Choosing a bracket and be a humbling experience. ESPN gives you the ability to choose up to 10 brackets, so you can choose many different combinations and still have the potential to mess them all up. Surprisingly, even though my brackets did horrendously, I guess most of America did bad as three of my brackets were in the top 10% on ESPN now my absolute best was in the 97.9% percentile. Here is a link to my best bracket (I hope it opens). I guess you can tell the Ohio University kind of ruined the fun I would have had if Georgetown could have gone all the way. However, to console myself, I opened up the best bracket on ESPN which was chosen by Matt Walker. Here is a link to his bracket. It makes me feel better that nobody could have accurately chosen this entire tournament like they do some years. However, it was amazing that Matt had the Final Four as well as the championship perfect. So, congratulations Matt, nice job, but I was not particularly consoled!
On the same note, how many people wanted Butler to knock off Duke? I'm sorry to all my friends who are Duke fans, but I wanted to see a Hoosiers type story. The small school from Indiana knocking off the perennial powerhouse from the ACC would have made a great sorry that newspapers would have been talking about for the next few months. However, if it wasn't meant to be, I guess it wasn't meant to be. Nevertheless, I wish I could root for the perennial powerhouse, but I can't. There's something in my mind that urges me to root for the underdog regardless of if they have any chance of winning. I like Kansas, and I chose Kansas to win the national championship in many of my brackets, but I had to root for Lehigh when it looked like they might potentially give Kansas a run for at least the first few minutes. Apparently, I'll have to wait for next season to see the 16 seed knock off a number one seed (unless the NCAA is totally mindless and expands the tournament to 96 teams; I guess you know my opinion).
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Bracket Busted
Saturday, March 27, 2010
SUPRISE!
Wow, Butler has pulled it off and made it into the Final Four! Who would have thought that Syracuse and Kansas State would topple at the hands of Butler? I guess a lot of people probably did, but after watching Syracuse a few times throughout the year, I had thought that they had a pretty easy path to at least the Elite Eight. Well, I was right there, but my next prediction about them making it to the Final Four was obviously wrong. Butler has been to the NCAA tournament quite a few times in recent years, but why is it that many teams who are so-called "mid-majors" do not get the recognition that they are proving they deserve
Well, one obvious reason is media coverage. This area is improving due to efforts such as ESPNU and other networks that focus on college sports. Because there are so many NCAA teams and only so much network time on ESPN and ESPN2 for college sports throughout the season, the few games that are broadcast often feature Duke, UNC, Kansas, or any other university that has become all but a perennial powerhouse. While Butler has been very successful, they have yet to develop that national image that will secure them a spot on the major networks. Because of this, many average sports fans will overlook the mid-major. Even I underestimated Butler; I knew they were good, but I never thought they could topple the Orangemen.
Another reason that Butler could be seen as a surprise by people such as myself is because of geography. Syracuse is much closer than Butler; Boston College plays in the ACC, so teams such as Duke and North Carolina come closer to home. When the local teams are covered as they should be, that leaves limited time for teams from faraway lands such as Indiana. Those flat states often times get forgotten in Vermont simply because we like to think that the more local teams that we have watched all season.
However, none of this constitutes a viable excuse for my neglecting Butler. I guess I need to be more aware next season in order to make a bracket that doesn't end up being covered in red ink.
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