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Well, once again I've managed to miss out on the payoff in the pool for the Final Four. It seems every year I'm just a contributor to the pot and never get to collect, but what the heck? One year I'll break even at least.
I don't really feel that bad about it this year though, as I've sat and watched a lot of the teams expected to go far in the tournament get knocked out pretty quickly.
My biggest surprise was Syracuse. I had them pegged to make the Final Four and was really surprised to see them exit so early. I'm not the only one. One of our local high school basketball coaches, a guy who's been coaching for many years, had Syracuse pegged to win it all.
That's one of the greatest things about the Final Four Tournament, the fact that every year you can expect upsets. The issue becomes not are their going to be upsets, but who is going to be upset? I can remember a few years back when Gonzaga was considered a Cinderella team. Now, after a few years of better than expected performances, Gonzaga gets beat earlier than anyone expected.
Wake Forest was another one of my picks that got knocked out early, but I was really upset by Duke going out before hitting the last round. Duke is a kind of acquired taste for me. I never really paid any attention to them or particularly cared for them until one of our local high school guys played for them. Chris Duhon was a product of Salmen High School here in Slidell, LA. At the time he was playing for Salmen, my son was in the local rec league. Salmen's head basketball coach held a clinic every summer for the local players, and Chris Duhon was always at the camps working with the kids. Since my son got to know him pretty well, we started to watch a lot of the Duke games on TV and since then we've been fans. Now that Chris is with the Chicago Bulls we don't watch as often but we still pull for them.
At least I still have Illinois, whom I've projected to be the National Champs. If they can go all the way, I can still salvage a respectable showing, although probably I won't finish in the money.
It's sure been a great weekend for the tournament. Three of the games have gone into overtime. That's about as good as it gets.
The lineup is now Louisville and Illinois and North Carolina and Michigan State. As I said before I've got Illinois picked to win the whole thing. I think North Carolina is the other side of the equation.
On the women's side, I'm looking for LSU to go all the way. They've got what it takes, but you never know when you start to get up into the tournament, anything can happen. I watched them play Liberty the other day and it was no contest, but being the number one seed helps a lot. I just hope the fact that they've cruised to three consecutive blowouts doesn't get them overconfident.