Lighting $10 Bills on Fire

So, every year, Dan runs a tournament pool. The entry has doubled in the 5 years I've been playing, but then again, so has the fun. Making it even more fun, I've decided to share my brackets, and Dan and I are planning at least one live-blog event during the tourney. I just got HD installed at the house, and with my nephew and brother having moved into the basement along with a 57" DLP, it's about to be ON.

East

Carolina over Coppin State. Obviously, I'm picking the Heels, but I'm super glad Coppin St. won the play-in game, because I get to share a story. During my sophomore year of high school, I was on the JV Basketball team at Antioch High. We were playing College in a non-league game, and losing. They were viewed by we Panthers as a scrub school, having not been invited into the new league of powerhouses after the old Diablo Valley Athletic League was disbanded. So Coach Post comes into the locker room at half time, and he's pissed. He starts ranting about a game that had been on the other night, in which Coppin State had shocked Maryland, 70-63. The point was that Maryland thought they would crush Coppin State just by showing up. We were now overlooking College Park the way the Terps overlooked the Eagles. He finished his rant by screaming,

I mean, what the FUCK IS A COPPIN STATE?!

I don't remember if we went on to win that game or not, but later, after we had showerd and joined the baseline bums for to watch the varsity game, we hounded this one College Park player mercilessly. He was really hairy, so we called him a neanderthal, and sasquatch, and probably something else. What I really remember was this guy got so flustered he eventually fouled out of the game, and as he took his seat on the bench, he looked over at our section and gave everyone the finger.

Good Times.

Arkansas over Indiana. Go Hogs. Bernard Petrino can't quit on the basketball team, and Hoosiers are thinking about re-hiring Bobby Knight, since while he might be a dictatorial A-hole, he never committed any recruiting violations. He only chokes his players and in close games.

George Mason over Notre Dame. My first Upset special.

Washington St. over Winthrop. Go Pac-10, and what the fuck is a Winthrop?

St. Joseph's over Oklahoma. To quote Hank Hill, "No offense, but he's from Oklahoma." So are the Sooners. The Kelvin Sampson curse covers two teams this year.

Louisville over Boise St. Jared Zabransky is not walking through that door. Ian Johnson is not walking through that door. And if they did, they play football.

Butler over South Alabama.

Tennessee over American. My brother got his master's degree in journalism/public affairs from American. He's owes them like $70K, and he lives in my garage. Must be an awesome school. Plus, he sweats like Bruce Pearl.

Midwest

Kansas over Portland St. The professor has one of her degrees from Portland State, but Kansas is good. They'd beat Yale, too.

UNLV over Kent State. I have soft spot in my heart for UNLV dating back to the Tark teams of the late 80s early 90s. And as far as I know, Neil Young never wrote a song about UNLV.

Villanova over Clemson. [Insert Strom Thurmond joke here.]

Vanderbilt over Siena.

Kansas St. over USC. I like K-State's Freshman better than I like SC's Freshman. Reminds me too much of the time Harold Miner's team got beat in the first round.

Wisconsin over CS Fullerton. Wisconsin's MFA Program in Creative Writing rejected my applications. Regular readers of this blog will recognize this as good judgement, and expect it to carry over to the University's basketball program.

Gonzaga over Davidson. Blah blah blah. I don't care.

Georgetown over UMBC. I've printed my bracket and am typing off of it, and I have no idea what UMBC even stands for.

South

Oh, who gives a shit? My the rest of my bracket looks goes like this:

Round of 32:

UNC over Arkansas, GMU over Washington St, Louisville over St. Jo's, Tennessee over Butler.

KU over UNLV, Vanderbilt's Victorious versus Villanova, Wisconsin over K-State, and Georgetown over Gonzaga.

Memphis over Oregon, Pitt over MSU, Stanford over Marquette, Texas over St. Mary's.

UCLA over Texas A&M (Whoop!), UConn over Western KY, Georgia over Purdue, and Duke over AU.

Sweet Sixteen:

Memphis over Pitt, Stanford over Texas, UCLA over UCONN, and Duke over UGA

KU over Vandy, Georgetown over Wisconsin, Louisville over Tenn, and UNC over GMU.

Great 8:

Memphis over Stanford, UCLA over Duke, UNC over Louisville, and Kansas over Georgetown.

Final Four:

UCLA over Memphis, UNC over KU.

Champ:

UCLA over UNC.