Octopus Overlords

Anyone up for an OO Bracket?

I'd play but I have not followed much so I'll probably do terrible. Or I'll ask my wife to make all of the picks and win everything as she has no clue about the teams.

I'd be in. I keep getting the emails from the old CBS bracket, but I haven't logged into the site to see if anybody is picking through that site.

I'd be in as well.

Guessing this is a no go. Tourney starts tomorrow.

Any thoughts about the tourney so far? I'm really looking forward to today's games, particularly the games played by the Ducks and Bruins.

The Big Ten hasn't done much to remedy its perception as trash this year. Laughably overseeded Minnesota was predictably wiped out in a 12-5 upset. Maryland football may suck, but at least the Big 10 got a quality basketball program when they joined, right? (Ignore them getting bounced in a first round upset, please.) Northwestern was aided in its win by a brain cramp by Vandy (although they still might have pulled it out anyway). Wisconsin didn't prove that they were underseeded by going to the wire in their 8-9 matchup. At least Purdue won by double digits!

I'm obviously rooting for Michigan to keep its momentum going (starting in about 5 minutes), but I don't know how they're going to do. They've looked legitimately good the last month and half or so (after looking all but dead earlier in the year), but how much of that is true improvement vs. getting to play against Big Ten teams? OK State is a tough match up.

EvilHomer3k wrote:Guessing this is a no go. Tourney starts tomorrow.

Yeah, I logged into the CBS sports one from long ago, only to discover that I wasn't the old commish. Didn't have time to create another. Sorry.

1v16 thought.

Some day this will happen. It will either be like when Stanford lost in the women's bracket when their star player was injured between selecting and the start of the tourney (could be suspension too ), or a play in winner getting hot (that extra tourney game does seem to help the winners, at least one always seems to go far),out a combination thereof.

This year, keep an eye on Kansas.

If it wasn't for the idiotic play by Vandy in the last 10sec of the Northwestern game, I would have had a perfect day-1 bracket. Still leading my group, with 15/16, though.

PLW wrote:If it wasn't for the idiotic play by Vandy in the last 10sec of the Northwestern game, I would have had a perfect day-1 bracket. Still leading my group, with 15/16, though.

You *might* have had a perfect bracket. NU still had the ball with an opportunity to take the lead - Vandy just made it easier with an inexplicable foul on a good free throw shooter.

ImLawBoy wrote:

PLW wrote:If it wasn't for the idiotic play by Vandy in the last 10sec of the Northwestern game, I would have had a perfect day-1 bracket. Still leading my group, with 15/16, though.

You *might* have had a perfect bracket. NU still had the ball with an opportunity to take the lead - Vandy just made it easier with an inexplicable foul on a good free throw shooter.

I'll concede that.

That was as close as the experts thought, but Michigan keeps the momentum going with a 92-91 win. Go Blue!

ImLawBoy wrote:That was as close as the experts thought, but Michigan keeps the momentum going with a 92-91 win. Go Blue!

Quite the ending there. Wish I'd gotten to see the entire game.

Remus West wrote:

ImLawBoy wrote:That was as close as the experts thought, but Michigan keeps the momentum going with a 92-91 win. Go Blue!

Quite the ending there. Wish I'd gotten to see the entire game.

My employer is running commercials urging people to watch tournament games on their mobile devices at work, so I don't see how they can be mad at me for doing it.

Well! The Pac 12 teams represented, the USC game was amazing! Can't wait til Sunday!!

Wow...big win by the Gamecocks. First day I can wear my USC hat around Clemson with pride in too long.

On my cell. Please pardon auto-corrects.

I actually did pretty good in my work bracket. Only missed one sweet sixteen team (stupid SMU).

Of course, that just means I'll get slaughtered today.

A lot of people got slaughtered today with Nova going down.

Has to be one of the worst brackets I have ever filled out. My East is all red, my midwest is half red. My Final 2 are still alive but my other two final 4's are out.

Congrats to Michigan for ousting scumbag Pitino.

Lorini wrote:A lot of people got slaughtered today with Nova going down.

I had one of the best first rounds I've had in years. Predictably, the second round has been a complete bloodbath...including losing my winner (Nova).

Skinypupy wrote:

Lorini wrote:A lot of people got slaughtered today with Nova going down.

I had one of the best first rounds I've had in years. Predictably, the second round has been a complete bloodbath...including losing my winner (Nova).

I was exactly the same. Only missed two in the first round. Got blasted Saturday and Sunday. My bracket went from amazeballs to the Bracket of Mass Destruction.

Major props to Michigan. They are on an unbelievable run, going from being almost eliminated 2 weeks ago to rolling into the sweet 16. Nicely done! And Wisconsin as well! Knocking off Nova. Maybe the Big Ten was not as down as people thought? Maybe they just had a parity war in the conference.

PLW wrote:Wow...big win by the Gamecocks. First day I can wear my USC hat around Clemson with pride in too long.

On my cell. Please pardon auto-corrects.

Woot. And playing well against Dookie.

First ever Sweet 16. Wow. Frank promised Sin that if he came to SC we could rebuild the program.... and we did it Frank's way, too.

Duke took out the rest of the brackets I'm sure And man, I can't wait for Ducks-Michigan. Pac 12 vs Big Ten, it doesn't get much better than that for a Pac 12 fan! And of course UCLA vs Kentucky should be really good as well.

Well I still have UCLA alive in my Final 4 thats about it. Rest of the Bracket busted.

Not sure if this was just an ESPN only bracket, but they reported that from more than 18 million brackets submitted, only 18 were correct (for sweet 16). Does that sound right?

And something like half of them had Duke in the Final Four.

Depends on who you ask:

There are no perfect brackets left for this year's NCAA men's basketball tournament after this weekend, and according to NCAA.com, only one bracket — out of the tens of millions filled out across NCAA.com, Bleacher Report, CBS, ESPN, Fox Sports, and Yahoo — even made it unscathed through most of Saturday. Just one prescient user on Yahoo picked the tournament's first 39 games correctly

One would think ESPN would know its own brackets?

I think the ESPN statement is that 18 had the correct Sweet Sixteen, but that doesn't mean that they were perfect. So, they might have picked Louisville losing in their first round game, but had Michigan going to the Sweet Sixteen out of that part of the bracket anyway.

Say, did anyone notice that Michigan made it to the Sweet Sixteen?

I noticed that Michigan TECH made the sweet sixteen by winning their conference tournament this last weekend. But I'm guessing that's a different NCAA Tourney 2017 than referenced in the title.

ImLawBoy wrote:Say, did anyone notice that Michigan made it to the Sweet Sixteen?

Most locals put the Michigan in the sweet sixteen with ceiling of the Elite 8 before the Big 10 championship series started, even most of Sparty. Of course now that they're in the sweet sixteen homerism has taken over and everyone's all "Destiny" whatever that's supposed to mean.

I will say the Big 10 has over performed, in general, and that bodes well for Michigan being potentially under rated.

The Meal wrote:I noticed that Michigan TECH made the sweet sixteen by winning their conference tournament this last weekend. But I'm guessing that's a different NCAA Tourney 2017 than referenced in the title.

I hear Coastal Carolina is a real longshot to make it back to the CWS.

The Meal wrote:I noticed that Michigan TECH made the sweet sixteen by winning their conference tournament this last weekend. But I'm guessing that's a different NCAA Tourney 2017 than referenced in the title.

Michigan hockey had a decidedly . . . not good year. Hopefully they'll let Red move on and start rebuilding.

ImLawBoy wrote:

The Meal wrote:I noticed that Michigan TECH made the sweet sixteen by winning their conference tournament this last weekend. But I'm guessing that's a different NCAA Tourney 2017 than referenced in the title.

Michigan hockey had a decidedly . . . not good year. Hopefully they'll let Red move on and start rebuilding.

Man what a run, though. I'm a bit fearful that when Red moves on, Michigan poaches our coach. Of course Mel Pearson is already earning more state dollars than Berenson.

The Meal wrote:

ImLawBoy wrote:

The Meal wrote:I noticed that Michigan TECH made the sweet sixteen by winning their conference tournament this last weekend. But I'm guessing that's a different NCAA Tourney 2017 than referenced in the title.

Michigan hockey had a decidedly . . . not good year. Hopefully they'll let Red move on and start rebuilding.

Man what a run, though. I'm a bit fearful that when Red moves on, Michigan poaches our coach. Of course Mel Pearson is already earning more state dollars than Berenson.

That would seem to be the home run hire, and Michigan could certainly afford to outspend Michigan Tech (wonder if Red was giving the alumni discount? (discount does not apply to football coaches)), but I really have no idea what will happen. The rumor is that Red was going to retire last year, but the new AD asked him to stay on so he didn't have to start off with a coaching search, which might indicate that Pearson wasn't a slam dunk (or should that be a an open net in this context?).

ESPN had an article this morning discussing the fact that the author felt that everyone who is in the 16 belongs there and that's what I saw as well. I don't think Michigan overperformed, there are stars in some people's eyes,meaning that they don't always see the issues that the supposed Final Four teams really have.

Lorini wrote:ESPN had an article this morning discussing the fact that the author felt that everyone who is in the 16 belongs there and that's what I saw as well. I don't think Michigan overperformed, there are stars in some people's eyes,meaning that they don't always see the issues that the supposed Final Four teams really have.

I'm not sure South Carolina can score 65 in a half again.

You could also argue that any team in the Sweet Sixteen could score 65 against that defense; it goes both ways.