Guest Blog Cause Rick's Wife Made Him Do Something Else Tonight?

For those of you who don't know me, I'm the guy who comes up with the majority of the bets that make up Rick's annual Vegas March Madness voyage.   I also have my own blog that I'd love for you to read:   http://randomlyinterestingtjh.blogspot.com/

So here is my bias, I'm a Bucky fan as Rick noted but grew up loving college hoops as a fan of Lou Carnaseca's St. Johns Redman and the heyday of the Big East.

In 1985 I"m 9 years old and loving Chris Mullen, Walter Berry, Bill Wennington, Mike Moses, Willie Glass and 6th man Mark Jackson.  They lost to Georgetown led by Patrick Ewing in the Final 4, one game before the 8 seed Villanova upset the Hoyas in the biggest upset in NCAA history.  The 1985 tournament made me a die hard college basketball fan for life.  Over the years I've had season tickets to Marquette and Depaul and watch college hoops as my first priority all winter.

So I actually committed to Rick to do this then realized I also had a commitment tonight so I'm pissing off my wife as I post this update.

Lots of action today that impacts tournament and our pool, the biggest update is that we have our first team who will play in the Big Dance:  OVC Champion:  Belmont.   This gives Chris Ianuzzi, no fucking way, the lead with his upset win along with Amanda (Happy Birthday) Donegan, Galpin and Fuss but Fuss already has taken deep losses so this really is meaningless.

What I thought I'd do tonight is mostly roast many of you:

Rick Donegan is the type of guy who watches NEC first round action on ESPN3 which is not even showing the game in HD and has a broadcast team that includes a sophomore co-ed from Maine who has maybe gotten to 2nd base with a girl.  So he is an "expert" and then he goes and picks the Atlantic Sun 3 seed South Carolina Upstate.   First, who the hell knew there was something called "Upstate" South Carolina?   Rick is like that Soph Co-Ed from Maine at a brothel, he is sending me about 20 facebook messages a day about how he is going to watch SC Upstate, how they are winning, how they are losing -- way the fuck too excited about a team that 99% of America thinks is in Utica, NY.

You may wonder why we have someone named Aardvark Tina?   The concept of dead money is someone who enters the pool, pays their money and has no chance to win and anyone who thinks that the tie breaker is based on alphabetical sorting is a great example of "dead money".   Also anyone who thinks a bunch of fucking Latter Day Saint white dudes who are not allowed to have have conjugal relations with their female co-eds even though when they get out of college they will be able to have like 5 of them as wives is also dead money.

Young is good at these things.  Hard to bad mouth any of his picks and he is clean so far which is a good sign.  I mean at this point if you are in first place that means nothing.

Iannuzzi's only real actual knowledge of college basketball is that he loves Syracuse.   Sucks for him he couldn't pick them this year considering Jim Boeheim is a bad boy and bad boys get punished.   Is it just me or was Jim Boeheim the inspiration for Fifty Shades of Gray.  Right?  Who is with me?   But honestly Chris Ianuzzi at this point has not lost a game but don't worry, there is a 0% chance he'll have a perfect pool considering when he spent time breaking down the MEAC he determined that Delaware State was the eventual winner.   My guess is considering how much The Nuzz loves dark meat when he eats his turkey, he spent way too much time on the Historically Black Conferences and then ended up picking those teams on cheerleading squads.   As for how he ended up not on Kentucky in the SEC, well I assume that no one has ever taught him the definition of the word "undefeated".

Jack and Ron and Curt all seemed to stop watching hoops in 2007/2008 and still believe Western Kentucky is a legit team.  Good pick boys.

We have someone named Sohler which is either a last name or a Finnish Dude already lost a game with most of the pool who didn't realize that "Dunk City" moved to USC (and sucked).   Joining Finnish dude is Fonferko (Spanish for Melted), John, Amanda, B.I., Galpin, Safka, rachel, Drew L, Andrew, Curt, Daddy Donegan, Fuss and Doug.

Lets talk about Fuss and Doug.  These guys are so bad at this they are worse than Rabitoy and he is trying to go 0-21 to win the bonus money for the person who finishes in last place.  I honestly question if Doug understand seeds.

Another highlight of this pool is looking at the picks of "Andrew".   He picks games based on "tips" he gets from Twilight Fan Fiction Pages he uses for personal pleasure.  Where else do you end up with Radford in the Big South, Long Beach State in Big West and an Indiana State team NOT led by Larry Bird.

Is B.I. a rapper?   New Hampshire and Memphs?  You have to be fairly special to NOT think New Mexico State is going to win the WAC.   Unless he went to UMKC, no excuse.

What is wrong with you people that 5 of you came to the conclusion that guys whose only scholarship option was to go to Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne could win a tournament?  And you know what is worse, Rabitoy goes one more step toward Suckville with Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis or "OooheyPooey".

So a few final shots before I give you updates on the brackets, Daddy Donegan's Little Engine that Could strategy of only 1 team over a 2 seed shows wins the Chalk Sucker of the Year Award which is good cause it is the only thing he is going to win.

And I'll say what we are all thinking, sure hope Rick got paid by Doug already.

Well here is the nightly update....

America East

• The Semifinals are on Sunday and will feature New Hampshire against Albany and Stonybrook against Vermont in a form full 1-4, 2-3 semis.
• 23 of 25 of us are alive in this conference but after tomorrow at least 4 more of us will be eliminated
• This is a "higher seeds host" tournament which are often chalky but history tell us Albany wins this conference every year so for those not on Albany, you are working against a lot of recent history. 

Atlantic Sun

• Sunday will have our Atlantic Sun Championship Game between the Osprey of North Florida and Spartans of USC-Update. 
• Rick and Jack look to get an 3 seed winner with the Spartans while Aardvark Tina, Young, Iannuzzi, Ron, Jenn, Wattles, Lowe and I are all Team Osprey

Big South

• A great example of how screwed up a tournament bracket can get, today's semifinals saw Coastal Carolina as a 3 seed and Winthrop as a 5 seed move on to the final.
• Tomorrow we get a winner who gets into the NCAA tournament as a 15 or 16 seed. 
• Coastal Carolina's fan club is big with Rick, Aardvark Tina, Young and Ianuzzi as well as Sohler, Fonferko, John, Safka, Rachel, Low and Fuss
• Joining me with Winthrop is B.I, Wattles, and Drew L and we moved forward today on a win over the Cinderella story Longwood. 
• Amanda and Doug will hold the Gardner Webb Banner all the way to loserville, Happy Birthday Amanda!

Colonial Athletic Association

• Quarterfinal Day today saw Hofstra beat James Madison which was expected since a team of 5 players are always going to beat a single dude.  Doug, BI, Amanda, John all look stupid for picking a single guy to beat a full on team of players.   
• A Dude and his Bitch did however beat Elon to move on and hold seed.  Go Bill and Mar!
• 
  

Horizon League

• Semifinal Day had 2 games with the chalk moving on in Green Bay and Valop and Doug taking another loss.   
• If you watched the Valpo game, it was played in a HS gym and every single play had a dude falling on the ground.  Brutal hoops tonight.  

MAAC

• St. Peter has eliminated Rider and given losses to 4 people but no one has selected St. Peter which probably means you are all going to fucking hell and dying eternal death.  
• Iona and Manhattan and Monmouth all still alive, clearly most of us are on Iona. 

Missouri Valley Conference

• Semifinal Day had the 2 elite teams facing much less elite competition but Wichita St. has fallen to the Redbirds of Illinois St leaving the UNI people (Young, Jenn, B.I, Rachel, Wattles to face off with Ron and his bonus eligible ISU for the points in this conference. 
• Wichita State and UNI are both legit teams as we move forward in March in my view; but they will be super overbet in Vegas and probably won't cover first round games based on the "smart money on mid major team" bias.  

Northeast Conference

• Today's game between St. Francis (PA) and St. Francis (NY) Brooklyn was actually a NEC Semifinal matchup and a WWE style "Loser has to give up their name" match and although none of us had St. Francis (PA), they lost and will have to change their name.
• Andrew and John's 3 seed pick of Bryant University was valent but now is a simple "loss" as they fell today to Bob Morris. 
• The majority of us have St. Francis (NY) but Ron, Galpin and Rachel will be able to gain a point on the field if Bob Morris can find a way to upset the SFU-B team. 

Southern Conference

• Quarterfinal Day saw Doug, for sure the guy going to lose this entire pool and finish in last place, and his Furman 10 seed upset the 2 seed Chattanooga giving losses to Jack, Ron and Rachel in the process.   

The Summit League

• They split their quarterfinals into 2 days, so the first 2 games were today with the next 2 tomorrow.
• We have all sorts of picks in this conference so today people took losses with SDSUs blasting of Western Illinois, Doug and Ron take losses on their homer picks.  
• NDSU also beat Denver but that had no influence on the pool, many have and still have a chance on the Bison. 
• Tomorrow it gets fun with IUPUI, IPFW and Oral Roberts all in action with people on their bandwagon. 

West Coast Conference

• My favorite of all the conference tournaments saw quarterfinal action today and Ron, Wattles and Rabitoy all took another loss with Saint Mary's falling in an upset to Portland 69-52. 
• We still have a game tonight in this pool. 

Well folks, Rick will be back to his normal blog tomorrow, hope you enjoyed my attempt.  

If you want the stats, find an old link.