By Brendan Loy

Dane, you may just win this thing. The Dawgs won’t stop barking! #fate?

GO BUTLER!!! BEAT FLORIDA!!! Avenge ‘00 and ‘07!!!

Your move, Richmond and VCU.

P.S. R.I.P., Jimmermania. :(

P.P.S. Duke sucks.

By Brendan Loy

Heh. Gus has The Jimmer’s game tonight. w00t w00t.

By Brendan Loy

Andrew Long and Jon Caplin — my best man and Becky’s cousin, respectively — are tied atop the 14th annual Living Room Times Women’s NCAA Pool with 200 points out of a possible 240. Each got just 3 first-round games wrong and 4 second-round games wrong.

Meanwhile, Jenna (Auriemma) Stigliano, wife of past pool champion Todd Stigliano and daughter of UConn women’s coach Geno Auriemma, is tied for third with Michael Watkins of Columbus, OH, with 197 points — and Stigliano, who has her father’s team emerging as national champion from a Final Four otherwise loaded with 2-seeds (Notre Dame, Texas A&M, and already-eliminated Xavier), is the slight favorite to win the pool, assuming all of the 32,768 possible scenarios for the tournament’s remaining 15 games are created equal. She would win in 13.8% of the scenarios, compared to 11.5% apiece for Caplin and Long, and 3.2% for Watkins. (Meanwhile, her husband Todd, my high-school classmate and the champion of the 2001 and 2005 LRT women’s pools, sits in 23rd place and would win in 2.2% of scenarios.)

Other notables: Defending champion Lauren Taylor is 22nd, and would win in 4.0% of scenarios. Becky is 12th, but cannot win because her remaining picks are identical to Watkins’ picks. Meanwhile Becky’s mother, Ginny Zak, is currently in 57th place, but would win in 12.8% of scenarios — second only to Jenna Stigliano — largely because of her highly unusual pick of #5-seed Green Bay winning the national title. I’m in 66th place, behind Becky, Ginny and Loyette, who is in 64th. No members of the Loy household are mathematically alive to win.

Full standings here and scenarios here.

By Brendan Loy

The NIT Final Four is set — Colorado, Alabama, Wichita State and Washington State — and four contestants are still alive to win the 7th annual Living Room Times NIT Pool: Mike Quinn, Jeff Morrison, Matt Thomsen and my 3-year-old daughter, “Loyette.”

Quinn, a 2001 Illinois State alum, currently leads with 176 out of a possible 252 points. He got three of the Final Four right: Colorado, Alabama and Wazzu. Morrison, a 2004 Iowa State alum, is second, with 169 points. He also picked three of the semifinalists: Colorado, Alabama and Wichita. Morrison has Alabama winning the title; Quinn has Wazzu beating Alabama in the title game.

Thomsen, my 1999 Newington High School classmate and a 2004 University of New Haven alum, and Loyette, who is currently attending preschool, are among those tied for third with 154 points. They have identical picks going forward, and will finish tied with each other no matter what. The only question is where on the leaderboard they’ll be tied. If Colorado wins the NIT title — which both of them predicted — they’ll tie for first.

If Alabama beats Wichita State in the title game, Morrison will win. If it’s an Alabama-Wazzu title game, or if either Wazzu or Wichita wins the title, Quinn will win.