Toast!
I think a sweep is the best way to describe this weekend. While my nieces softball team got the sweep in their home stand (more on that later in the week), my NCAA Men's basketball bracket was swept away by the results of a late day game last night. That's right, it's toast. I am officially out of the running for any kind of winnings when it comes to my NCAA bracket.
If you recall, I had Duke going all the way in the tournament even beating Arizona in the final game for the championship. As I started to watch more of the tournament, I wondered if I had made the right call. Duke seemed to be struggling against teams that I thought they would dominate. They always came out on top, but it wasn't as easy as I had expected.
That ended up coming back to bite them last night when UConn had an amazing come from behind victory to take them down and bust my bracket.
How did we get there though? Well, on Thursday Purdue beat Texas 79 to 77, Iowa took down Nebraska 77 to 71, Illinois ousted Houston 65 to 55, and Arizona crushed Arkansas 109 to 88.
Then on Friday, the rest of the sweet 16 games happened with Duke taking down St. John's 80 to 75, Michigan beating Alabama 90 to 77, Uconn toppling my Michigan State Spartans 67 to 63, and Tennessee besting Iowa State 76 to 62.
That set up the Elite Eight games on Saturday with Illinois taking down Iowa 71 to 59, and Arizona beating Purdue 79 to 64.
Then yesterday the worst case scenario happened. Michigan throttled Tennessee 95 to 62, and Connecticut had an amazing late game rally to send Duke home 73 to 72. I actually stopped watching the game because I thought Duke had it locked, then when I flipped back, I was shocked to see the final seconds of the game.
It sucks, but this is actually part of the reason I love college basketball in March. You never know what is going to happen.
That leaves us with the final four. Uconn faces Illinois next Saturday, and then Arizona attempts to take down Michigan. I really hope they do. I know I am from Michigan, so now that Michigan State is out of it, I should be cheering for them, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I'd rather cheer for Illinois.
In all of sports, I can't think of two more annoying fan bases than Michigan Wolverines and Ohio State Buckeyes. I think that is probably part of the reason the two teams despise each other so much. When you have that many unhinged fans on either side it is just asking for trouble.
Either way, I think we are going to have a couple of really awesome games on Saturday. Honestly, I probably won't stay up for the whole Arizona/Michigan game. The fact that it doesn't start until almost 9 PM is a bit of a joke. I'm sure they did it that way for the folks out in Arizona though.
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I love seeing Duke get their dreams crushed. As a Kentucky fan I'm still mad about that Christian Latiner call..
Fuck Duke!
I'm not usually much of a Duke fan either, but they have been out of it a couple of years now, so I don't hate them as much. Also, when it comes to brackets you have to leave emotions out of it.
I checked my emotions at the door.. I actually had Duke -5 for $11.. but sometimes I don't mind when the house wins