seth: 43
Special K: 42
mim: 41
Shio: 41 (but actually 9)
misa: 40
Steve: 40 (but actually 30)
YB: 39
Al: 38
Jimyo: 33
Sorry if I got anyone’s hopes up, or ruined anyone’s week from the stress of doing poorly. Like Yut who couldn’t believe he was so far down that he couldn’t possibly win. But no worries, he’s feeling much better now. :p

Okay, now that that’s done, here are the scores for the Sweet Sixteen round (yesterday and today’s games). There weren’t too many, so I just put them all together in one update. Also it’s harder to confuse me this way. And I had Yut calculate the Points Already Lost, which is just as it sounds: the future points you can’t possibly get cos the team you picked is out already.

Ant: 63 — 4 points already lost
Yut: 62 — 4
misa: 61 — 4
Special K: 60 — 4
Lew: 59 — 14
mim: 59 — 0 HAHA!
Shio: 56 (24) — 0
CT: 55 — 28 (!!!)
Steve: 55 (45) — 4
Yan: 54 — 0
Seth: 52 — 8
Al: 50 — 0
Jimyo: 42 — 22
The one with the most Points Already Lost is CT, which I think really explains her email Thursday night, “I hate basketball.” Yeah, 28 points — there are only 36 left! Both of her final two teams, Tennessee and UConn are out. Jimyo’s 22 Points Already Lost is almost as bad since he has Georgetown winning it all. Almost everyone else is 8, 4, or 0 (except Lew the outlier with 14, still only half of CT’s), so CT and Jimyo are in a class of their own, really. At this point he is losing to Steve (45 points) who turned his bracket in late! My goodness, he might even lose to Shio! Sheesh.

On the upper end of the standings, Yut is in second, now only 1 point behind Ant, which I suppose is nice since there’s a bit of a fight at the top end now. And misa! Goodness gracious, she fought up from last by calling every single Sweet 16 game correctly except for Davidson, which no one called anyways. I guess there is a battle at the top after all!

Battle for Last!

mim — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 07:48:43 +0000

It seems as though there are a lot of you that think it’s better to be last than to be mediocre. Every now and then, there’s a change at the top, but it seems as though there’s a new person at the bottom every day!

Ant: 59
CT(!): 55
Seth: 53
Special K, Lew, Yut: 52
me: 51
Al, misa: 50
Steve: 48 (38)
Yan: 45
Jimyo: 41

Ant somehow managed to pick Western Kentucky; I’m starting to think of Biff and that sports almanac. Hmmph. Also Special K, Lew, and Yut are tied!!! Ha, the ones most likely to talk trash, tied! In the exciting bottom of the pool, Jimyo is making a run for last — he really might beat Steve with his -10 penalty.

Topsy Turvy

mim — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 07:50:32 +0000

We went to see a play this afternoon, and sat behind an old(er) couple. Partway through the play, the old man (who must’ve been somewhat deaf) said, “Did I fall asleep? Was I snoring?” to which his wife loudly (but not as loudly as he was) whispered, “Yes.” He snorted and then said, still in a only slightly quieter than normal voice, “Well I guess this play can’t be any good, huh?” We had a hard time not cracking up; so teh awesome.

It was actually a little teeny bit hard to get ourselves out to the play today cos it was at 2pm and Stanford and Marquette were going at it. When we left, Marquette was winning, when we came back, we found out Stanford won in overtime. It’s games like that that make this tournament exciting. Also the fact that there are 2 games tomorrow featuring 12 and 13 seeds! Whoda thunk they’d still be in! Well, obviously some of you did, but I certainly didn’t. Which helps explain my standing in the pool, really.

Ant: 35
Lew, Yut: 34
CT, Seth: 33
Al, Special K: 32
Jimyo, me: 31
misa: 30
Steve: 30 (20)
YB: 29

I dunno what happened! Ant came outta nowhere! I can’t understand how some people manage to call almost every game right. Yut did it on the first day, and now Ant today missed only W. Virginia over Duke. On the other side of the coin, Yan, who was tied for 2nd place, ahead of Steve, ahead of almost everyone, is now at the bottom (well I mean if you look at Steve’s unpenalized score). OMG, what’s going on?! Speaking of which, I am tied with Jimyo! Who made his picks while doing his homework Wednesday night with no real thought whatsoever. Dude, I deliberated!!! I thought about it for 3 days (on and off). If I end up losing to Jimyo by like 1 point or something, I’ll be sorry I talked him into picking Memphis over UT-Arlington. I think I might rather lose to K, who at least this year thought enough about it not to pick 13th seeded Air Force to win it all. (Wait, this is actually a toughie. Hrmm…) Anyways, most of the rest of y’all are steady, except Al, who’s making a surreptitious move up without attracting much attention. Except now I pointed it out. :)

What the Deuce Indeed

mim — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 06:57:45 +0000

So the first thing is, Steve’s mail didn’t come through or something cos he thought he sent me his bracket but I didn’t get anything. So here’s his bracket so Yan can gloat or not, as appropriate. :)

He picked UCLA. Thank goodness not another UNC.

Since it was late, I’m using the late rules I’ve used before, which is that if the game started before I got the bracket, then you get 0 points regardless of if you got it right or wrong UNLESS everyone else got it right in which case you can get the point. I was just going to disqualify him from the win (cos seriously, not like he — or anyone else — gives a shit) to make it so I didn’t have to calculate all that, but Yut helped me, so it turns out that he is -10, which is possibly tantamount to a disqualification, but whatev, if he does brilliantly and wins, that’s all the more brilliant. Actually, that reminds me of the year it happened to misa (although only a few hours late, not a whole day) and she still came in second. Hmmph.

Okay, now the scores:

Lew, Yut: 26
Jimyo, Seth, YB: 23
Special K: 22
Ant, CT, me: 21
Al, misa: 20
Steve: 12 (or 22)

After a whole days worth of craziness (seriously look at the swaths of pink denoting the games that were called wrong), with 2 sets of 12 and 13 seeds going up against one another in the next round, somehow, Yut and Lew are expanding their leads. It’s unbelievable, honestly. The only thing that would’ve been more unbelievable would’ve been if Memphis lost to UT-Arlington and Jimyo didn’t get the point(s) cos I talked him out of it — thank goodness that didn’t happen. Also thank goodness for Steve, or I would be next to last, which somehow feels more ignominious than last — last is at least the worst, nothing worster, if that makes sense. Thanks to Steve, I’m now somewhere in the middle ( as always), and Al and misa are next to last. Dude, at this point, if someone can overtake Steve for last, I think I may have to come up with a prize for that. At least a loser’s handshake. :p

I like Cinderella Stories, My Bracket Doesn’t.

mim — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 07:04:26 +0000

Actually, the problem is that where I picked the underdog (George Mason and Baylor, I’m looking your way), they lose, and where I pick the favorite, they lose (USC, I’m calling you out). Well, I guess if I can’t get the points, at least it’s exciting when Cinderella wins or comes close to it. (Belmont shoulda beat Duke, seriously.)

After one day of play with 16 games, the results leave something to be desired, so to speak.

In first place, all by himself, Yut with 15 points, which means he only missed 1 outta the 16 games that were played!
In second place, Lew and Yan, with 14 points.
In third place, Ant and K, 13 points.
In fourth, CT, Jimyo, and me, 12 points.
In fifth, also known as next to last, we got Al and Seth at 11 points.
And shocker of shockers, misa, who was third last year and second the year before that, and the winner the first time around, is currently in last with 10 points.

Still though, the point spread is not large, so there is hope yet. Sixteen more games tomorrow, maybe UNC will lose, and Yut (and many others of you!) will cry. Yeah, I wanna see tears, buddies.

Brackets, incl. the Winner’s

mim — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:53:44 +0000

With no further ado:

Al: UNC. He decided this all in 15 minutes this morning.

Anthony: UNC. I’m not sure how much of nothing he knows, we’ll have to see!

CT: Tennessee. After much “research” and “deliberation.”

Jimyo: Georgetown. I had to talk him out of picking UT-Arlington over Memphis! (His reply to my remonstration: “Ok, hf.”) :p

Special K: UNC. Luckily for her, Air Force wasn’t in the tournament this year, so she couldn’t pick them to go all the way.

Lew: UNC, in an all ACC final.

misa: UCLA. Totally got the bracket in to me way early this year — 1am Thursday. :)

Seth: UNC. He had hours during Thursday morning to think about this, so I really didn’t need to send the extra “reminder” (read “nag”) email. Oops.

Yan: UCLA. As she says, nowhere to go but up! :)

Yut: UNC.

And finally:

mim: Kansas. I always pick ‘em, they always let me down, I don’t even know why I keep picking them anymore except out of sheer stubbornness. One year I’m gonna be right!!! Sorry, I usually try and post my bracket up before the deadline, but I did upload it before midnight last night, just didn’t post.

Okay, that’s all, good luck everyone! Except UNC!

Nag-licious

mim — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:23:36 +0000

Hey all, the brackets are due tomorrow! At 12:15pm EST or 9:15am PST latest! So to the 3 of you who already turned in your work, thanks! To the rest of you, y’all better be thinking hard about your brackets! And as ever, I’ll help you out with 1 hint: don’t pick 16 seeds over 1 seeds in the first round. I mean, it might happen someday, but it hasn’t yet.

Also, I noticed a lot of you telling Yut he’s going down. Which is great! (Sorry babe. Sorta.) But how come no one’s defended my prizes?!!?!??!?!?!?!!? :D