March Madness

decies

Only recent convert to NBA but I think I will watch a few games of this .

GoldFour4

Thursday and Friday are two of the greatest days in the sporting calender. 32 games with lots of drama and lots of brackets broken!

GoldFour4

Heres a funny article on how to fill out your bracket.

Your life sucks.
Your life sucks because, every March, your boss just has to win the office pool.

If he loses, he starts handing out working Sundays. If he wins, he starts handing out drinking Fridays. So you have to lose. Luckily, we are experts at this.

Follow our time-tested bracket-blowing rules and your bracket will have more red marks than Dennis Rodman's SATs. After all, what can possibly go right? …

*Pick alphabetically. The first team, alphabetically, has won it only once -- Arizona in 1997.

*Pick reverse alphabetically. The last team, alphabetically, to win it was Utah in 1944.

*Pick all No. 1 seeds. Only once has the Final Four been all No. 1 seeds, in 2008.

*Pick no No. 1 seeds. That's happened only three times, in 1980, 2006 and 2011.

*If you insist on picking No. 1 seeds, dump them early. You can't help but lose. No. 1 seeds win 87 percent of their round of 64 and round of 32 games, so this will turn your bracket into a wad in no time.

*Pick against the Jesuits. They have five schools in the dance -- Gonzaga, Saint Louis, Creighton, Marquette, Georgetown -- and none lower than a No. 7 seed. Plus, they're coming off the election of the first Jesuit pope in history.

*Pick one of the saints, Saint Louis or Saint Mary. No team with "Saint" in its name has made the final since St. John's in 1952.

Bracket Predictor

Need help with your bracket? Check out Insider's Bracket Predictor tool.

*Do a ton of research.
*Do no research.

*Always pick No. 5 seeds over No. 12 seeds. That will turn your bracket into birdcage lining. No. 12 seeds win about 40 percent of games vs. No. 5 seeds. In fact …

*Pick a No. 5 seed to win it all. Every champion since No. 6 Kansas in 1988 has been a No. 4 seed or better.

*Pick against the Harbaugh mojo. You had both Harbaugh brothers in the Super Bowl -- Jim and John -- and Indiana coach Tom Crean married their sister, Joani. This year is absolutely a Harbaughnious coming together of cosmic forces, which is why you should stay away from the whole clan.

*Pick a team with double-digit losses. Nobody has won the whole thing with 10 or more losses since that 1988 Kansas team.

*Fill out your form while wearing Rollie Massimino's winning 1985 sweater. Prepare to itch.

*Go by seeds, not betting lines. This is why you take No. 6 UCLA over No. 11 Minnesota, even though Las Vegas makes the Gophers a two- to three-point favorite.

*Pick a team full of lunch-bucket no-name guys who sacrifice individual glory for the good of the team. That never works. Of the past 28 champions, 27 have had at least one All-American on their team, according to pregame.com. For that matter …

*Pick the team with the nation's leading scorer on it. No individual scoring champion has won the national title since 1952, when Clyde Lovellette did it for Kansas. You couldn't do it this year if you tried. Erick Green's Virginia Tech team didn't even make the field.

*Be absolutely sure this is the year a men's 16 beats a 1.

*Pick based on Nobel Prize winners at the school. By rank, the top four seeds would be Harvard (75), Cal (71), Illinois (26) and Michigan (19). You're welcome.

*Bet on UCLA coach Ben Howland. You'll be happy.

*Bet against VCU coach Shaka Smart. You'll be happier.

(*If you happen to run UCLA athletics, dump Howland and hire Smart. You'll be happiest.)

[+] Enlarge
Brian Spurlock/USA TODAY Sports
Past performance is not an indicator of future results. Or is it?
*Put all your cheese on Wisconsin. Those big farm boys play sensible, fundamental, box-out basketball, which means they get run out of the gym when the city kids show up. Only one Wisconsin team has made it past the Elite Eight since the end of World War II, the era of their current haircut style.
*Switch all of your picks at the last second.

*Go with your initial instincts. Only four initialed teams have won it all -- UNLV, UCLA, UTEP and CCNY (which went on to be caught in the worst point-shaving scandal in NCAA history the next year).

*Pick a team with a human mascot. Only the Michigan State Spartans and Syracuse, back when its mascot was the Orangemen, have won it all since 1990.

*Pick a mascot so wimpy your therapist could whip it. What's wimpier than a Saint Louis Billiken? The "jovial fellow" came from a poem, according to the school's website, and got so hot 100-something years ago that people turned it into "dolls, marshmallow candies, pickle forks, and hood ornaments." Oh, definitely.

*Go with the guy who says he's got a "system."

*Fill out your bracket and then gloat.

*Pick teams based on past glories. Take Butler, which had two straight finals appearances recently. Who cares whether it's not really that good this year? Looks like you put some thought into it, at least.

*Pick a football powerhouse. They always choke at the end. Both Michigan and Ohio State are 1-4 in championship games.

*Pick anything with the word "South" before its name. None has ever made the Final Four.

*Listen to your brother-in-law.

*Don't work blue. The past nine champions have had some kind of blue in their uniform. Go with purple. No team in purple has ever cut down the nets, thank god. Or stick with that sickly DayGlo green Notre Dame is running around in.

And, lastly …

*Do not let your mom fill it out. She'll pick Miami because it has LeBron James and then the Hurricanes will win it all. Guaranteed.

MadsL

As a Wolves soccer fan, an living in NM, it was auspicious to have the UNM Lobos widely tipped to go all the way.

Crushed at the result of last nights game against Harvard. I am doomed to be a disappointed Wolves/Lobos fan.

On the upside, baseball season starts soon

buyer95

Nothing beats watching quality hoops during the day, without the ever present threat of falling asleep(NBA). The game after Duke v Albany, Creighton vs. Cincinnati should be great. Looks like Lin's " Harvard basketball's on the rise " comments were true, great win for them

GoldFour4

Had Harvard to win in my bracket. Delighted!

MadsL

malistheman wrote: »

Had Harvard to win in my bracket. Delighted!

Are you a wizard? How did you arrive at that prediction. Harvard had never won a NCAA game before this upset.

I blame lowered academic standards. :mad:

GoldFour4

MadsL wrote: »

Are you a wizard? How did you arrive at that prediction. Harvard had never won a NCAA game before this upset.

I blame lowered academic standards. :mad:

Just fancied them. There's always going to be an upset and that was my pick. The rest of my bracket has been average as usual.

buyer95

Potential upset on the cards, no. 2 seed Georgetown are down 2 to 15 seed Florida GC at the half. Still early but worth watching, Florida's defense has completely befuddled Georgetown. They may figure it out in the 2nd half, but this is worth keeping an eye on.

stretchdoe

This is amazing stuff to watch.
Georgetown just lost.
Having seen a couple of their games this year, i regarded them as a dark-horse to win it all; or at least to go deep into the tournament.
No-one would've picked that result.

SantryRed

16th seed Western Kentucky are leading 32-31 against 1st seed Kansas at the half!! Some serious upsets today already.

buyer95

Marquette v Butler just there was wild! Could have gone either way, but Marquette move on in a thriller. Gonzaga v Witchita is also really close, great night of basketball!

Nuri Sahin

edit - maybe a mod could move this to the March Madness thread please. Thanks.

For Forks Sake

Indiana made bloody hard work of Temple earlier, great 3 from Craft to win it at the buzzer after missing a scatter of free-throws before. *edit, it's just appeared in the post above, mods and their witchcraft*

NC - Kansas putting on a display of atrocious shooting thus far, both teams under 25%.

buyer95

N.C up 9 at half, McLemore hasn't shown up and Kansas are below 25% from the field. I reckon Kansas will come back strong in the second half though, they missed some guilt edged shots.

Really looking forward to FGCU v San Diego later, they were great against Georgetown, Sherwood Brown reminds me of perimeter version of Faried, he never stops! The team are a run and gun, up and down team, in the Georgetown game, they had an unbelievable amount of dunks, it should be fun!

SantryRed

Serious love for Florida Gulf Coast

buyer95

buyer95 wrote: »

N.C up 9 at half, McLemore hasn't shown up and Kansas are below 25% from the field. I reckon Kansas will come back strong in the second half though, they missed some guilt edged shots.

Really looking forward to FGCU v San Diego later, they were great against Georgetown, Sherwood Brown reminds me of perimeter version of Faried, he never stops! The team are a run and gun, up and down team, in the Georgetown game, they had an unbelievable amount of dunks, it should be fun!

Well fun it was. Unbelievable performance from FGCU, first 15th seed to ever make it to the sweet 16, and they deserve it. I think I've finally found my NCAA team to support, I've been more of an NBA guy over the years, but this year I've watched a lot of college ball. They play loose, they play fast, there well coached and there really good. Florida Gators watch out!:D

Dublin Red Devil

SWEET SIXTEEN

WHIP IT!

buyer95 wrote: »

Well fun it was. Unbelievable performance from FGCU, first 15th seed to ever make it to the sweet 16, and they deserve it. I think I've finally found my NCAA team to support, I've been more of an NBA guy over the years, but this year I've watched a lot of college ball. They play loose, they play fast, there well coached and there really good. Florida Gators watch out!:D

Well you've got me convinced - I'm an FGCU fan for the rest of the season also!

stuba

Anyone watching it on the ncaa site? Some of the games working but others saying you need to live in the US or surrounding areas to view it. A bit of a balls but the ohio/iowa and kansas/ncarolina games were watchable yesterday

buyer95

stuba wrote: »

Anyone watching it on the ncaa site? Some of the games working but others saying you need to live in the US or surrounding areas to view it. A bit of a balls but the ohio/iowa and kansas/ncarolina games were watchable yesterday

Yeah I watched it on the NCAA March Madness website, I think it's just the games shown on CBS that we can watch from Ireland, and the TNT and other broadcasted games, we can't. There is a way around this, getting a proxy server, to appear that your computer is in the US, but I'm not sure how to do it...
For the streams on the website that did work, they were great quality, I was able to watch them on my 32inch tv via HDMI cable connected to the laptop, and it was like watching a game on Skysports, perfect quality.

buyer95

The Madness Returns tonight, I think we'll be able to watch Marquette v Miami over at http://www.ncaa.com/march-madness-live/ , because CBS are carrying it,and laat week we were able to watch all CBS broadcasted game on the website . Tipp off is 11.15, it should be a close one!

It's all about FGCU for me though, there massive underdogs against the Gators again tomorrow night, with Florida being favoured by -13 by the bookies. I ordered my " Keep calm and coast on " FGCUt shirt yesterday, going to be a tough match up for Dunk City, Erik Murphy in particular will be a match up nightmare. He's 6-10 and can stretch the floor with his 3 point shooting, which could prove disastrous for a largely undersized Eagles team. Logic tells us the cinderella store ends in Dallas tomorrow night, but my heart tells me this team has one last shock left in the tank!

Liam O

buyer95 wrote: »

The Madness Returns tonight, I think we'll be able to watch Marquette v Miami over at http://www.ncaa.com/march-madness-live/ , because CBS are carrying it,and laat week we were able to watch all CBS broadcasted game on the website . Tipp off is 11.15, it should be a close one!

It's all about FGCU for me though, there massive underdogs against the Gators again tomorrow night, with Florida being favoured by -13 by the bookies. I ordered my " Keep calm and coast on " FGCUt shirt yesterday, going to be a tough match up for Dunk City, Erik Murphy in particular will be a match up nightmare. He's 6-10 and can stretch the floor with his 3 point shooting, which could prove disastrous for a largely undersized Eagles team. Logic tells us the cinderella store ends in Dallas tomorrow night, but my heart tells me this team has one last shock left in the tank!

Very little chance I'd say. They've already been the biggest upsetters of all time in the tournament probably but now they have a bit of hype behind them I can see them choking with a bit of pressure on them, not that losing to a 3rd seed is exactly choking.

stuba

The Miami Marquette game working for anyone off that link? No joy for me

Dublin Red Devil

Early Going. Kansas take the lead. Jeff Withey the man for the Jayhawks. McLemore can't buy a shot in this game so far

Dublin Red Devil

Withey is dominating inside (Mocked as a late 1st rounder btw) McLemore staring to get going.

Bad news for Michigan.

Dublin Red Devil

Wow. McLemore throws down a Lebron style dunk in transition. Great game of Basketball

Dublin Red Devil

McLemore on fire.

GoldFour4

Kansas - Michigan is unreal right now. Trey Burke just hit a 30 footer with 4 seconds left to tie it. 22-8 run to tie the game.

buyer95

Unbelievable from Burke, Michigan fought back from 14 down to get it to overtime! This is why I love the 1 and 1 rule. All momentum now with the Wolverines, what a game!

buyer95

Lets go FGCU!