All Things in Moderation

One Big Ten (but not really) team has managed to muscle its way into the Final Four.  Ohio State beat the Melo-deprived Syracuse Orange, 77 -70.

DogJS, Moderately Yello, okieboycat, and Mark in Austin correctly selected OSU as the East region winner.  Congrats to you all!

This morning’s standings are as follows (favored teams in today’s action in parentheses):

• DogJS: 172 (Kentucky, Kansas)
• Moderately Yello: 143 (Kansas)
• USF Baby: 141 (Kentucky, UNC)
• MIA#2 and #4: 136 (both UNC)
• ashot:111 (Kentucky, UNC)
• Michigoose#2: 100 (Kansas)
• Okieboycat: 94 (UNC)
• Blade Warriors: 93 (none)

Enjoy your Sunday!

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With no upsets on Friday night, the Saturday morning ATiM Rocks leaderboard reflects how many of last night’s winners (Kentucky, Baylor, UNC, Kansas) were still present in a particular bracket.   The leaderboard now looks like this:

1. DogJS (153 pts., 4 winners last night, 6 teams still standing)
2. USF Baby (141 pts., 2 winners last night, 3 teams still standing)
3. Moderately Yello (132 pts., 3 winners, 4 teams)
4. MIA#4 (128 pts, 3 winners, 4 teams)
5. MIA#2 (125 pts., 4 winners, 5 teams)
6. ashot (111 pts., 4 winners, 5 teams)
7. Michigoose#2 (100 pts., 3 winners, 3 teams)
8. Blade Warriors (93 pts., 1 winner, 3 teams)
9. okiegirl (88 pts., 2 winners, 3 teams)

A key factor going forward is whether a leading bracket’s eventual champion is still in the hunt.  The answer is Yes for ashot (Kentucky), MIA#2 and USF Baby (UNC), MIA#4 (L’ville), and DogJS (Kansas).

Oh, and can someone provide a link to a photo of our logo at the top of the page?  Madame Commissioner needs it to finish part of the grand prize.  Thank you.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

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Thursday evening’s games were not kind to Madame Commissioner’s extended humanoid family.  Niece2JS is a recent Badger grad and Niece3JS attends Marquette.  DogJS, however, is quite the happy puppy, as he now sits atop the ATiM Rocks leaderboard.  Madame Commish neglected to realize yesterday he had picked Louisville over Michigan State, and that was enough for him to take a slim lead.

The standings are now:

1. DogJS: 137
2. USF Baby: 133
3. Moderately Yello: 120
4. MIA#4: 116
5. MIA#2: 109
6. ashot: 95
7. Blade Warriors: 89
8. Michigoose#2: 88
9. okiegirl: 80

As for today’s games, all of the ATiM Rocks leaders favor some combination of Kentucky, Baylor, North Carolina and Kansas as the winners.  If anyone else has a bracket with Indiana, Xavier, Ohio and/or NC State winning, upsets are a must for you to move up.  On paper only Indiana appears to have a realistic chance, but Cinderella mojo is a curious thing.

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The NCAA men’s hoops tourney resumes again tonight, with the East and West regional semi-final matches.

Wisconsin-Syracuse:  The Fab Melo-less Orange meet their biggest challenge to date in the tourney.  Both teams have quality defenses.  If Wisconsin is to beat Syracuse, it probably needs accurate three-point shots combined with a balanced inside-outside attack to keep Syracuse’s defense guessing.  If Syracuse is to beat Wisconsin, it might want to force turnovers and be prepared to leverage its bench quickly.

Cincinnati-Ohio St.: Cincy has a guard-heavy lineup and won late-season/conference tournament games against four better seeded Big East rivals.  They’re quick, too.  Whether that’ll be enough to compensate for OSU’s superior size and rebounding ability will likely be a key factor.

Florida-Marquette: Florida is a hot-cold team.  Marquette likes to create opportunities, especially turnovers.  If Florida can hit its threes and limit its turnovers, it could be the Gators will pick the Golden Eagle carcasses clean.  The Marquette defense, if it can hold Florida to about 35% from the floor in the first half, likely paves the way to a berth in the Elite Eight.

Louisville-Michigan St.: In my view, this is the first matchup between two teams that could go all the way.  Two of the toughest coaches in the game today, Rick Patino of L’ville and Tom Izzo of MSU, have at it and the sidelines could be just as entertaining as the court play.  Patino is frenetic, push-the-envelope and Izzo is adaptable, tough-it-out.  If you’re going to watch only one game this evening, this would be my recommendation.

UPDATE:

Leading ATiM Rocks brackets benefiting from a win (by team):

• Wisconsin: USF Baby, Moderately Yello, Michi#2
• Syracuse: ashot, Blade Warriors
• Cincinnati:
• OSU: USF Baby, DogJS, Moderately Yello, MIA#2, Blade Warriors
• Florida:
• Marquette:
• L’ville : MIA#4
• MSU: USF Baby, DogJS, Moderately Yello, MIA#2, ashot, Michi#2, Blade Warriors

So if any other bracket favors the likes of Florida or Cincy, or even L’ville, it can make up some serious ground with a win.

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Sixteen teams remain.  Which of our astute ATiM’ers have the staying power to win?

Current standings:

1. USF Baby 129 pts. (9 teams left, 3 of this bracket’s FF teams are still in the hunt)
2. DogJS 120 pts. (11, 4)
3. Moderately Yello 116 pts. (9, 3)
4. MIA#2 105 pts. (10, 3)
5. MIA#4 103 pts. (10, 2)
6. ashot 91 pts. (10, 3)
7. Michigoose#2 88 pts. (9, 2)
8. Blade Warriors 81 pts. (8, 1)

USF Baby and MIA#2 may be hurting a bit now that a key player on their projected champion (Kendall Marshall of UNC) is likely out with a wrist fracture.  Marshall had 18 points and 11 assists in UNC’s victory over Creighton on Sunday.

Others can still move onto the leaderboard list depending on upsets and the like.

The action moves to the women’s tourney, and we’ll resume our coverage of the men’s games on Thursday.

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

We’re down to 32 teams and a lot of brackets are awash in red ink.  Yesterday’s 16 games featured eight upsets, including two #2 seeds (Duke and Missouri) and a #4 (Michigan).

While no one in ATiM Rocks anticipated the Duke or Mizzou loses, the seed-differential bonus pixie was very busy bestowing gobs of points on the brackets of those willing to go with the likes of South Florida, Ohio, Xavier, NC State and Purdue.  Our leaderboard now looks like this:

USF Baby: 102; Moderately Yello: 98; DogJS: 89; MIA#4: 74; Michigoose#2 and ashot: 71; Blade Warriors: 65; Okiegirl: 62; MIA#2: 61; Okiegirldog: 49

Will VCU continue its post-season magic?  How’s the anticipated matchup between Marquette and Murray St. going to play out?  Is the Big Ten conference as strong as pundits like to claim?  (note to Yello: three) Madame Commish looks forward to more upsets and hopes you all have a great weekend.

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Anyone pick St. B over FSU?  If so, close but no cigar.

For those who thought Belmont would beat the Hoyas, you have 3:10 1:06 0:00 to make up an 18-pt. a 15-pt. deficit.  Hey, it might didn’t happen 🙂

Why is the Norfolk St.-Mizzou game so close?  Mizzou’s down by 4 late in the 1st half.  Can you say bracket-wrecker?

Nice upset by NC State over SDSU, at least for those who picked it.

UPDATE  MIZZOU LOSES

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I advise not waiting until the last minute as the traffic at the site seems to exceed Yahoo!’s capacity to handle it.

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For those who want someone else’s insight into the NCAA men’s hoops tournament, there are oodles of prognosticators out there.

I offer these examples without comment.

Bleacher Report

March Madness Mix

Graham Watson: Cinderella teams worth considering

SB Nation

In the end, it’s hard to accurately pick the upsets.  Some bracketology pundit will inevitably be right.  You yourself just may be that pundit.

Have fun!

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