Last year Greg Oden helped pound the Buckeye’s basketball team into the paint of the NCAA tournament; this year the Oden-less OSU hoopsters will be watching at home. Therefore I would understand if there is much less enthusiasm for this group going head-to-head on brackets as we did last year thanks to the NY Times new-fangled and easy to use tool that lets us compete as a group, as well as to measure ourselves against the larger world, including their own sports writers. The Times is offering this feature again this year, and I thought I’d roll out the ball again to see who picks it up.
I should be more interested in this year’s tournament because the hated Tar Heels are the top-ranked team, while Duke has beaten them once, and been highly ranked during the regular season, but then lost to the upstart Clemson Tigers in the ACC Tourney, so they do not have the highly regarded “MO” going into this thing. Luckily they will be playing near-by (in Washington DC) so should have little to distract them through the first round, but that’s no guarantee that their very young and very small team won’t get bounced early as has unfortunately happened in the past few years. I also wonder if Coach K has been distracted a bit lately by his USA Basketball responsibilities. I know little else about the rest of the tournament teams, having only watch portions of a few games in the last few weeks, though I did get to glimpse the much hyped Mayo kid at USC, playing the Twin Towers of Stanford (USC won comfortably). I look forward to finding out what the Beasley wonderkind has done to deserve his hype; and I’m glad that I won’t have to watch Joakim Noahs public paroxysms of pleasure after every layup…
Here is the link to the game site.
Our Group Name is “RectorSite” (how original…)
Our Group Code is “991ec2a2278MwfK007sLrp3M7l1EE23yA” which you enter into “Enter Group Code” field on the “Groups and Top Scorers” page. Needless to say, you must be a registered reader of the NYT website to play — there shouldn’t be any problem there.
It’s a simple process; perhaps I’ll see you there.
RectorSite 
I’m there!
Local knowledge — St. Mary’s is a local team (Moraga, East Bay) that’s a hot ticket. They went to the big dance two years ago and were just happy to be there, but this year they are going in search of victories.
They recruited four Australians “including Patrick Mills, a blur of a point guard.” (sez NYT PLAY). I don’t know much about Texas, but they’re a 2 seed, so it would be a stretch to see St. Mary’s in the Sweet 16. On the other hand, THAT’S WHY THEY PLAY THE GAMES.
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First day, 14 – 2. with no carryover losses. I’ll take it!
Go St Mary’s!
m
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Dude, I picked St. M and my ACC rep put a big X on my sheet…I made up for that by picking Siena, K St., and Davidson in the first round, and I’m tied with silent but deadly picks player Dub.
CHALK, however is still sitting pretty, despite the upsets. By my calculations it’s 24-8 with only two higher level scratches so far, much better than me.
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I didn’t do so well on the second day of the first round, and plummeted to last in the Rector group, but my Sweet Sixteen is still alive except for Clemson and UCONN (and as I write this, Duke).
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WOOF
bookmarc1 leaps into first place.
Still standing — 12 of the sweet sixteen, 7 of the elite 8, all of the final 4
Go y’all!!
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WOOF WOOF
Bookmarc1 carries a solid lead as the final four are chalk. First all number 1 in final four EVER.
Now THAT’S picking the longshot!
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