Another wacky weekend leaves me with only one of my Final Four teams still standing, despite a devastating injury to one of their players in during their victory over Duke. Florida’s loss against Michigan destroyed the last, faint hope I had of winning any of my pools, but my disappointment is tempered somewhat by having a Big 10 team make the Final Four. My only shot at getting at least some money back is if Louisville wins the whole thing.
Tag / Michigan
Sheets Of Integrity
Holy crap, what a weekend of upsets. I probably shouldn’t even bother checking my ranking anymore, given the sorry state of my brackets. Let’s take a look.
The Midwest Region isn’t too bad as I have 3 out of 4 alive for the Sweet Sixteen, as well as everything going forward. If only the rest were this good.
Jesus H. Christ! Only one team still remains, and I have them losing in the Sweet Sixteen, so this region is pretty much dead to me. Gonzaga once again couldn’t get out of the opening weekend and New Mexico, my Final Four pick out of the region, completely crapped the bed by losing to Harvard.
It’s Dancing Time
It’s that time of year again, as the nation’s attention turns to the college hoops scene for the next couple of weeks. I’m in three different pools again this year, one at work, one at my mom’s work, and one run by a friend. No Purdue in the tournament this year, so my picks were made mostly with my head and not my heart, though it pained me to have IU going as far as I did.
I have Louisville coming out of the Midwest region.
New Mexico is my pick to come out of the West region. Continue reading →
The Big 14
The Big 10 is expanding again, with yesterday’s announcement that Maryland will join the conference in 2014 and the expected announcement today that Rutgers will follow suit. Unlike the previous expansion, when Nebraska joined in 2011, there is no argument that can be made that this is being done for athletic or academic reasons. This move is being made for one reason, and one reason only: to expand the reach of the Big Ten Network.
The hope is that cable outlets in Baltimore, Washington, and New York will pick up the network, bringing in millions in additional rights fees for the conference and its member schools. Of course, this ignores the fact that New York is apathetic about college football in general and, specifically, Rutgers football. Baltimore may also be a tough sell.
On the football field, the two new schools are expected to join the Leaders division, pushing Illinois to the Legends division in 2014. This means that instead of Michigan, Northwestern, or Iowa, Wisconisn or Purdue will have yearly matchups with their “traditional” rivals from the east coast. More teams also means that the amount of time it takes to rotate through the other division will be increased, potentially harming rivalries that have been around for 100 years or more.
On the basketball court, it is rumored that this expansion will lead to divisions there as well. Again, this would lead to fewer opportunities to play traditional rivals while having home and home dates with a traditional basketball powerhouse like Rutgers.
Is this the end? Probably not. There are already rumors that the conference is looking to add an additional two teams, bringing the total up to 16. Possible candidates that are being metioned include Florida State, North Carolina, and Texas. Traditions destroyed, all so that someone in Manhattan might be able to get BTN as part of their cable package. I hope the extra scheckles are worth it.
My First 5K
With very little training and not quite knowing what to expect, I headed downtown yesterday morning with one simple goal: to finish the race ahead of a least one other person. Was the mission accomplished or was it a day filled with failure?
The day started at 4:30 in the morning with a quick shower and breakfast before hitting the road at 5:00. There is not a lot of public transportation options from the suburbs at that time of day, and I didn’t want to spend $20 for parking, so I drove down to 35th Street and switched over to the Red Line, which got me down to the greater museum campus around 6:15, an hour before the race started.
Everything was going down on the south side of Soldier Field, which is where I met up with my old friend Tina and her friends that were also participating in the festivities. It basically turned into 45 minutes of pictures before it was time to line up in the starting corral. Continue reading →
Time To Dance
Well, it’s that time of year again. I’m in three different pools this year, one at work, one at my mom’s work, and my friend Tom’s pool. This first bracket is entered in all three.
This second bracket is only entered in the work pool. Continue reading →