A wildfire southwest of Denver is still totally uncontained this morning, one day after it killed one person, destroyed 15 to 25 strucutres, burned more than 3,000 acres, and gave off a huge smoke plume, blown northeastward by galeforce winds, that was impressively well-defined on radar:

Another way of viewing that smoke plume is by looking at the brief time-lapse video I took out my office window in downtown Denver yesterday, looking south-southeast:

That video caught The Weather Channel’s attention after I tweeted it out, and it was featured in a loop on Weather Center Live last night:

I wish I’d taken more than 8 seconds of video! Unfortunately, my iPhone’s battery was already low when I started, and it died at the end of the video.

(By the way, I made the video with Time Lapse Camera HD for iPhone and iPad. Thanks to Timothy Burke for the TWC clip. And a hat-tip to Brandon Minich for suggesting the headline of this post.)

Tim Donahue and Zach Bloxham went 4-for-4 in predicting the men’s Final Four of #1 Kentucky, #2 Kansas, #2 Ohio State and #4 Louisville — the first time anyone has picked a perfect Final Four in a Living Room Times men’s pool since 2009, when Matt Scarborough did it. The feat helped Donahue maintain his lead in the pool, and if the overwhelmingly favored Wildcats win the national championship, Donahue will earn “eternal glory” as champion of the 17th annual LRT men’s NCAA pool.

But that would presumably be a bitter consolation prize for Donahue, a self-described “big-time Louisville Cardinal fan” who just returned from Phoenix, where he and his youngest daughter watched the Cardinals reach the Final Four. He has come this far in the LRT pool thanks in part to his faith in Rick Pitino’s team, which is the Final Four’s biggest surprise. But now his pool fortunes depend on archrival Kentucky (which most of Donahue’s family roots for) beating Louisville and winning the national title.

Bloxham, for his part, can finish no higher than third. He’s in seventh place now, but he is too far behind leader Donahue to catch up, even if he gains points from their differing picks for national runner-up (Donahue says Kansas; Bloxham, Ohio State); and he cannot gain any points on sixth-place Michael Holtsberg because their picks are identical from this point forward.

Three others, though, are still alive to win the pool. Chris Palmer, currently in second place, will win the pool if Ohio State wins the title, or loses the championship game to Louisville. Yvette Webster, currently third, will win if Louisville plays Kansas in the title game, regardless of the outcome. (She predicted Kansas over Louisville for the title.) And Abby Newbold, currently fourth, will win if Kansas beats Kentucky for the championship.

That means the pool will go down to the wire if Kentucky reaches the title game, but if Louisville upsets the Wildcats in the first national semifinal, the pool champion will be determined by the second semifinal between Kansas (Webster) and Ohio State (Palmer).

Full standings here and possible outcomes here. You can also scroll through the “what-if scenarios” using the drop-down menu at top right of the standings pages.

A bit of background on each of the “Final Four” in the pool:

• Tim Donahue, of Elizabethtown, KY, found the Living Room Times pools last year via a Facebook search, and entered again this year when I invited all of last year’s participants. He said he “just enjoyed the tone and friendliness of your pool, so wanted to give it a try again.”
• Chris Palmer, of Long Valley, NJ, is a Vermont alum, a fellow Mid-Majority reader and owner of two Ballys, and a friend of mine on Twitter, where he goes by @chrispalm.
• Yvette Webster, of Round Hill, VA, found the pools via Rachel Wetherill, a long-time blog reader and pool contestant. Webster entered using the “mascot bracket,” proclaiming “I do not know a thing about basketball.”
• Abby Newbold, of Boston, MA, is a Villanova alum and the wife of my high-school classmate and long-time pool contestant Brian Newbold.

Meanwhile, in the women’s pool, with a “chalky” Elite Eight set — all four #1 and #2 seeds made it — the pool remains very competitive, with 17 of 78 contestants still alive to win.

The current leader is Randy Styles, with 281 points; he has a Final Four of all #1 seeds, with Baylor beating UConn for the title. Ken Stern is presently second, just four points back, but with an identical prediction to Styles’s, he cannot win.

Michael Holtsberg, the 2009 women’s pool champ, is presently third with 272 points, and can still win because he has Notre Dame, instead of UConn, losing to Baylor.

Cam McLachlan and Joe Hiegel are tied for fourth with 269 points, and have identical picks to Styles except that Hiegel has Notre Dame beating Baylor for the title, while McLachlan has the Irish losing to Maryland in the Elite Eight tomorrow.

Becky Loy and Kevin Curran are tied for sixth with 268. Becky’s picks are identical to Hiegel’s, except she has Kentucky upsetting UConn on Tuesday. Curran cannot win, as his surprise Final Four pick, St. John’s, was already eliminated, and his picks are otherwise identical to Styles’s.

Also still mathematically alive to win: Michael Walsh, Gary Kirby, Amy Booth, Kevin Hauschulz, Rick Boeckler, Ken Wagner, Yvette Webster (the only contestant still alive to win both the men’s and women’s pools), David Kreutz, Mike Tran, Diane Krause, Josh Rubin and Bonnie Stone.

Full standings here and possible outcomes here.

With half of the Elite Eight set, Tim Donahue of Louisville, Kentucky has taken the lead in the 17th annual Living Room Times men’s NCAA pool.

Donahue, who does not know me personally but found the LRT pools via Facebook last year, is one of three contestants — the others being Zach Bloxham (currently 11th) and Ben Eng (17th) — who picked both #2 Ohio State and #4 Louisville to reach the Final Four. (For the record, Donahue has Kansas and Kentucky tomorrow, as does Bloxham; Eng has UNC and Kentucky.)

Donahue has 265 points. Chris Palmer is next with 263. Then comes Yvette Webster with 253, Abby Newbold with 248, and 2005 pool champion Brian Kiolbasa with 242. Complete standings here.

Donahue, Palmer, Webster and Newbold are still alive to win the pool, as is Eng. Also still alive: Vicki Huffman, Brian Neudorff, Amy Booth, Nick Manzione and Kristy McCray. Possible outcomes here.

My 2 1/2 year old, “Loyacita,” was eliminated when Syracuse lost to Ohio State. But she is still alive in my law firm’s office pool; she will win the $80 first prize if Kansas beats UNC tomorrow and Kentucky wins the national championship. Go Loyacita! Ha!

Meanwhile, in the women’s pool, with three of eight Sweet Sixteen games complete (Stanford-South Carolina is underway as I write this), the Top 5 right now are Karen Torgersen, Michael Holtsberg, Randy Styles, Joe Hiegel, and a tie between Kevin Curran and Dan Dinunzio. All of them, and 25 others, are still alive to win.

The first night of the Sweet Sixteen was a dramatic one in the 17th annual Living Room Times men’s NCAA pool.

When the day began, Yvette Webster had the lead. But when Syracuse edged Wisconsin in the night’s first game, Elizabeth Styles took the lead. Webster, who had picked the Badgers, fell to 4th place.

However, an hour or so later, when Louisville upset Michigan State, Webster, who had picked the surprising Cardinals, re-took the lead; Styles fell to 2nd. Meanwhile, my 2-year-old daughter “Loyacita,” who also picked Louisville(!), started to creep up the leaderboard, jumping from 12th to 5th.

Then, when Ohio State beat Cincinnati, Jen Deschenes took the lead, while Steve Vivier and Loyacita moved into a tie for second place. Webster fell into a 4th-place tie with Chris Palmer and Randy Styles. Elizabeth Styles, Randy’s wife, fell to 7th.

Finally, when Florida upset Marquette, Palmer and Webster moved up into a first-place tie — the third separate time Yvette Webster had led today. Deschenes fell to 3rd, Vivier & Loyacita tied for 4th. The Styles duo remains 6th and 7th (but are mathematically eliminated from winning).

Here are the full standings. And here are the possible outcomes. Twenty-nine contestants are still mathematically alive to win — including Loyacita, who has a greater than 10% chance on paper, and possibly even better in reality, considering she will win the pool if Kansas goes to the Final Four and Kentucky beats Syracuse in the title game. (That’s not her only path to victory, but it’s a shockingly plausible one.)

The NIT Final Four at Madison Square Garden next Tuesday is set — UMass-Stanford at 7pm Eastern, followed by Minnesota-Washington at 9pm — and the 8th annual Living Room Times NIT Pool is down to a Final 3: Tommy Lemoine of Manchester, NH (a Michigan State alum), Dan Dinunzio of Storrs, CT (a current UConn senior), and Mike Wiser of Lansing, MI (a USC and Stanford alum and current MSU grad student).

Lemoine is an 800 Games Project participant who goes by @hoopthink on Twitter. Wiser is a friend of mine from USC’s Trojan Hall and a long-time contestant in my contests for more than a decade, and is trying to win his first Living Room Times basketball pool. Dinunzio is a fellow Newington High alum and, currently second place in the women’s pool, is gunning for a rare double pool championship.

Here are the current standings. Lemoine is first with 164 points. Dinunzio is second with 152. Jeff Poor is third with 151, but is mathematically eliminated. Wiser is tied for fourth with J. Scott Fitzwater at 141, but Fitzwater is mathematically eliminated; Wiser is not, because of his prediction that his alma mater Stanford will win the championship.

Here is how the scenarios play out:

* Wiser wins the pool if Stanford wins the title.
* Lemoine wins the pool if Washington wins the title, or loses the title game to UMass.
* Dinunzio wins the pool if Minnesota wins the title, or loses the title game to UMass.

This means that, next Tuesday, if UMass wins the first semi, Wiser will be eliminated and the second semi will decide the pool — Lemoine wins if Washington wins, Dinunzio wins if Minnesota wins. But if Stanford wins the first semi, Wiser will stay alive, and the second semi will merely decide which contestant, Lemoine or Dinunzio, gets to essentially face off against Wiser in the title game for the pool championship.

In other news, the men’s Sweet 16 starts tonight. Here again the current standings and victory scenarios in that pool.

Heading into the Sweet Sixteen, Yvette Webster of Round Hill, VA, who entered using the “mascot bracket” and stated, “I do not know a thing about basketball & I select by mascots – prefer birds & animals to anything,” leads the 17th annual Living Room Times NCAA Men’s Tournament Pool by a point over long-time blog reader and pool contestant Elizabeth Styles of South Bend, IN. (Until recently, Styles’s husband Randy was winning the women’s pool, leading to talk of “Styles family dominance.” Randy has since fallen to 7th place.)

Jen Deschenes of Newington, CT, Steve Vivier of Meriden, CT, and Chris Palmer of Long Valley, NJ round out the top 5 in the men’s pool. But they are among 78 contestants (33.5% of the field) who are still mathematically alive to win the contest.

The women’s pool is even more competitive heading into the Sweet 16 of that tournament, with 40 of the 78 contestants (51.3% of the field) still mathematically alive to win. The current leader is Michael Holtsberg of Broomall, PA, the 2009 women’s pool champ, looking to become the sixth two-time winner in the LRT pools’ history.

Four points behind Holtsberg are Dan Dinunzio of Newington and Notre Dame alum Kevin Curran (kcatnd) of Austin, TX, tied for second place. Carol LaPlante of Cheektowaga, NY and Karen Torgersen of Raleigh, NC round out the top five of the women’s pool standings. Here is the scenarios page showing who can win and everyone’s best possible finish.

Last but not least, in the NIT pool, we’re down to a Final Four: Tommy Lemoine of Manchester, NH; Jeff Poor of Washington, DC; Dan Dinunzio of Newington (again), and Mike Wiser of Lansing, MI. That pool could be decided tonight, with the last two quarterfinals: if Middle Tennessee beat Minnesota and Stanford beats Nevada, Lemoine (@hoopthink on Twitter) will clinch the championship.

If Minnesota wins, Dinunzio, who is aiming to join Matt Kagan as the only contestant to win two LRT pools in a single year, stays alive. If Nevada wins, Poor, the Auburn fan, avowed mid-major hater, and recently Limbaugh-lanched Daily Caller columnist, stays alive. And if Minnesota and Stanford both win, Wiser — the USC and Stanford alum and current MSU grad student, who has the Cardinal winning the NIT championship — stays alive. So, at the end of the night, there will either be 3 contestants (if Minnesota beats MTSU), 2 contestants (if MTSU & Nevada win), or just 1 contestant (if MTSU & Stanford win, so Lemoine clinches) left standing.

Now that’s what I call March Madness.

After the first 23 games of the first round produced just 3 “upsets” — none of them a “David vs. Goliath” situation with mid-major beating a major — Norfolk State opened the floodgates, and we saw TWO #15 seeds beat #2s in one evening (after just 4 such upsets in the previous 27 years), including the “bad guys” going down, plus a #13 over a #4, a #12 over a #5, a #11 over a #6, a #10 over a #7, and a #9 over a #8 (that many people thought was an unusually dangerous #8). The result?

After all the chaos, Scott Paine emerged as the leader of the LRT pool, with Deanah Kim & Elizabeth Styles tied for second 1 point behind, and Chris Palmer, Jeremy Lee, Robert Carlos, Yvette Webster, McClane Jugler, Pat Caplin and Karen Torgerson all within less than 10 points. Here are the standings.

Meanwhile, LAST CALL FOR THE WOMEN’S POOL!!! Deadline at 11am Eastern today.

First things first… join the women’s pool! Deadline tomorrow morning!

As for the men’s tourney: we only saw two “upsets” yesterday, and neither of them was a classic David-over-Goliath situation. We had Colorado over UNLV — exciting locally, but at the end of the day, just a BCS team beating a Mountain West team. And we had one instance of “mid-on-mid violence” that, with all due respect to VCU, likely hurts the mid-majors’ chances down the road. (I could see Wichita State giving Kentucky a scare. VCU, not so much.) It was a great game, but much like Western Kentucky over Drake a few years ago, felt sort of empty at the end, as the end result was the elimination of a team you’d have liked to see tested against above-the-Red-Line competition. Alas.

Beyond that, we saw some “scares” (New Mexico surviving Long Beach State, Baylor getting past the Jackrabbits) and one near-historic result derailed in part by horrible referring (#16 UNC-Asheville vs. #1 Syracuse), but no buzzer-beaters or even near-buzzer-beaters, and not a ton of real excitement, frankly, by March Madness standards. So… hopefully today’s better!

The early games don’t have a ton of Cinderella potential, but maybe #14 Saint Bonaventure can knock off #3 FSU in the second wave of afternoon games. Don’t laugh — Loyacita picked that as her one major first-round upset, and she is presently winning my law firm’s 29-person office pool. LOL! Go Loyacita! (She’s only 32nd in the LRT pool because she went 1-3 in the First Four, but those games don’t count in the office pool.) Anyway, if the Bonnies win, I’m taking that kid to Vegas. :) Here’s her bracket:

(As you’ll recall, these really are her own picks.)

Robert Carlos and Elizabeth Styles are tied atop the men’s NCAA pool with 69 points apiece, on 18-2 records overall (3-1 First Four, 15-1 on Saturday). They’re followed by Mike Dagen with 68 points (4-0, 14-2), Y Alice with 67 points (1-3, 16-0), and a six-way tie among Deanah Kim, Lisa Velte, Amy Booth, Karen Torgersen, Ken Stern and Alex Talcott with 65 points (3-1, 14-2). Complete standings here.

Meanwhile, remember that you can still enter the women’s pool — the deadline isn’t until Saturday morning. So if you’re bracket’s already busted, and you find yourself in the triple digits in the standings, you can get a fresh start! Sign up here.

P.S. By the way, in the NIT Pool, Jeff Morrison leads after the first round, with a 14-2 prediction record (it was 14-1 until Illinois State upset Ole Miss in the last game of the round) and 98 points. Bonnie Stone is next with 91 points, followed by a 3-way tie at 84 points among Daniel Pilz, Alex Talcott and Tommy Lemoine. Full standings here.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

P.S. ~1 hour left to enter the pool! Pool standings here, updating automatically.

UPDATE: Live Twitter coverage:

As Loyacita was filling out her bracket this morning, Loyette chimed in with some wisdom. Listen until the end for the punch line. Clearly we’re raising this kid right:

LOL! Loyette FTW!

In other news, today is the 16th anniversary of my announcement of the first-ever Living Room Times NCAA Pool (or “pool/poll,” as I initially called it) in the old LRT newspaper during my freshman year at Newington High. That’s more than half my life ago, folks. (Getting old #PANIC!)

You can still enter this year’s Living Room Times NCAA pools (men’s and women’s) — the 17th annual — here. Men’s deadline is tomorrow at noon Eastern; women’s deadline is Saturday morning.

By the way, Jeff Morrison leads the 8th annual NIT Pool with a perfect 8-0 record on the first day. Seventeen contestants are tied for second at 7-1. Full standings here. View everyone’s bracket as a printable PDF here.

The pools are, as always, FREE to enter. Winners of the men’s & women’s NCAA pools will (eventually*) get a t-shirt or equivalent prize. More importantly, all winners will attain eternal glory.

Eternal Glory!

Complete rules here. Entry links below. Good luck!

Men’s NCAA Tournament Pool:
• Standings here!
• Scoring system: 3-4-7-10-16-24-33.
• View everyone’s picks as a printable PDF.
• NOTE: Pursuant to Rule 4 and Option 3, First Four picks have been “made correct.” This does not impact whether people get credit for their First Four predictions, but it means that if you picked, say, Cal to the Sweet 16, and USF goes to the Sweet 16 instead, you get credit for those later rounds as if you’d picked USF. (But you still don’t get credit for the First Four game itself. Make sense?)

Women’s NCAA Tournament Pool:
• Standings here!
• Scoring system: 4-7-11-17-24-33.
• View everyone’s picks as a printable PDF.

NIT Pool:
• Standings here!
• Scoring system: 7-10-15-20-25.
• View everyone’s picks as a printable PDF.

*I’m…uh…three years behind on championship t-shirts/prizes, I believe. Yeah. I keep forgetting about that. I’m hoping to finally catch up this month (but I said that last year too). So, bottom line, don’t play for the t-shirts; play for the Eternal Glory. :)

P.S. You can re-submit your bracket with changed picks as many times as you want (up until the deadline, of course). I will assume that the last bracket you submit is the “correct” one, unless you tell me otherwise. If you just want to make a few small changes to a previously submitted bracket, leave a comment here, or e-mail me at irishtrojan [at] gmail.com, and I can change it for you.

(IMPORTANT NOTE: If you make changes to any part of the bracket — including, say, the East Region?? — and you submit those changes AFTER some First Four games have already started, you will lose any points you might have gotten for those First Four games, even if your changes are unrelated. Gotta be consistent.)

UPDATE: The pools now have their own Facebook Page, which I think looks pretty slick with the new “Page” layout. If you’re on Facebook, I strongly encourage you to “Like” the pools’ Page, as I will be posting updates there (as well as here) during the tournament. You should also follow me on Twitter, @brendanloy and @MileHighMids, if you aren’t already.

WHEEEE!!!!! We’re two days away from my favorite day of the year, Christmas morning Selection Sunday, and you know what that means: BRACKETS!!! Also, my 17th annual (free) Living Room Times Basketball Pools (Men’s NCAA, Women’s NCAA and NIT).

Come back here Sunday night or Monday to sign up. YAY!!! I. Can’t. Wait.

As a matter of fact, Loyette got so excited when she saw my Giant Bracket on the wall, she demanded to fill out a bracket immediately. So we’re doing a family Big East Bracket Contest. Here she is, updating Loyacita’s bracket this morning:

Right now, the preschoolers are kicking the grownups’ butts. Heading into the semifinals, the score is Loyette 17, Loyacita 17, Becky 15, Brendan 12. LOL.

My trip to Arkansas is off, cancelled ~7 hours before it was to begin, after Denver’s season ended in heartbreak at the hands of Western Kentucky in the Sun Belt semifinals last night. Here’s video of my reaction to the Pioneers’ shot at winning or tying the game in the final seconds, and then WKU’s game-sealing free throws at the other end:

Sigh.

Meanwhile, the college my mom attended for her first 2 years (before transferring to Illinois), Western Illinois, stunned #1 seed Oral Roberts in the Summit League semis last night, and will play for their first-ever NCAA Tournament berth tonight.

Tomorrow at 6:00 AM, I may be on board a plane departing Denver for Little Rock, Arkansas. Or I may not. I’ve already started packing, but I won’t know whether I’m actually traveling tomorrow until around 9:30 PM tonight — at which point I’ll be roughly six hours away from needing to leave for the airport, if I’m going.

That’s because my travel plans hinge on whether the Denver men’s basketball team beats Western Kentucky in a Sun Belt semifinal tonight. Full explanation here. Complete coverage over at my DU hoops blog, Mile High Mids.

I’ll be live-tweeting tonight’s semifinal (tip-off is 7:30 PM MDT) and, hopefully, a trip to Arkansas and tomorrow night’s championship game (winner goes to the NCAAs). We shall see. Anyway, here’s the liveblog window: