Sportsmeat

In quite possibly the easiest tournament to forecast in the past 25 years, I came within a miracle Georgetown comeback of going 1-for-4 in Final 4 picks. Just sad. That said, I'm willing to learn from my mistakes, which are:

• If you think an Elite 8 game is a toss up, it's best not to pick one of those two teams to win it all. I have to say, I went with Kansas on a hunch even though I knew they didn't match up well with UCLA, then decided to ride Kansas all the way to the title. In the East, I largely picked Georgetown because I thought they had an easier road to the Elite 8 than UNC, yet I didn't apply this to my national title pick. Of course, a lot of this had to do with my reluctance to pick Florida because I don't like Joakim Noah, which leads me to ...
• Always pick the most talented team to win. Florida is the most talented team, and they've been there before. Talent can be undone by youth (see Texas-USC and UNC-Georgetown) but it usually wins out. Another caveat here -- don't assume that defensively oriented teams aren't talented. People see North Carolina and how they can score and see an array of offensive weapons, but in many ways what UCLA (or So. Illinois for that matter) can do defensively is just as impressive.
• Ohio State is much better than I thought. I felt good about my pick of Tennessee over Ohio State and my feeling that the Buckeyes were vulnerable in the second round (though I thought BYU and not Xavier). I wasn't wrong there. But what I severely underestimated was Ohio State's ability to score. I'm more impressed with this team than any other I've seen in the tournament. Mike Conley Jr. is a star and Ron Lewis has been the breakout performer of the tournament so far -- huge shot against Xavier and 25 in the win over Tennessee.
• Shit happens. I'd pick Texas A&M to beat Memphis 10 times out of 10, but give Memphis credit for how well they played, for the number of defenders they threw at Acie Law to wear him out and to John Calipari for taking two completely different personnel groups to the Elite 8 two years in a row. If this group can stay together for next year, they are a legit title contender.

Anyway, now that I've relived how my brackets went to hell, let's anoint Maxipriest as the 2007 Sportsmeat NCAA Tournament bracket challenge champion. Maxi, you may come to pick up the creepy trophy whenever you wish (in a virtual sense). As with the college football pool, there will be no drama down the stretch for this pool. Big Thunder being the only one of us to pick Florida gives him a chance to crawl within two points of the final standings, but it won't be enough.

The big swing was yesterday, when Snoop's national title pick, UNC, failed to hold the lead against Maxi's pick, Georgetown, thus swinging the pool in the latter's favor. Here are the current standings:

Maxipriest - 153 points (46 available points)

Snoop - 136 points (0 available)

Budds - 134 points (46 available)

Big Thunder - 125 points (26 available)

EJ - 125 points (20 available)

# posted by EJ @ 11:39 AM