RUBIN, KIM STONE JOIN CAPLIN ATOP POOL

With a boost from the Utah Utes, University of Maryland grad student Josh Rubin and Newington High School sophomore Kim Stone joined 59-year-old Michigan resident Larry Caplin in a three-way tie for first place in The Living Room Times’s eighth annual NCAA men’s pool through 24 first-round games.

Caplin, Rubin and Stone each have 105 points out of a possible 120, thanks to 21-3 records in predicting the tournament’s games so far. Each first-round game is worth five points.

Caplin was alone in first place until 5:25 PM Eastern time, when #9 Utah knocked off #8 Oregon, an upset that he had not predicted. Rubin and Stone predicted Utah’s win, so they moved up in the standings.

Bonnie Stone, a former co-leader, is five points behind her daughter Kim in a four-way tie for fourth place, along with Kristen Everson, Tom Greca, and Justin Vale. They have 100 points apiece, thanks to 20-4 records.

Ben Benack, Matt Kagan, Todd Stigliano and Mike Wiser are ten points behind the leaders, with 95 points each and 19-5 records.

CAPLIN TAKES POOL LEAD WITH AUBURN’S WIN

Auburn’s overtime upset of St. Joseph’s lifted Larry Caplin into sole possession of first place in The Living Room Times’s eighth annual NCAA men’s pool Friday afternoon.

Caplin, a resident of West Bloomfield, Michigan, and an uncle of Becky Zak, moved ahead of Bonnie Stone, a Newington High School teacher, at 2:53 PM Eastern time when the #10-seeded Tigers defeated the #7 Owls. Caplin is the first contestant to take sole possession of the pool lead this year.

Caplin has an 18-2 record in the pool so far, having also correctly predicted Friday’s early wins by #1 Texas, #1 Kentucky, and #3 Syracuse. He has 90 of a possible 100 points.

Bonnie Stone, Caplin’s co-leader through the tournament’s first day, is now one of five contestants tied for second place with 85 points and 17-3 records. She is tied with her daughter, Kim Stone, as well as Josh Rubin, Justin Vale, and Ethan Rector.

Eight contestants are tied with 80 points and 16-4 records.

This is what Becky and I were watching a few minutes ago on the Zaks’ big-screen TV, set on split-screen:

(It had been a split screen between CNN news coverage and CBS basketball coverage, but CBS broke away from basketball to cover the bombing.)

CBS has switched the NCAA Tournament over to ESPN in mid-game.

Wow.

A CNN military analyst says the district of Baghdad that was hit is the military area. I certainly hope so.

Becky points it out how scary it must be to be a little kid in Baghdad right now.

Reportedly a presidential palace may have been hit, too.

Explosions reported near Baghdad and northern Iraqi cities of Mosul and Kirkuk as Pentagon says massive attack begins.

CNN, via Al Jazeera, just showed a live picture of something big blowing up.

The Pentagon says the “shock and awe” campaign has begun.

CBS has a dilemma here. It seems pretty likely that lots of things are going to start blowing up over Baghdad soon. But CBS, having handed over half of yesterday’s games to ESPN, decided to air at least this afternoon’s first four games on CBS. If the war really gets underway in the next hour or so, they’re going to have a tough decision.

Pentagon officials say massive bombardment campaign against Iraq is beginning today.

U.S., British forces take key airfields in western Iraq, strategic oil fields near Basra, senior U.S. military official says.

The Eastern Connecticut State University women’s basketball team, including junior tri-captain and Newington High School Class of 2000 alumna Kathleen Burdelski, is playing in the NCAA Division III NCAA Final Four tonight at 8:00 PM Eastern time against the top-ranked team in the country, Wisconsin-Eau Claire! The game will be webcast live on D3Hoops.com.

ECSU, ranked #20 nationwide, got to the Final Four thanks to three consecutive tournament victories over higher-ranked teams, two of those on the other team’s home floor. Most recently, Eastern beat #8 King’s College last Saturday.

STONE, CAPLIN LEAD POOL AFTER FIRST DAY OF TOURNEY
Tulsa’s upset win drops them to 14-2 through 16 games

Newington High School teacher Bonnie Stone and Michigan resident Larry Caplin finished the first day of The Living Room Times’s eighth annual NCAA men’s pool in a first-place tie, having each correctly predicted the winner of 14 games out of 16 on the tournament’s first day.

Stone and Caplin were 14-1 through the day’s first 15 games, but dropped to 14-2 when #13-seed Tulsa defeated #4 Dayton in the day’s biggest upset.

They correctly picked the evening’s other three late games, which ended in victories — albeit close, hard-fought ones — by #2 Kansas, #3 Duke, and #5 Notre Dame.

The co-leaders have 70 of a possible 80 points. Seven contestants are tied for third with 65 points and 13-3 records; twelve are tied with 60 points and 12-4 records. Full standings.

The first-place tie between Caplin and Stone will be broken early Friday. In one of the day’s first games, Caplin has predicted that #10 Auburn will upset #7 St. Joseph’s, while Stone has picked St. Joseph’s to win. Whoever is proven right will almost certainly own sole posession of the lead after Friday’s first wave of four games, barring an improbable upset of #1 Texas by #16 UNC Asheville.

On Thursday, Stone was nearly perfect throughout much of the day. She made a mistake very early on, picking #9 N.C. State over #8 Cal, and another mistake at the tail end of the night, failing to predict Tulsa’s upset win. (Then again, only seven contestants — Dave Cordero, Barbara Maier, Dan Port, Ethan Rector, Rosalie Town, Victoria Wagner, and Becky Zak — successfully predicted that upset.) Stone correctly picked upsets by #9 Gonzaga, #10 Arizona State, and #11 Central Michigan.

Caplin failed to predict Arizona State’s win, and he too did not forsee Tulsa’s stunner. He did predict the upsets by Gonzaga and Central Michigan, and unlike Stone, he picked Cal over N.C. State.

Caplin is a resident of West Bloomfield, Michigan, and is an uncle of pool administrator Brendan Loy’s girlfriend, Becky Zak, also a contestant in the pool. Stone is a resident of Newington, Connecticut, and was Loy’s newspaper advisor during high school, when Loy was editor-in-chief of the school paper. Stone is also the mother of Brendan’s “honorary sister,” Kim Stone, an NHS sophomore and fellow pool contestant, who is taking part in the NHS school musical this weekend.

This year’s Times pool is dedicated to American military personnel in the Persian Gulf region.

Utah State, a #15 seed, is down by three points against #2-seed Kansas with 10 seconds left — but they have the ball under their basket. A three-pointer could send the game to overtime

Only four #15 seeds have beaten #2 seeds in NCAA men’s tournament history.

UPDATE, ONE MINUTE LATER: Kansas survives. Utah State got two good looks at three-point shots, but just couldn’t knock them down. Oh, well. It’s just as well for me, considering that I have Kansas reaching the Final Four. But I always root for underdogs; I can’t help myself.

STONE, CAPLIN SHARE LEAD

Bonnie Stone, a teacher at Newington High School, and Larry Caplin, an uncle of Becky Zak, are tied for the lead in The Living Room Times’s eighth annual NCAA men’s pool through three-quarters of the tournament’s first day. They have correctly picked 11 of 12 games, for 55 points out of a possible 60.

Stone’s daughter, NHS sophomore Kim Stone, was tied with her mother and Caplin through 11 games. That three-way tie lasted nearly 45 minutes, but Kim Stone fell behind around 10:15 PM Eastern time when #5 Wisconsin defeated #12-seed Weber State.

Kim Stone, who had predicted a Weber State upset, is now tied for third place with Josh Rubin, Justin Vale, Kristen Everson, and Ben Benack with 50 points apiece. Fifteen players are tied for eighth place with 45 points each.

Bonnie Stone’s only mistake so far came in one of the day’s earliest games: she picked #9 N.C. State over #8 California. She has been perfect ever since the Bears’ overtime win.

Caplin was perfect through the tournament’s first nine games. His only error came in a game that ended at 9:25 PM Eastern time: he had picked #7 Memphis over #10 Arizona State.

Before that game ended in an Arizona State upset, Caplin, Rubin, Benack and Kim Stone had been in a four-way tie for the lead with 9-0 records. Arizona State’s win tarnished their perfect records and boosted Bonnie Stone, Kristen Everson, Justin Vale, and Ryan McBride into a tie with them, creating a eight-way logjam at the top of the leaderboard. All eight had 9-1 records at the time.

That situation lasted about 10 minutes. When #11 Central Michigan wrapped up its upset of #6 Creighton at 9:35 PM Eastern, Rubin, Everson, Vale, McBride, and Benack fell to 9-2. But Caplin and the Stones had correctly picked Central Michigan, so they improved to 10-1.

Then at 10:15, Wisconsin’s win over Weber State lifted Caplin and Bonnie Stone to 11-1, while dropping Kim Stone to 10-2.