March & April Madness - NCAA & NBA Hoops

Who said you have to be an expert in NCAA to get in the March Madness guessing game of who's gonna win the championship? Not even the sports analysts would have guessed none of the #1 top seeds of the four regions would get into the Final Four. In fact, of the more than 3,000,000 entries in ESPN.com, only 4 correctly picked the final four. Unfortunately for me, I picked all the top seeds to get into the final four and so I was out of the pool.

This is actually fun especially when most of you in the pool don't know anything about the NCAA tournament. It started last year when my firm (Hood&Strong) had a pool for all employees to participate. I wouldn't think I'd participate in this thing but I ended up winning 3rd place out of 42 people last year. So this year, I asked my old firm if I could still participate even if I don't get any of the prizes (not that I would think I'd win again - actually, I borrowed my client's bracket last year who had a better idea of the teams). This year, I just picked the teams on my own. Because of that, I ended up nearly last place...at least not the last. For my final four, I picked top seeds Duke, Connecticut, Memphis, and Villanova (Villanova being my pick to win it all the way!). Well, as I mentioned in the beginning, none of them made it into the Final Four. Darn it!!!

Some highlights of the tournament:
- #11 George Mason beating #1 Connecticut to get into the Final Four
- UCLA's come from behind win over Gonzaga (down by double digits on the 2nd half)
- of course, the many upsets and close games
- my personal favorite quoted from my coworker:

Something tells me Jennifer Aniston didn't watch this morning's Bradley/Pittsburgh game. She may have turned it on but I doubt she left it there. If you saw the game you definitely know what I am talking about, if not then just picture the score that is virtually always in the lower right corner of the screen.

What happened in the game? 13 seed Bradley won, giving us our first true Cinderella in the Sweet 16!

Final Score:
BRAD 72
PITT 66

So I didn't win this year...there's always next year. At least I didn't put any money into this. Mike, Michelle, and Carlo, I think we should do this next year!

Fortunately for me, I still have the Fantasy NBA in which I've actually put money into. At the beginning of the NBA season, Carlo set up our little tourny/Fantasy NBA thing. I've managed to keep myself in first place. Its now the playoffs season and for being in first place, I've actually already won $15 USD. Too bad I never made it into the Championship. Til next year! Go Mars!!!