march madness

2017 March Madness Is Finally Here

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and Puff is back with her predictions and analysis on the 2017 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Here are her thoughts:

Sorry, Cats and Cardinals fans. UK and U of L won’t go to Final Four.

Overall, it’s a wide open tournament. There will be upsets. But I’d keep my eye on Villanova and Gonzaga. Gonzaga has two point guards that are really sharp and can shoot the threes, and Mark Few is a good coach. I think he’s got one of his best teams coming into this tournament.

There will be upsets. I think Middle Tennessee can and will beat Minnesota, and UNCW can do the same to Virginia.

And I do think Northwestern can beat Vanderbilt.

Happy bracket picking!

2016 NCAA March Madness Is Upon Us!

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I want my readers to know that I, along with my son-in-law and a few family members, compete in a pick-as-you-go March Madness bracket selection tournament, which means that we select our picks each round. Therefore, I shall be sharing my 2016 NCAA Men’s College Basketball choices after each round.

Here are some initial thoughts on the first and second rounds:

  • I like Xavier but they need to get tougher if they want to win past Weber State.
  • I believe Pittsburgh will topple Wisconsin.
  • Butler beats Texas Tech. [Editor’s note: They did!)
  • Dayton could come up through the Elite Eight. Don’t look past them.
  • The Midwest quadrant is the most interesting in terms of possibility for an upset.

More to come!

 

RIP Duke, and today’s March Madness picks

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lord-have-mercer-t-shirt1There are always upsets in March Madness.

How tickled are we that Mike Chevrolet is out of the tournament? Mercer did not lose their cool, and that is why they upset Duke. It was a great moment.

What’s the connective thread between the teams that are coming in with the upsets? They all have a team full of seniors. Mercer, North Dakota State, Dayton, Stanford, Harvard: these teams are playing seniors who’ve been playing for four years together. They’re not a one-and-done, star-player team. They’re mature, and may I remind everyone it was the same thing when Butler swept the dance a few years ago.

In my bracket, we have won 22 games out of 32. We’re probably not in the lead, but usually people have lost 14 games or more. When you’re above the 20-game win mark, you’re doing pretty good. Almost everyone lost the Duke vs. Mercer game, as well as Dayton vs. OSU, and Harvard vs. Cincinnati, and maybe North Dakota State beating Oklahoma. It happens.

Today we’re picking Florida over Pittsburgh, but that’s going to be one tough game. Pitt is playing better, and their coach knows how to get him going. It depends whether Florida can hold it together. Syracuse should be able to hold it past Dayton because they have a lot of height, but again, Dayton’s seniors are used to playing together. It’s worth noting that Eastern Kentucky’s seniors lead the first half against Kansas, then fell apart on the second half.

I’m also picking Michigan State over Harvard, Villanova over Connecticut, and this hurts me to say, but I’m choosing San Diego State over North Dakota State. SDS has seniors and Steve Fisher, who was the coach at Michigan when they won the NCAA in 1989. He’s been at SDS for 7 or 8 years, and he knows how to coach.

Also, I’m taking Wisconsin over Oregon, Michigan over Texas, and Louisville over St. Louis, obviously.

Tomorrow, I’d like to see Wichita State beat Kentucky. It appears in their win over Kansas Sate, the Wildcat freshmen have decided they need to look good for the NBA scouts. (I wouldn’t choose Randall as a first round pick, but I’m not a pro.) These NBA guys won’t pick Russdiculous because of his height, but he’s not afraid to go against tall guys, which leads me to why college basketball is so wonderful.

There’s no finesse in the NBA. It’s all run, shoot, and let the tallest guy get the rebound. Nobody assists. Pretty unremarkable. March Madness really is the most exciting time of the year.

And a note to people who write on the internet: watch your spelling and grammar. [Editor’s note: 😐 ]

My picks for the first day of March Madness

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It’s almost upon us! I enter a pick-as-you-go bracket, and I’m not going to share an entire bracket, so here are my picks for the first round of games tomorrow.

I have the following teams advancing to the next round tomorrow: Florida, Pittsburgh, Ohio State, Syracuse, Cincinnati, Michigan State, Connecticut, Villanova, North Dakota State, San Diego State, BYU, Wisconsin, North Carolina State, Louisville, Arizona State and Michigan.

The field is wider than people think. I think Louisville can come through again, and of course, Florida plays good. The West is the easiest quadrant up there, the hardest is the Midwest — where Louisville is. We’ll just have to see!

Until tomorrow!

My PRELIMINARY thoughts on the NCAA brackets

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[Editor’s note: Puff has laid a glance at the brackets, and she awaits the newspaper tomorrow to deliver her in-depth analysis this week.]

Southern quadrant: Florida has a breeze.

The Eastern bracket will have upsets, but I don’t think there are any great shake ups. Michigan State is really beginning to play. Iowa State can come through, too.

As for the Midwest — what a terrible, lopsided quadrant! Louisville can take St. Louis. Mercer is playing Duke… It would great to see that upset, (NFL: Never Forget Laettner), but I doubt it.

And how did BYU end up at the dance? More on the The West seeds soon. In the meantime, I’m off to buy my math-enhanced brackets from the geniuses at myBrac8.com* because we can all use a little sharpness when determining our brackets.

[Editors’ note II: Please enjoy some newspaper quotes you’ll probably see after the first and the Friday conference rounds courtesy of Puff’s husband, Puff Daddy.]

Losing coach: “If you don’t do what you do, you’re gonna come up short.”

Losing coach: “I told our guys at half time, with the nine turnovers we had, why don’t you go out there and give them the ball nine more times and let them shoot. They took me literally, so we went down 18 more points.”

Player on winning team: “Coach pulled me out and kind of put the ball in my hands and told me, ‘Now go back out there and see if you can find your team mates. So, I found them, just like he said I should.'”

* Full disclosure: Puff’s granddaughter is a consultant for this company. But she’s really buying the brackets anyway because it’s just $3 and who knows anyway, right?

Ramping for March Madness

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When you see a highly-paid coach sitting there with his mouth open, after losing three games in a row, and all he can say is, “I’m disappointed,” THREE TIMES, what are we to think?

His team is supposed to be made up of really good players. Three of them are the best, the top picks. His team was ranked 1 when they started; on Tuesday, they’re likely going to be pushed out of the top 25. And in order to get into the NCAA tournament, they have to win the SEC — and they’ve already been beaten by all the SEC teams.

Can you guess which coach’s thrice-used defense is, “I’m disappointed?”

This March Madness, it’s not going to be a top seed that takes it. As the college basketball teams go in to their tournaments — some of whom have to win to even get to the big dance — watch those little teams play their hearts out. Witchita State hasn’t lost a game yet. They’ve played some big teams, but now all their games are in their league. They didn’t play anybody “big” last year and made it to the final four. They’re well-coached. I’m just saying, you can’t count on the big dogs and the top seeds as you enter your bracket-picking.

On a related note, the NBA should absolutely make the age minimum 20 to enter. Staying in school a few more years is never a bad thing.

Lastly, a word about the PGA Honda Classic currently being played in Florida. Poor Rory McIlroy. I hope he keeps it together. Tiger Woods withdrew because “his back was bothering him.” He happened to be so far down it wasn’t funny… I can’t wait until the Master’s in April.

My advice for winning Warren Buffett’s billion dollars

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I have to confess that I hope each and every one you who follow me accepts the billion dollar NCAA basketball tournament challenge grant opportunity from Warren Buffet’s big buck bucket. And I hope you are all winners, though, if your dream comes true, you realize you’ll have to share the billion dollars, since that’s all the poor man can afford to lose.

Picking every single winning team is all we need do, so I’m going to be studying a lot before the games begin. Forget the odds, just do your homework is the best advice I can give.

Speaking of games, the Olympic Games are soon to begin, and I want to wish all of our athletes the best in Sochi. I pray for safe trips for all who travel there. [This is a message from Puff’s husband: Some have suggested that Puff end with “I’m Putin my money on the athletes from the USA” but Puff put the Nixon that.]