By Brendan Loy (Twitter/FriendFeed)

RT @BeyndArcMMiller: UConn vs. Stanford on Tuesday is one MEGA matchup. No. 1 vs. No. 2, combined records: 74-1.

By Brendan Loy (Twitter/FriendFeed)

Opening night: Red Sox rally to beat Yankees 9-7 at Fenway. w00t w00t. … I’ll be at Fenway in 38 days with my girls & my folks.

By Brendan Loy (Twitter/FriendFeed)

Baylor got within 3 early in second half, then UConn pulled away. Huskies 70, Bears 50, final. #1-ranked UConn vs. #2-ranked Stanford for the national title.

By Brendan Loy

[Sorry for the delay in getting this full update online. I blame fatherhood!]

Matt Wiser clinched victory in the 15th annual Living Room Times men’s NCAA pool Saturday night when Duke beat West Virginia in the second national semifinal.

The Duke-WVU game was a winner-take-all LRT pool showdown between Wiser and Sharon Greggs. If the Mountaineers had won, Greggs, a Mary Kay beauty consultant in Roanoke, VA and a 1988 New River Community College grad, would have taken the lead and clinched the pool championship. Instead, Wiser, an LSU graduate student, 2002 University of Rochester alum and native of Kenmore, NY, extended the lead that he took when Michigan State reached the Final Four, making it impossible for anyone to catch him.

The highest-ranked contestant who can still gain points is Matt’s brother, Brendan Loy’s USC classmate and longtime blog regular Mike Wiser, who is currently in eighth place, 44 points behind his brother. Mike Wiser picked Duke to win the championship, and if they do, he’ll gain 25 points and tie Julia Hauser for second place, creating a 1-2 finish for the Wiser brothers. (If Butler wins, the current standings will be frozen in place, since nobody in the pool picked the Bulldogs to win it all.)

Matt Wiser has a 46-16 prediction record, three games better than his closest competitors, Hauser and Greggs. He picked Michigan State to reach the Final Four, which only three others predicted, and Duke to reach the title game, which 44 out of 182 contestants picked (Kentucky was the far more common choice). Out of a possible 452 points, Wiser has 314.

Hauser has 295 points for second place, Greggs has 287, Ryan Dalidowitz 283, and Jessica Cowans 280. Mike Marchand is sixth with 278 points, Casey Zak has 272, Mike Wiser 270, Logan Pugh 268, and Carol LaPlante and Andrew Leyden are tied for tenth with 266 points. Again, complete standings here.

By Brendan Loy (Twitter/FriendFeed)

RT @BreakingNews: 7.2 Mexicali quake is strongest to strike area in 20 years, says seismologist; strong aftershocks likely – LA Times http://bit.ly/adKkCI

By Brendan Loy (Twitter/FriendFeed)

Good analogy, though I think a Baylor win over UConn would be an even bigger upset. RT @aglock Anyone else watching the start of the women’s version of UNLV-Duke ‘91?

By Brendan Loy (Twitter/FriendFeed)

RT @AndyHutchins: Baylor coach Kim Mulkey on playing UConn: “Nobody thought the hockey team would beat the Russians, either!”

By Brendan Loy (Twitter/FriendFeed)

Stanford up big in Final Four undercard vs. OU. Up next: the unbeatable UConn Huskies vs. Baylor and its 6-foot-8 star.

By Brendan Loy (Twitter/FriendFeed)

RT @faxpaladin: @brendanloy USGS is saying 6.9 not yet human-reviewed, PTWC is saying 7.3 reviewed, so right now I’d go with the 7.3.

By Brendan Loy (Twitter/FriendFeed)

Pacific Tsunami Warning Center says it was a 7.3, not a 6.9. I don’t know which figure is more current. That’s a huge difference, though.

By Brendan Loy (Twitter/FriendFeed)

RT @felixsalmon: RT @brianstelter: RT @nytimes: NYT NEWS ALERT: Large Earthquake Felt in Downtown Los Angeles

By Brendan Loy

By Brendan Loy

From @denverpost via @CapturedBlog, here is a fantastic, Big Picture-worthy photo gallery from yesterday’s Final Four games. A few highlights:

Bwahahahaha. Sparty sucks.

In all seriousness, congrats to Izzo & Michigan State on a phenomenal run in the tournament. … Now: GO BUTLER!!! BEAT DUKE!!!

(Again, full gallery here.)

By Brendan Loy (Twitter/FriendFeed)

CNN Breaking News — Three separate explosions reported in Baghdad; No word yet on casualties.