With Memphis looking nigh unstoppable early — they’re up 39-24 over Texas with 2:00 left in the first half — it’s looking increasingly likely that Stephen Curry and the #10-seed Davidson Wildcats will be the last hope for the non-#1-seeds.

It was #1-seed Kansas that blew the chance for an first-ever “all-chalk” Final Four last year, losing to #2-seed UCLA in the second game of the Elite Eight. (#1-seed North Carolina subsequently lost, too, to #2 Georgetown.) But that was against a Bruins team that effectively had home-court advantage and arguably should have been a #1 seed itself. Losing to tiny Davidson, when a win would put four #1 seeds in the Final Four, would be a much bigger upset — and a much bigger stain on the already oft-smeared record of Bill Self and the “Rock Choke Jayhawks.”

And yet, would anybody really be stunned if Davidson pulled it off? At this point, who dares doubt Stephen Curry?

UPDATE: Memphis wins, 85-67. Davidson is our last hope!

Is the key to Davidson’s success Kyle Whelliston’s tie?

Little did I know I was in the presence of talismanic greatness last year at BracketBusters!

On a more serious note, here’s Whelliston’s ESPN article on Stephen Curry, who, it bears repeating, is not only a transcendent superstar, but just a really nice and humble guy. Apropos of which, Whelliston’s Mid-Majority blog post about the Wildcats’ win over Wisconsin concludes:

We haven’t had a breakout basketball star like Curry in a generation, and he’s helping undo the damage that the past 20 years have done to the idea of basketball stardom. There are kids out there who are now 10, 11 years old, spending this afternoon in driveways copying the fallaway 3-pointer that gave Davidson that early lead at 13 minutes of the first half. Here’s hoping that they’ll keep emulating him, carrying themselves with perfect humility.

P.S. After Curry, who is a sophomore, led Davidson to their first-round victory over Gonzaga — that’s two upset wins and 63 points ago — Rush the Court wrote a post titled “Is Stephen Curry becoming a March legend?” which noted:

[Curry] isn’t a big-time NBA prospect (according to scouts) because he isn’t that tall, strong, or athletic. In fact his biggest attributes are his shooting and intelligence, which are two things the NBA scouts don’t seem to care about these days. We are assuming that his family is doing ok financially given the fact that his father (Dell) had a long and distinguished career in the NBA. When you combine all of that, it seems like he might be one college star who remains in college all 4 years. In this day and age, that might be enough to make him a legendary player in March by the time he finishes his college career in 2010.

I’d say Curry is well ahead of schedule on the “legendary player” bit. But it can always get better. Three years of this? Pinch me.

One year after rising to the #1 ranking in the country only to be stunned by Michigan State in the NCAA regional final, the #12-ranked Fighting Irish of Notre Dame got their revenge tonight, beating the Spartans 3-1 (after previously upsetting the top seed, New Hampshire) to advance to their first Frozen Four in school history! WOOHOO!! (Hat tip: NDLauren.)

The Irish will play the hated Skunkbears of Michigan, whose football team lost to Appalachian State last year, in a national semifinal in Denver on April 10. Michigan is ranked #1 in the land.

[UPDATE: Folks in the South Bend area are encouraged to assemble at the Joyce Center around 4:30 AM to greet the team upon its return. (Hat tip: John.)]

Now… can the Fighting Irish women’s basketball team pull off an even more monumental upset tomorrow by upsetting #1-seed Tennessee in the Sweet 16? The Irish are 0-15 all-time against the Lady Vols. How does two milestones in 24 hours sound? GO IRISH!!!

P.S. Speaking of women’s basketball, the ladies are now halfway to the Elite Eight after another quartet of non-upsets. In my pool, Chuck Wessell continues to have the lead. Complete standings here and after the jump. Information on who’s still mathematically alive to win the pool here.

(more…)

So… we head into the second day of the Elite Eight facing the still-active possibility of all four #1 seeds making the Final Four for the first time ever. Last year, that prospect still existed at the start of the Elite Eight’s first day, but #2-seed UCLA’s win over #1-seed Kansas on Saturday night guaranteed that it wouldn’t happen. Now, after tonight’s wins by #1 seeds UCLA and North Carolina, only #2 Texas (vs. #1 Memphis) and #10 Davidson (vs. #1 Kansas) stand in the way of the all-chalk Final Four.

Pool update shortly.

UPDATE: Ryan Morgan still leads the 13th annual Living Room Times men’s basketball pool presented by the UCLA Bruins, but he’ll be eliminated if #1-seeded Memphis beats #2 Texas tomorrow.

For now, 12 contestants — Morgan, Mark Gardner, Joseph Hiegel, Chris Mulvey, Keith Evans, Lisa Velte, Chuck Wessell, Alex Whitfield, Shari Long, Steve Hartranft, Amy Greca and Robert Dokes — are still alive to win the pool.

But Morgan, Gardner and Hartranft would be eliminated by a Memphis win, while Evans would be eliminated if Memphis wins and Davidson beats Kansas. On the other hand, Hiegel, Mulvey, Whitfield, Long and Greca would be eliminated by a Texas win; Velte would be eliminated if either Texas or Kansas wins; Dokes would be eliminated if either Texas or Davidson wins; and Wessell would be eliminated if Davidson wins, regardless of the Memphis-Texas outcome.

If both of the #1 seeds, Memphis and Kansas, win tomorrow, the pool will be as wide-open as is mathematically possible heading into the Final Four, with eight scenarios remaining and a different winner in each of them!

After the jump, complete standings and additional scenario information.

(more…)

Man, oh man, has it been a great year to be an unheralded, small-conference school in western North Carolina, or what?

First Appalachian State beats Michigan in the Big House. Then Gardner-Webb beats Kentucky at Rupp Arena. And now Davidson — Appy State’s conference-mate — is going to the Elite Eight.

Just call it the Bermuda Carolina Triangle:

"Abandon hope, all ye major-conference foes who enter here!"

Heady days in western Carolina. HOT! HOT! HOT!

With Memphis and Kansas leading at halftime by scores of 50-20 and 41-22, respectively — and with myself being exhausted and about ready to sleep — I’m going to risk a “Dewey Defeats Truman” moment, assume that both the Tigers and Jayhawks will in fact win, and post the updated pool standings based on that assumption. If either team somehow loses, you may consider this post null and void, and the linked standings inaccurate. :) So, without further ado, my slightly-premature pool update:

Ryan Morgan leads the 13th annual Living Room Times men’s basketball pool presented by the UCLA Bruins at the conclusion of the Sweet Sixteen, and would win in 34 of the 128 remaining scenarios. Dan Port and Mark Gardner are tied for second place, and would win in 26 and 11 scenarios, respectively. Eighteen other contestants are still mathematically alive to win the pool, each owning between one and seven possible winning scenarios.

Meanwhile, former leader Khalil Aboukhaled fell from first to fourth place, and was mathematically eliminated from any chance of winning the pool, when Memphis won. (He had picked already-eliminated Pitt, and needed Michigan State to upset Memphis in the Panthers’ stead in order to keep his hopes alive.)

Complete scenario information can be found here, sorted by statistical chances of winning. Complete standings are here and after the jump. Also after the jump, information on who’ll be eliminated tomorrow, depending on how the North Carolina-Louisville and UCLA-Xavier games turn out.

(more…)

Wisconsin and Davidson are tied at the half. WOO!!! Go Wildcats!!!

UPDATE: Davidson leads by 15 points with 10:08 left!! WOOOO!!!

UPDATE 2: Stephen. Curry. Is. Awesome.

UPDATE 3: Davidson wins, 73-56! Wildcats to the Elite Eight!! YAAAY!!!

Davidson has officially achieved Gonzaga status. Up next: George Mason status?!

UPDATE 4: Only two contestants in the entire pool picked Davidson to reach the Elite Eight, and both are way down near the bottom of the leaderboard: Jessica Osborne of Denver, currently in 236th place, and our cats, Toby, Sasha & Butter Zak, currently in 238th place. Both brackets have Davidson losing in the Elite Eight (to Kansas, in Osborne’s case; to already-eliminated Clemson, in the cats’ case).

UPDATE 5: After the jump, complete standings of the 13th annual Living Room Times men’s basketball pool presented by UCLA. Khalil Aboukhaled is still in the lead, thought he would win in only 1.6 percent of the remaining 512 scenarios (up from 0.4% of 2,048 scenarios as of last night). Ryan Morgan is second, and Mark Gardner, Bill Reece and Dan Port tied for third.

(more…)

It looks like Louisville is about to beat Tennessee. Meanwhile, Western Kentucky has mounted a big rally to pull within six points of UCLA with 7:07 left. GO HILLTOPPERS!!!

UPDATE: Louisville wins; Khalil Aboukhaled leads the pool. Jeff Belisle is second; Ryan Morgan drops to third. Full update after the UCLA-WKU game.

UPDATE 2: A valiant effort by Western Kentucky — and damn, if that three-pointer rattles in, back when it was a four-point game with 5:17 left, who knows? — but the Bruins win, 88-78. So it’ll be UCLA vs. Xavier in the West Regional Final… just like my original bracket predicted (I had Xavier beating the Bruins and going all the way to the title game), before I changed it at the last minute to have UConn beating UCLA and going to the Final Four over the Musketeers. Harumph.

UPDATE 3: As mentioned earlier, Khalil Aboukhaled of South Bend, Indiana (a.k.a. “fezafou”) leads the 13th annual Living Room Times men’s basketball pool presented by the UCLA Bruins. He has 247 out of a possible 312 points. However, his chances of winning the pool are statistically quite small — just 0.4% — in large part because his predicted national champion, Georgetown, has already been eliminated, as has another of his Final Four teams, Pitt.

The mathematical favorite to win the pool is Jeff Belisle of Brooklyn, New York, currently in second place with 242 points. He has a 14.5% chance to win. Belisle is followed in the current standings by Ryan Morgan of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who had a 14-point lead at the beginning of the day, but went just 2-for-4 on Thursday, having picked neither Xavier nor Louisville. He has 241 points, and a 10.4% chance to win.

Dan Port, Lisa Velte, Bill Rece and Mark Gardner are tied for fourth with 239 points apiece. Alex Whitfield is eighth with 237, Joseph Hiegel ninth with 235, and rounding out the top ten are Kevin Hauschulz, Chuck Wessell, and brother & sister Matt Thomsen and Danielle Thomsen, all tied with 234 points each. Hauschulz and Danielle Thomsen are already mathematically eliminated from winning the pool, however. Here’s a full list of possible outcomes.

Complete standings here and after the jump.

(more…)

Our (three-day-)long national nightmare — in which all we had to satisfy our hunger for college basketball was the NIT, the CBI and the largely upset-free opening weekend of the women’s Big Dance — is over. The Sweet 16 begins tonight. Whee!!!

All I can say is: GO WESTERN KENTUCKY!!! BEAT FUCLA!!!

(Also: Go Tennessee! Go Xavier*! Go Wazzu!)

*Or West Virginia. Whatever.

UPDATE: Xavier won in overtime; North Carolina won easily, again.

In the 13th annual Living Room Times men’s basketball pool presented by UCLA, Ryan Morgan still leads, but his margin is down to 4 points because of West Virginia’s loss. Everyone else in the Top 7 — Khalil Aboukhaled, Matt and Danielle Thomsen (brother and sister, tied for third), Chris Mulvey, Jeff Belisle and Joe Swiderski — picked both of tonight’s early-game winners. Morgan only picked the Tar Heels.

If Louisville beats Tennessee, Aboukhaled will take the lead. If the Vols win, Morgan will remain on top.

Complete standings here and after the jump.

(more…)

Sweet, indeed:

Davidson College students who want to go to Detroit to see their basketball team in the Sweet 16 can do so for free.

In
an e-mail to students Wednesday, school President Tom Ross said the
school’s trustees will pay for tickets, travel and lodging for
Davidson’s Midwest Regional semifinal game Friday night against
Wisconsin at Detroit’s Ford Field. Students also get tickets to
Sunday’s regional final — win or lose.

The gift will not come
from Davidson’s endowment, said Stacey Schmeidel, director of college
communications. "At least one person on the board stepped up and said,
`I want to do this for the students,’ " Schmeidel said.

As of
Wednesday night, hundreds of students had signed up for the offer, so
many that college officials were scrambling for extra tickets and
buses. The offer includes a 660-mile bus ride to Detroit leaving Friday
morning and returning between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. Monday — just in time
for classes.

Heh. Awesome. (Hat tip: anonamom.)

The only downside: they aren’t cancelling classes on Friday. The school’s president urged students to "please consider going to the game ONLY if this
is, academically, the right decision for you." Riiiiight.

UPDATE: Here’s the full text of the president’s e-mail, courtesy of Davidson blogger Will Bryan. But now it seems the school sent out "a second email a few hours later saying that not everyone who responded
to the first will be able to go since they don’t have enough tickets." Heh. That’s according to AOL Fanhouse, quoting Bryan. A commenter on Bryan’s site confirms:

They said they could give free tickets, transportation, and lodging to
everyone, but now they are saying that they can’t meet the student
demand (and they should have certainly expected FULL demand). Things
are really up in the air right now as people are hoping that Davidson
will keep its word on this. A lot of people who were really excited
are now pretty disappointed. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.

The commenter also quotes from the latest e-mail from the college: "We have been overwhelmed by the response. There will not be enough time
before Friday morning to respond to each email. We are keeping track of
the requests in the order they come in. If we have a ticket for you, we
will email you directly on Thursday. … We apologize, but we will not be able to take every student who wants to go to Detroit."

P.S. In other basketball-related news, I’d just like to clarify, in case anyone was wondering after last night’s David Schnauzer Letterman Top Ten list, that the
reason we’ve chosen to conceal Loyette’s true first name on the blog is not because we named her "Gonzaga." ;)

The Bruce Pearl to Indiana rumors are officially on.

Gary Kirby is one Florida loss away from winning his second consecutive Irish Trojan NIT Pool.

Kirby, a.k.a. “gahrie,” got the entire Final Four right — something only he and Katrina Lewonczyk can claim — and he now has 228 out of a possible 252 points. That puts him 15 ahead of Josh Krause, 16 ahead of Mark Gardner, 22 ahead of Brian Dupuis and 23 ahead of Ginny Zak.

Only Dupuis, a LSU alum, still has a chance to win, however. Both he and Kirby, who attended USC in the 1980s, predicted a Florida-Ohio State title game, a rematch of last year’s NCAA championship game. But whereas Kirby (along with everyone else near the top of the current leaderboard) picked the Buckeyes to win, Dupuis picked his Tigers’ conference rivals, the Gators.

So if Florida follows up its two consecutive NCAA championships with an NIT championship, Dupuis — winner of the Irish Trojan college football bowl pick ‘em contest in 2005-06 — will win the pool. If anyone else wins the title, Kirby will repeat as NIT Pool champ.

Complete standings here and after the jump.

(more…)

Ole Miss beat Virginia Tech tonight to become the third straight NIT #2 seed to knock off a #1 seed on its home floor — and in the process, the Rebels eliminated Josh Krause, Dan Port, Pat Caplin, Jeff Burch and Joey Perucki from any chance of winning the 4th annual Irish Trojan NIT Pool.

The pool is now down to a final three: defending champion Gary Kirby (”gahrie”), who attended USC from 1983-1987; Brian Dupuis (”DUP”), a 2004 LSU alum; and Chris Bravo (”cdbavg400″), a 2007 USC alum and current Arizona grad student.

Bravo needs Dayton to beat Ohio State in a game that’s still in progress. If the Flyers win tonight, Bravo will win the pool if UMass wins the NIT and the total number of points scored in the title game is 128 or less. On the other hand, if the Buckeyes win tonight, Bravo is eliminated. Meanwhile, regardless of tonight’s outcome, Dupuis will win the pool if Florida wins the NIT. And Kirby will repeat as pool champion in every other scenario (including the one where UMass wins a title game in which 129 or more points are scored).

I’ll post a full update tomorrow, but that’s where things stand in terms of the scenarios.

Barely 24 hours removed from pursuing a perfect bracket, Mark Gardner is suddenly out of the running in the Irish Trojan NIT Pool — and defending champion Gary Kirby is back in the catbird seat.

Kirby, a.k.a. "gahrie," is tied with Josh Krause for first place, and is statistically the most likely to win the pool, prevailing in 14 of the 32 remaining scenarios. He is also the only contestant guaranteed to still be mathematically alive after tonight’s final two quarterfinals. For now, however, eight contestants are  alive to win: Kirby, Krause, Dan Port, Brian Dupuis (DUP), Pat Caplin, Jeff Burch, Chris Bravo and Joey Perucki.

Gardner, who was perfect until the tournament’s 22nd game and entered last night’s action with a 23-1 prediction record, was mathematically eliminated by a pair of quarterfinal upsets: wins by #2 seeds UMass and Florida over homestanding top seeds Syracuse and Arizona State, respectively. The Syracuse loss especially hurt, as the Orange were Gardner’s predicted runner-up. He can now finish no better than third place.

Kirby, for his part, appears to have an uncommon gift for predicting the NIT. In addition to winning the 2007 pool, he finished second in 2006. (He did not compete in 2005.) This year, he has gotten only two games wrong to date.

(more…)

Chuck Wessell, a Ph.D. student at N.C. State, leads the 11th annual Living Room Times women’s basketball pool heading into the Sweet Sixteen.

Wessell picked both of last night’s mild upsets — by #5 seeds Notre Dame and Old Dominion, both in overtime over #4 seeds — to break the deadlock at the top of the standings. He has 243 out of a possible 272 points. Maryland alum Josh Rubin and Evansville alum Jeremy Gist are tied for second place with 240 points. The pool is scored on a 5-7-10-15-20-25 basis. Complete standings here and after the jump.

44 of the 91 contestants — nearly half — are still mathematically alive to win the pool, as you can see on the Possible Outcomes page. (To sort that page by mathematical likelihood of
winning, instead of by current rank, click twice on the column header "# First.")

I’ll post an NIT Pool update later today, sometime before tonight’s last two quarterfinals tip off at 7:00 PM EDT.

(more…)