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The winners: Marty and Kristin.

I coulda been a contender. Damn you, Scorcese! :) But congrats to Kristin, a Notre Dame 2L and Gonzaga alum, who won the 3rd annual BrendanLoy.com Oscar Pool thanks to The Departed’s Best Picture victory. Here are the Top 10:

1. Kristin West 70
2(t). Colin S. 65
2(t). Jeff Vaca 65
4(t). Chris Aemisegger 62
4(t). Marty West 62
6(t). kcatnd 60
6(t). V 60
8. NDLS2006 58
9(t). Angela Holder 57
9(t). Brendan Loy 57

Kristin’s 70 points (out of a possible 80) is just shy of Chris McLemore’s winning total of 72 last year, and well ahead of Jackie Domaingue’s 56 points two years ago.

Kristin got 16 of the 24 awards right, erring only on Editing, Animated Feature Film, Foreign Language Film, Documentary Short, Live Action Short and Animated Short (worth 1 point each) and Original Score and Song (worth 2 points each). She got all the “major” awards right, and half of the “minor” awards.

As noted below, I would have won the pool if Babel (or The Queen) had won Best Picture. Interestingly enough, Vicki from NJ would have been in my position if, much earlier in the night, Eddie Murphy had won Best Supporting Actor. If that had happened, it would have been the third straight year Vicki lost the Oscar Pool at the wire thanks to a plausible but incorrect Best Picture pick (like me, she picked Babel). But Alan Arkin’s upset win over Eddie Murphy mathemetically eliminated Vicki early in the evening, which is perhaps merciful. :) She finished 15th.

Also worth noting: Chris Aemisegger, a fellow Notre Dame 3L and my ex-roommate, finished in the Top 4 for the third consecutive year. He was second last year and third two years ago. This year he tied for fourth.

Full standings after the jump.

P.S. This is the second consecutive year the Oscar Pool has been won by a redhead! ;)

UPDATE: I’ve added this to the BrendanLoy.com contests Bloypedia page.

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With only one award remaining, the 3rd annual BrendanLoy.com Oscar Pool comes down to this:

• If either Babel or The Queen win Best Picture, I (Brendan Loy) win the contest.
• If The Departed wins, Kristin West wins.
• If Letters from Iwo Jima wins, Brandon Minich wins.
• If Little Miss Sunshine wins, Rachel L. wins.

The polls are closed in the 3rd annual BrendanLoy.com Oscar Pool, and the Oscars are about to begin. I’ll be updating this post throughout the show, with the latest standings always immediately “after the jump.”

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There are less than five hours until the 6:00 PM deadline to enter the 3rd annual BrendanLoy.com Oscar Pool. Last chance to sign up! [UPDATE: I’m extending the deadline until 7:45 PM because the telecast starts at 8:00 and, honestly, I don’t actually need two hours to get everything set up. I’ve got a scorekeeping spreadsheet all ready to go, and I can just paste any new entrants’ info into the spreadsheet once it comes in. So, new entries are welcome until 7:45.]

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Here’s the latest on the Tree Selection Process at Stanford.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the USC basketball team had a Rudy-like moment on Senior Night at the Galen Center last night. The L.A. Times tells the story:

The chants started with 3 minutes 56 seconds left and USC leading California by 18 points.

“We want Penrose!” the USC students shouted.

Coach Tim Floyd wouldn’t budge for another 1 1/2 minutes, and his reluctance was understandable given the unfortunate series of events that befell senior walk-on guard Chris Penrose upon his insertion with 2:23 remaining Saturday at the Galen Center.

He was beaten for a layup by Golden Bears forward Patrick Christopher and then could only watch as Christopher took an alley-oop pass and dunked effortlessly. On the offensive end, with the shot clock winding down, Penrose hoisted a three-point attempt that didn’t even touch the rim.

Then it happened. With the students continually imploring him to shoot every time he touched the ball, Penrose swished a three-pointer from the wing with six seconds remaining to provide the exclamation point on Senior Night during USC’s 84-66 victory.

“As soon as it left my hand I had a good feeling it was going in, and then it went down and I turned around and looked at the student section and I couldn’t really hear anything because the place was so loud,” Penrose said. “My heart was going a mile a minute I was so happy and excited.” …

“It was pretty incredible,” said Penrose, who hopes to remain with the Trojans as a graduate assistant coach next season.

“It was a storybook ending to a little walk-on’s career.”

The Daily Breeze has more, as does InsideSoCal, which says: “On a night Galen Center had its highest attendance at 10,027, the arena culminated its first season with its loudest cheer ever. And it was for a little-used walk-on.”

Nicely done, Irish.

Black & Green, Rakes of Mallow and AOL Fanhouse have more on the game.

Elsewhere:

• LSU stuns Florida.
• Gonzaga, as I mentioned earlier, beats USF to keep slim at-large hopes alive.
• Winthrop beats Coastal Carolina, finishes the first undefeated Big South regular season ever. The conference tournament starts Tuesday at their gym.
• Creighton beats Wichita State to wrap up an NCAA bid… probably. Could the committee leave an 13-5 Valley team out of the Big Dance if they lose in the quarterfinals of the MVC tourney? In this “weak bubble” year, I doubt it, but the Bluejays will want to beat the #7/10 winner in St. Louis, just in case. Best-case scenario for Valley fans: Creighton and Missouri State win their quarterfinal games; MO State beats Creighton in the semis; Bradley or Northern Iowa upsets Southern Illinois in the other semifinal, and beats MO State in the title game. Hello, four bids!
• Georgetown beats Pitt, takes Big East lead.
• Syracuse wins at Providence in bubbleicious battle.
• Virginia beats Georgia Tech, put Yellow Jackets’ at-large hopes on life support.
• BC beats Clemson; same as above. (Life support.)
• Texas Tech beats Okie State in another bubbleicious battle. Cowboys collapsing.
• Air Force loses again, falls to third in the Mountain West. I know it’s tough to win on the road in the MWC, but losing 5 out of their last 6 road games is a little much — especially for a team ranked #13 in the country, and widely projected as a #4 or #5 seed! I don’t often say this about a mid-major, but I think the Falcons are overrated.

UPDATE: Some late results:

• Speaking of Mountain West road losses… BYU lost to San Diego State.
• More importantly, USC kicked Cal’s ass on Senior Night, and had a “Rudy” moment as senior walk-on Chris Penrose, who rarely plays, hit a 3-pointer in the final seconds, and was carried off the court by his teammates. Nice. Also, Lodrick Stewart became the Trojans’ all-time 3-point shooting leader.
• Santa Clara lost to Loyola Marymount, so Gonzaga can clinch a share of the WCC regular-season title with a win over San Diego on Monday (or win it outright if they beat San Diego and Santa Clara loses at Pepperdine).
• Southern Illinois beat Evansville to complete a 15-3 season in the Missouri Valley Conference. That’s pretty damn impressive.
• Missouri State beat Drake to continue its drive for an at-large berth — and, continuing on a theme, Blake Ahearn became the school’s all-time leading 3-point shooter.
• Michigan State beat Indiana. The Hoosiers, who were ranked and projected as a #5 seed not so long ago, have lost 3 of their last 4.

Notre Dame wins 85-73, finishes the season undefeated at home, and probably clinches an NCAA at-large berth. Also, Colin Falls broke the Big East career record for three-pointers. And Gonzaga won in overtime at San Francisco. Woohoo!

Well, so far I’m happily wrong. :) Irish up by 10 with 8 left. 3 MU players got their fourth fouls in the first 2 minutes, so that helped.

After an extremely inauspicious start, including two straight MU dunks to start the game, Notre Dame rallied from a double-digit deficit to go up by 6. To be honest, I think Marquette looks like the better team and will probably win, but I hope I'm wrong!

It's Senior Day for the Irish, and the Joyce Center is (for once) packed. Should be a great game atmosphere. Go Irish!

You’ve got just over a day left to enter the 3rd annual BrendanLoy.com Oscar pool. The deadline is 8pm EST6pm EST tomorrow. (Sorry, typo… the deadline is 6:00, not 8:00!!) Sign up now!

Also: so far, I’ve received five first-name-only entries where I don’t know who the person is. Two of them, Lauren and Juan, are especially problematic because there is another person is the contest by the same first name. In any event, first-name-only entries are forbidden by the entry rules. First name-last name is greatly preferred, but psuedonymous entries are OK if the psuedonym readily idenifiies you to me and the blog community, and first-name-last-initial or first-initial-last-name entries are OK if that’s our only option. So, will the following people please get in touch with me, so we can figure out what to do about their first-name-only entries: Elizabeth, gerry, Juan (not Juan Cruz), Julia and Lauren (not Lauren Taylor).

Oh, and “Wolfgang Amadeus Most Art,” who the heck are you? :) Do you normally comment around here by a different name/pseudonym? I’ve never heard that one before, so it doesn’t really meet the “readily identifies you” criterion.

After the jump, a list of everyone who has signed up so far.

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The latest regional radar.

It’s going to get ugly tonight:

…SIGNIFICANT FREEZING RAIN…SLEET AND SNOW ACCUMULATIONS ACROSS THE AREA TONIGHT INTO SUNDAY…

.A STRONG LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM OVER WESTERN KANSAS WILL MOVE NORTHEAST INTO THE SOUTHERN GREAT LAKES BY SUNDAY AFTERNOON. AHEAD OF THIS STRONG SYSTEM…A WEDGE OF VERY MOIST AND WARM AIR WILL RIDE NORTH REACHING PARTS OF NORTHERN AND CENTRAL INDIANA THIS EVENING AND CONTINUING NORTH OVERNIGHT. COLD AIR NEAR THE SURFACE WILL LEAD TO FREEZING RAIN…HEAVY AT TIMES TONIGHT…AND SLEET MAINLY ALONG AND SOUTH OF ROUTE 30. FURTHER NORTH THE PRECIPITATION IS EXPECTED TO BE A WINTRY MIX OF PRIMARILY SLEET AND SNOW…WITH SOME FREEZING RAIN LATE TONIGHT AND EARLY SUNDAY.

SIGNIFICANT ICE ACCUMULATIONS ARE EXPECTED ACROSS NORTHERN INDIANA…SOUTHERN MICHIGAN AND PART OF NORTHWEST OHIO SATURDAY NIGHT…ESPECIALLY ALONG AND SOUTH OF ROUTE 30 WHERE THE POTENTIAL EXISTS FOR ONE-HALF TO THREE-QUARTERS OF AN INCH ICE ACCRETION ALONG AND SOUTH OF A MONTICELLO TO WABASH TO HUNTINGTON TO LIMA OHIO LINE. MAJOR TRANSPORTATION ARTERIES THROUGHOUT ALL OF THE WARNING AREA WILL BE ADVERSELY AFFECTED. IN ADDITION… STRONG EAST WINDS WILL CAUSE TREE DAMAGE AND POWER OUTAGES.

Yikes. And I’m supposed to be going to a party tonight.

Take a look at the surface map as of 2:15 PM:

That’s a lot of isobars.

It’ll be a battle for fourth place in the Big East — with a potential first-round bye in conference tournament at stake — when Notre Dame hosts #16 Marquette at the Joyce Center this afternoon (3:30 PM, ABC). Can Mike Brey’s Irish finish the season undefeated at home?

“What did you say, Brendan Loy?!? Fire me?!? Hell no!!”

A few other games of interest today:
• Winthrop tries to complete its undefeated Big South season at Coastal Carolina, a team that almost beat ‘em at home. 2:00 PM.
• Gonzaga looks to keep its at-large hopes alive, and build some momentum heading into the WCC tourney, at San Francisco. 3:30 PM.
• Creighton looks to solidify its at-large profile once and for all by beating Wichita State at home and finishing 13-5 in the MVC. 5:05 PM.
• USC hosts Cal in its final home game of the season. After this, the Trojans travel to the Washington schools, and then comes the Pac-10 Tournament. 8:00 PM.
• Missouri State hosts Drake in another MVC finale, a must-win for the bubbleicious Bears’ at-large hopes. 8:30 PM.