Quakers Earn First Tournament Bid

The automatic bids into the tournament are under way. Pennsylvania Quakers have secured the first tournament bid by winning the Ivy League regular season outright. This is the third consecutive season the Quakers have won the Ivy League title.

I'll update this post as the conference tournament winners are known on the dates provided below.

Memorable Moment Series

Ahhh, this just kills me every time I see it. Gary Parrish of CBS SportsLine.com is writing a five part series on past tournament memorable moments. He is up to number three, the Chris Webber time out in the 1993 championship game against North Carolina. Oh the pain it brings back! I still recall yelling at the television when it happened.

I've lived in Minnesota all my life and subsequently I'm a Golden Gopher fan [though it has been a very rough last seven to eight years]. However back in 1993, I was rooting for the 'fab five' as they were part of the Big Ten conference and they were fun to watch play together. I picked them to win it all in my office pool and was sitting pretty going into the evenings game in the office pool.

73-71 with under a minute to play, I was hoping for at the very least a tie game. Webber rebounds the ball, and the rest is history. If you've seen it, you know what I am talking about. If you have never seen this moment in history, head over to Gary's column and see it for yourself. He has a good write up on the game and the video from the game to go along with it. It hurts to watch it again.

Gary Parrish, SportsLine.com: Memorable Moment No. 3: Webber forgot, but we never will - Video Clip

I just hope that the number one most memorable moment is not the Christian Laitner last second toss to win the game. I will vomit if I see that video again. If you recall, Laitner was drafted by the Minnesota Timberwolves and stunk up the joint with his game play ever year he was on their roster.

First-Round Match Up Statistics

Since the inception of the 64-team tournament in 1985 each seed # has played a total of 88 first-round games.

1. The #1 seed has beaten the #16 seed all 88 times (100%)
2. The #2 seed has beaten the #15 seed 84 times (95%)
3. The #3 seed has beaten the #14 seed 73 times (83%)
4. The #4 team has beaten the #13 seed 70 times (80%)
5. The #5 seed has beaten the #12 seed 59 times (67%)
6. The #6 seed has beaten the #11 seed 61 times (69%)
7. The #7 team has beaten the #10 seed 53 times (60%)
8. The #8 team has beaten the #9 seed 41 times (47%)

SOURCE: Wikipedia

Conference Tournaments Begin This Week

31 automatic bids are in play. 30 conferences hold tournaments except for Ivy League. The regular season winner receives the automatic bid. 34 additional schools will receive an 'at-large' bid. I'll update the 31 automatic bids as the conference tournaments complete over the next 12 days. Then when the selection committee announces the final tournament bracket, the 10th OfficePool64.com tournament will open up for your pool sheet entries.

There was just under 400 people in last years office pool. This pool is still free and there still are no prices for the winner. I don't have any paid advertisements for this site, I'm just a fan who enjoys the big March basketball tournament and all the hoopla that goes along with it.

I have new hosting for OfficePool64.com. I've redesigned the website slightly while keeping the familiar format in place. With the new hosting for the site, I have a lot of extra room to host the past tournament archives that I've collected along the way. The archives are located on the lower left side of your screen. Select a year and find the tournament you've played in from the past. I don't have all of the years posted as of this writing, but will have them all shortly.

Ohio State Tops Week 17 Rankings

ESPN: UCLA jumps to No. 2; Ohio St. nearly unanimous No. 1
ESPN: Memphis continues to own home court, wins 29th straight
TeamRankings.com: Mike Greenfield's Team Rankings