NCAA Tournament: Final Four

Last night when Kansas completed it's upset of the #1 seed North Carolina Tar Heels, the last ticket to the final four was punched. The Jayhawks will be joining, Kentucky, Louisville, and it's opponent next week, Ohio State. After weeks of wild upsets, the top seeds prevailed during the sweet 16 with many of the higher seeds winning, with exception of the Cardinals and Florida Gators. On the left side of the bracket meeting in the elite 8, the 1 Seed Kentucky Wildcats defeated the 3 seed Baylor Bears, who did not have a tough road beating many higher seeds. The Cardinals then defeated the Gators which was a matchup of 4 vs 7, but both teams were very talented and played at a level of 1 vs 2. So the meeting next Saturday night on the left side will be Kentucky vs Louisville, a rematch from back in December when Kentucky won the meeting by 7. This matchup has a different feel though because Louisville has now won 8 straight games including the Big East Tournament Championship (which the 2010 National Champion Connecticut Huskies did also). On the right side of the bracket, both regions came down to their top 2 seeds, with the 2 seeds winning in both. Ohio State defeating the Syracuse Orange and Kansas beating North Carolina. The Saturday matchup of Ohio State vs Kansas is also a rematch of a December game in which Kansas won without Ohio State's star Jaredd Sullinger did not play.

NCAA Tournament: Upsets Busting Brackets

Every year on the day after selection Sunday, thousands of people around the country print out brackets to fill out and compete against one another. The beauty of picking the brackets is too put more interests on the games. This year, in particular, people are becoming very disappointed with their brackets early on in the tournament. The main reason for this is because for the first time ever, two number 2 seeds have lost in the first round of the tournament against 15 seeds. This being Duke losing to Lehigh and Missouri losing to Norfolk St. Both teams are popular championship and final four picks. Although I chose Missouri to win it all and Duke advancing to the elite eight, seeing these upsets are quite exciting and is what "march madness" is all about. Both Norfolk State and Lehigh were knocked out last night to Florida and Xavier respectfully, but their legacy on this years tournament will not be forgotten. Also, the double digit seeds represented well in the Sweet Sixteen with Xavier (11), Ohio (13), and North Carolina State (11). I would not be surprised if one or two them advanced or even got the to the final four, given the history of the "madness".

Intramural Tiebreaker's

As my intramural team gets set for the last week of the regular season we come across a problem in the league's tiebreaker rules. As of now we understand that if a tie in the standings is present the way to break that tie is by determining which team has a great "Sportsmanship Rating." This seems like its a good cause but it is greatly flawed. With only 5 games teams cannot develop a good enough reputation to actually establish a consistent Sportsmanship rating. Therefore the teams that are favored by the refs at first will receive a higher rating. My team has received an average of 6.25 sportsmanship rating with best possible being a 7. The team we will most likely be tied too is the team we tied back in week 2, (when I wrote of this article) we both are 2-1-1 and seem to be favorites going into the final game. That teams sportsmanship rating is 6.75 which is a significant advantage givin the fact they have gotten just one game without a 7 and know they have to put on a good show for the refs to make the playoffs. So, going back to the game against them, if an overtime was in place for us when we played them this wouldn't be an argument because there would have been a clear winner and the league's flawed tiebreaker system would not have to be put in place.