OTP Bracket Results

UNC cut down the nets in Detroit on Monday night, and OTP reader David Poindexter celebrated a mini-victory of his own. While enjoying the Tar Heels' national title as a Carolina fan, David also celebrates his victory in the OTP Bracket Challenge, outlasting the other 26 or so folks who decided to play, and edging OTP's Edge for 1st place by 3 points.

David selected the national championship game winner and participants correctly to go with his 2 of 4 in the Final Four, 5 of 8 in the Elite Eight, and a fairly remarkable 15 of 16 for the Sweet 16. So congrats to David, who put together a great bracket, but whose basketball team, despite winning, totally sucks man. Edge, by comparison, put a late charge into the race by nailing 3 of 4 Final 4 teams, but missing Villanova. Had Edge correctly picked MSU over UConn the title would have been his.

In case anyone was curious, D.F.L. (dead f'ing last) went to Devin, he of self professed OTP's Favorite Vol fame. He gets style points for his team name of Bruce Pearl's Necklace but no credit whatsoever for going 2 for 8 on the Final 8, as well as dropping a big goose egg in the Final 4 and national championship. Congrats?

To put a final close on basketball talk for a while, at least until next year when John Calipari begins to ravage the basketball universe in blue and white, we leave you with the one redeeming thing about this year's overall blah NCAA Tournament... One Shining Moment.

How About Those Lady Cardinals?

The above lead in was on ESPN.com last night, celebrating the mega-upset of the Tennessee Volunteers by the Ball State women's basketball team last night in Bowling Green, KY. The Cardinals knocked off the Vols 71-55 behind Porchia Green's 23 points. It was BSU's first trip to the NCAA Tournament and Tennessee's first ever loss in the first round. UT, the defending two-time national champions, was seeded 5th in the tournament and BSU 12th.

Aside from the notoriety of the Tennessee Lady Vols, the arguable gold standard for women's basketball in the NCAA, the game was epic, historic, legendary, and notable for several other key reasons...

• A defending champion had never lost its first round game the year following a title, until last night
• Tennessee had never lost a tournament game to a team seeded higher than 4th, until last night.
• Ball State had never played in, much less won, a tournament game, until last night.
• Tennessee had never missed a Sweet 16, going a perfect 27 for 27, until this year.
  

Now, I'm not much of a women's basketball fan, but even I was a little shocked and surprised at the outcome of this game. Even to the most casual fan, Tennessee, and more importantly Pat Summitt, is pretty much the epitome of success in women's basketball. For their reward, the Cards will face Iowa State in the second round.

Congrats to the Cardinals, first-year head coach Kelly Packard, and we now return you to your regularly scheduled football programming.