Crazy madness

My NCAA tournament bracket -- which had held up miraculously well during this crazy tournament year -- officially died at about 2:40 this afternoon when the No. 1-seeded Kansas lost to the No. 11-seeded Virginia Commonwealth.

I may not have cared about yesterday’s games. But with North Carolina and Kansas forecasted in my championship game, I was sitting in prime money territory heading into today’s games.

Neither survived.

I had a hunch Kentucky would take care of North Carolina, but a Kansas loss … aye.

The Jayhawks repeatedly shot themselves in the feet by trying to match VCU’s three-point shooting and not pushing the ball inside. Plain and simple.

Ah, well. I wasn’t too attached to this year’s team anyway. And I was prepared for this, given that No. 1 has rarely been good for Kansas, and the favorites have been dropping like flies during this tournament.

The legend of 2008 lives on.

As for the office pool, after a quick skim, the facts are amusing. When it’s over, not one of our 56 participants will have predicted the national champion. What’s more, not one participant correctly predicted any of the teams eligible to play in the championship game. Only four people predicted one of the remaining teams left in the Final Four. (I should've gone with Butler ... )

With three games left to play, the final standings are already sealed -- and the winner picked Duke to take it all.

For the record, I’ll finish in seventh place.

(Updated: 04.01.2011) Good reads ...
a Rock choke: KU stumbles again in Elite Eight
a Bill Self’s Knack for Being Liked
a Uncanny Partnership of Morris and Morris
a Teams take their best shot at Goliaths like KU
a V.C.U.’s Brightest Star May Be the Head Coach
a Cinderalla, say hello to Cinderella
a The MVP of the NCAA tournament: The mute button
a Head-Scratching Plays Dominate the N.C.A.A.
a Squeezing juice from tourney
a Coaches Calhoun and Calipari Share a Genuine Dislike
a For Butler’s Stevens, a Career Change Paid Off