Duke Wins....Again!!

I must admit, being from Minnesota, I wasn't onboard with Wisconsin winning, yet again, because they have put together a great team and have great coaching and it's another sport they are doing well in. While here in Minnesota, we don't always seam to get our money's worth, while throwing plenty of cash at our coaches, just to see them leave or get let go after we sign them to an extended contract. However, the more I thought about it, put away my pettiness, jealousy, whatever you want to call it, I started rooting for Wisconsin to win.

I believe it's mainly because Duke has won it plenty of times, Wisconsin wasn't expected to win, and it was 1941 the last time they made it to the Championship game. But, I mentioned it in my last blog post, coaching appears to be key in this tournament. If you have great coaching, you typically have a better chance of advancing to the next round. You still need good players, but without good coaching, you're going to be sitting in my shoes rooting for Minnesota. Congrats to the Blue Devils on their victory.

As for the Office Pool results, with 76% picked correctly, Quincy Nguyen and his 186 points was our winner. Congratulations Quincy! There was also three others with 76% correctly picked, however Quincy correctly picked the lats four teams, the runner up and the champion correct.

Here are your top ten brackets for the 2015 tournament

1. Quincy Nguyen
2. Byrneit!
3. Dan Dylak
4. Brendan Lindsley
5. Ales Kunc
6. Mitchell Hahn
7. Irish Texan
8. Chris Charters 2
9. Sue Brown
10. Steve Tronovitch

See you in 2016 for our 20th Season of this office pool !!

And Then There Was One

That's it, we have our tournament champion, the University of Connecticut Huskies, or Yukon for short. Thank you Twitter for that one.

Watching the championship game, was it just me, or was UConn passing a bit to hard at times? Or passing a bit careless, an under the legs pass of the opponent that didn't connect, really? Granted, they still won, but yeow, it made me feel a bit nauseous during the game.

I wasn't sure who I wanted to win tonight, since both teams are in the final game quite often, and UConn had their NCAA violation, Kentucky has all Freshman starters who are one and done, but in the end, I went for UConn. Mainly because they had star players that have been on the team longer than one year. Blah to the one and done. Give me three, four or five starting seniors and I'll put you far in my bracket.

Notes from the game:

I never saw a camera shot of Ashley Judd, did I miss it or was she not there tonight?

UConn went 101-115 on free throws throughout the tournament, 10-10 tonight. Wisconsin went 19-20 and lost by 1....ouch!

On ESPN's contest, 27,203 had UConn as the winner out of 11 Million+ (0.3%) Our bracket contest had 3 of 431 pick sheets. Someone do the math for me as a comparison and email me. (.007% - Thank you JC for the email)

Which brings me to our bracket contest results. Congrats goes out to Jason Peterson with 144 points. He is our 2014 OfficePool64 Bracket Challenge winner! And I mean no disrespect, but with a terrible 65% pick percentage and only correctly picking three of the final eight teams, he pulled off a miracle finish to win our contest. I'll give you a minute to let that sink in, you only correctly pick 3 of the final 8 teams and win the tournament.

Other notable pick sheets:

Bernie of West Linn, OR with 73% correct
Doug Force of Huntington, the only one to pick 3 of the last 4 teams.
Brent Dilk of MFI's bracket contest, welcome to my bracket contest MFI, see you next year.
R Beyer 2 of Cincinnati, OH, correctly picking UConn.
Jason Calabrese of Watertown, CT, correctly picking his homer team UConn.
Grand Master Flash of Funky, MN, for having such a cool name.

And last but not least, David Letterman is finally retiring!

Louisville Wins Title

Louisville will finally cut down the nets tonight by defeating the Michigan Wolverines by a score of 82-76. What a fun, exciting game it was to watch. The game was a lot closer than the final score. Siva, Smith played hard, taking control of the game. At one point, Louisville was down by 12 points to the Wolverines, but went on a 15-1 run with Burke on the bench with two fouls. Albrect, for Michigan came into the game to replace Burke for the second half and played unbelievable in the first half. At the half, Michigan clung to a one point lead.

In the second half, both teams let it all out and the intensity level was maxed. There was several lead changes, Michigan took a big lead. Not as big as their 12 point lead in the first half, but Luke Hancock went on a 14 point run to push the Cardinals into the lead for good. Beanana was the difference on the offensive boards. Just a great game all around.

As for our 2013 Bracket Champion, congratulations goes out to Robert DePrau of Rochester, NY. Robert scored 161 points and a 67% pick percentage. Just edged out two others who scored 159 points, that's one game in the first round and another pick sheet with 158 points.

Here are the top 10 pick sheets for the 2013 OfficePool64.com bracket contest:

1. Robert DePrau - 161 points
2. Melissa Cuddihy - 159 points
3. Ray Perkins - 159 points
4. Ryne - 158 points
5. Paul Kreuzer - 150 points
6. JLope - 149 points
7. MFG - 146 points
8. Skip Hood - 146 points
9. John Carlo - 144 points
10 John Paddick - 143 points

Congratulations to all of the winners and we'll see you in 2014.

Memphis Chokes At The Line

Geez! Too much pressure for Memphis at the end of the championship game, missing free throws, can't make a basket to save their lives, bad decisions. Kansas was too much for Memphis and until the last two minutes of regulations, didn't show the same spark they had during their match up against North Carolina. Kansas wins in Over Time, 75-68.

Congratulations goes to Keith Deutsch for winning the 2008 OfficePool64.com Tournament Contest.

Your Top Ten Pick Sheets for the 2008 Office Pool

1. 181 - Keith Deutsch
2. 178 - Rob Bauer
3. 176 - Michael Wittchow
4. 176 - Joe Romere
5. 174 - Brian Robertson
6. 174 - NCjayhawks
7. 174 - Jay Erickson
8. 173 - Jessie Forga
9. 171 - Scott 214
10. 171 - Darren Olson