March Madness: The Last Perfect Bracket Busted

According to Chicago’s ABC 7, the last perfect bracket among NCAA Tournament fans was busted Thursday.

Gregg Nigl, a 40-year-old neuropsychologist from Ohio, created the bracket on NCAA.com. 

My brackets were nuked early on, but I had Duke advancing through the Sweet 16 and the Elite 8 and, of course, to the National Championship.

Nigl didn't even realize his bracket was still intact on Tuesday, having correctly predicted the outcome of all 48 games that had been played so far.  Nigl even changed his Twitter handle to Gregg “Perfect Bracket” Nigl.  Mr. Perfect is no more after Purdue’s overtime win over the Vols.

Well, it was a good run... Thank you to everyone who joined me along this incredible journey! Maybe next year we'll get it!

— Gregg 'Perfect Bracket' Nigl (@GreggNigl) March 29, 2019

Purdue had a commanding lead throughout most of the game and was leading by 18 in the second half before the Vols went on a 32-14 run to tie the game at 65 with six minutes left to play.

The pivotal moment in the game came with 10 seconds left.  With the Vols up 82-80, Purdue moved the ball into the corner passing to Carsen Edwards.  Had he not missed the three-pointer the game would have been over.

Tennessee’s Lamonte Turner allegedly fouled Edwards.  The call was controversial.  Edwards’ heels were on the line when he attempted that shot.  The refs declared Turner had contact with Edwards’ hip.

Thanks to the new PI review rules, this “foul” call with 1.7 seconds left would be overturned in the NFL pic.twitter.com/NU6Jz8Gb2W

— Warren Sharp (@SharpFootball) March 29, 2019

The foul sent Edwards to the charity stripe allowing Purdue to tie the game and send the game into overtime with the final score of 99-94.

Saturday’s games:

No. 3 Texas Tech vs. No. 1 Gonzaga 6:09 PM, TBS

No. 3 Purdue vs. No. 1 Virginia 8:49 PM, TBS

Sunday’s games:

No. 1 Duke vs. No. 2 Michigan State 5:05 PM, CBS

No. 5 Auburn vs. No. 2 Kentucky 2:20 PM, CBS

Spartans Head coach Tom Izzo hopes his team has the same success against Duke as they did against LSU, but that will only happen if they can come up with a robust defense to control Zion “Thunder Dunk” Williamson and R. J. “Maple Mamba” Barrett.

Williamson was incredible against the Hokies, this time finishing with 23 points on 11-of-14 shooting. The biggest story might have been the hot shooting of teammate Tre Jones, who hit five three-pointers after never making more than two in one game all season. R.J. Barrett was also phenomenal, adding 18 points and 11 assists in the win. Duke will continue to be a favorite throughout this tournament because Williamson is by far the best player in the country. 

Brackets Looking Nice And Neat Until They Get Busted

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Selection Sunday for 2019 The 2019 NCAA Tournament field of 68 was announced tonight with the Duke Blue Devils taking the No. 1 overall seed and the ACC becoming the first conference in a decade to get three No. 1 seeds from the same league. The Selection Committee gave some crumbs to Belmont and Temple and dissed Alabama, TCU, Indiana and NC State. 

The unwritten rule of March Madness is your brackets are going to suck.  Thank goodness ESPN gives everybody an opportunity to fill out a “Second Chance Bracket”.

Taking A Mulligan Just Like Everybody Else On My Brackets

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The first weekend of this year’s NCAA tournament was pure chaos seeing a 1-seed lose to a 16-seed for the first time in tournament history when UMBC beat No. 1 Virginia.  None of the top four seeds (Virginia, Cincinnati, Tennessee, Arizona) in the South Region advanced to the Sweet 16. In past years, the top three seeds in a region have failed to advance, but never the top four. 

The 11-seed Loyola-Chicago Ramblers and Syracuse Orange are the only double-digit seeds to reach the Sweet 16. Loyola advanced to Atlanta by upsetting Miami and Tennessee while Syracuse got to the dance in Omaha by beating Arizona State and TCU.

Mike DeCourcy, smarty-pants “expert” at Sporting News, is picking Kentucky over K-State, Nevada over Loyola, the Zags over the Noles, Michigan over Texas A&M, ‘Nova over the Mountaineers, Texas Tech over the Boilermakers, Jayhawks over Clemson and Duke over ‘Cuse.

Most of the sports “experts” seem to agree the Final Four will be whittled down to Kentucky, Michigan, Villanova and Duke.

On Friday, ‘Cuse takes on Duke. Syracuse dumped the Big East Conference to join the ACC Conference five years ago.  They got a big payout from the ACC to make the switch.  Ever since then the school has seemed to think they could establish the kind of rivalry they had with Georgetown and UConn.  Don’t make me laugh.

The Orange are not a blueblood basketball team.  Nothing, and I do mean nothing, can supplant the rivalry between Duke and Carolina.

‘Cuse is an 11.5 point underdog for Friday’s game.  They were 68 out of 68 to get into the NCAA Tournament.

Duke has held all eleven of its opponents to just 8 baskets from downtown and will easily brush Syracuse aside in its quest to reach the Final Four.

Everybody hates Duke.  I think Coach K is headed for a sixth national championship.

🎬 Win 2⃣ | Dance 4⃣2⃣ | Cinematic Recap 🎥🔵👿🕺 #SI6HTS #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/IUesQuey6J

— Duke Basketball (@DukeMBB) March 19, 2018

And…It’s Ruined

Come on, admit it.  Your brackets got busted when Northwestern beat Vandy.  Maybe your brackets survived but were later blown up when the Badgers kept ‘Nova out of the dance.

The NCAA says more than 99% of all brackets were busted by the end of the First Round.

just checked my bracket pic.twitter.com/yUGtikuBzt

— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) March 16, 2017

Today’s games will complete the Round of 32 and will punch the remaining tickets to the Sweet 16. Will the Road to the Final Four be a regional matchup between my beloved Duke Blue Devils and those dastardly Tarheels of Carolina?  I’m banking on it.

Here's My 2017 NCAA Brackets

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Articles Of Impeachment?

Disney announced its quarterly earnings and ESPN's income declined 11% compared to last year. The drag on earnings and revenue from ESPN led to a quarterly miss of estimates for ESPN's parent company Disney.  Fortunately for Disney the company has made smart strategic moves in other arenas—buying Pixar, Star Wars, and Marvel among others—that have helped to defray the coming collapse of ESPN. 

ESPN is losing millions of subscribers and viewers that add up to billions of dollars a year in losses and is on the hook for tens of billions of dollars in sports rights costs in the years ahead.

Per Nielsen's most recent estimates ESPN now has 87,859,000 cable and satellite subscribers. That's a loss of over 13 million cable and satellite subscribers in the past several years, costing ESPN in the neighborhood of $1.3 billion dollars per year.

The network is in panic mode and desperate for relevance since its decision to become a social justice warrior network. ESPN has become MSESPN. 

According to The Washington Post, the network reached out to President Trump’s staff inviting him to fill out a bracket on camera, just as The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer had the past several years. The network recently received word that Trump declined. An ESPN spokesman said in a statement: “We expressed our interest to the White House in continuing the presidential bracket. They have respectfully declined.”

Andy Katz, the ESPN basketball analyst who conceived the idea, would have been disappointed if President Trump had accepted the offer.  He would have entered AMERICA in every bracket.

In other sports news, New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft said his Super Bowl Champion players are free to go to the White House to celebrate, or not.  Last week six members of the team joined Hillary Clinton among the people who won’t be going to the White House.

@washingtonpost Dont worry. Im sure @CNN will go wall to wall with Former Pres. Obama announcing his bracket.

— America Wins! (@stormchasn) February 16, 2017

Well we now know the first charge that will be on the Dem's Articles of Impeachment. https://t.co/g6NoEQl3UP

— (C)ody Penn-Dent (@codypd) February 15, 2017

You Say Your Brackets Are Busted Bunky?

Next to college football, the NCAA Tournament is my favorite time of the year.  Last year I rooted for my beloved Duke Blue Devils all the way to their fifth National Championship.  It was glorious.

Today’s slate of games features Duke vs Yale.  This will be the second meeting between these two teams.  The last meeting was in November when Duke was a much better defensive squad.

Duke’s title chances have hit the skids due to a right foot fracture Amile Jefferson suffered during practice in mid-December.  He cannot run fluidly and will miss the tournament altogether.  The senior forward was a vital front court piece for the Blue Devils.

The Blue Devils are vulnerable on the offensive glass but aggressive as hell when pressing up on the perimeter.

Yale is riding high after their shocker whipping of Baylor that busted everyone’s brackets, but they do not have a reputation of hurrying their offense.  That is a weakness that Duke will surely exploit.

Coupled with the experience Yale already has from facing Duke this season, the Ivy League champion is ready to prove the NCAA tournament wait was worth more than half a century.  We shall see.

GO DUKE!

If you need me, I’ll be at my local gin mill/sports bar with my crowd rooting like crazy for Duke and later this evening I’ll devote my attention to pulling for Carolina to trounce Providence.

March Madness: Duke Blue Devils Vs San Diego State Aztecs

Last night’s action in the NCAA Tournament saw No. 1 Villanova fall to the NC State Wolfpack.  Though I picked ‘Nova to win in my brackets, it was heart-warming to see the Pack win.  It was reminiscent of 1983 when the team known as “Phi Slamma Jamma” led by Jimmy V took the national crown.  (I miss Coach Valvano)

I must confess that I wasn’t as invested as a fan in that game as I was 32 years ago, but I kept my eye on it as the Tarheels methodically took apart the Arkansas Razorbacks’ full court pressure to convincingly defeat them 87-78.  The Heels now advance to the Sweet 16.

Today my attention is turned to the game which pits my beloved Duke Blue Devils against the San Diego State Aztecs.  The game will air at 2:40 PM ET on CBS.

These two teams have met only one other time: December 2001 at Cameron Indoor Stadium where the Atzecs lost 92-79.  Today, playing in Charlotte’s Time Warner Cable Arena, it will seem like home field advantage for Duke.  The Aztecs have big guys in their line-up that should match up well against Okafor and Marshall.

If Duke can light it up like they did against RMU they should emerge the winner in today’s game, but that’s predicated on an up-tempo game and the Aztecs not being able to shut down Okafor.  Duke definitely needs to speed up the game and get out in transition in order to beat the Aztecs.  Oh, and foul trouble for SDSU’s forwards.

GO DUKE

March Madness: Duke Blue Devils Vs Robert Morris Colonials

According to ESPN, just 273 out of 11.6 million Tournament Challenge brackets were a perfect 16-for-16 after Thursday’s games.  My brackets were likewise busted.  *sigh*

Sam Vecenie, writing for CBS Sports, thinks Bobby Mo’s key to a win against my beloved Duke Blue Devils is 6 ft. 6 guard/forward Lucky Jones who scored 21 points, 7 rebounds and 5 steals in their 4-point victory over North Florida.  Duke’s Jahlil Okafor towers over Jones at 6-11. The Colonials will not have an easy job containing the big men who make up the Blue Devils roster.

I made abysmal predictions during the ACC Tournament which prompted one commenter to write, “Please, please, please stop rooting for the team I root for.” 

Like Coach K and many of the other coaches whose teams made it to “the dance,” everybody starts at zero in the tourney.  Duke has made appearances in 15 Final Fours and won 4 national championships.  Tonight the drive for five begins.

GO DUKE

Here's My Brackets

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Putin Changes Map Of World…Meanwhile Back At The White House

Russian President Vladimir Putin, flanked by Crimea’s new leaders, formally signed a treaty of annexation of Crimea in a grand hall of the Kremlin today. The borders have been formally redrawn and the map of the world has now been officially changed.

Meanwhile, back at the White House, The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer revealed his March Madness bracket.

"These are not imaginative picks," TWMDCO said. "But I think they're the right ones."

According to Jon Terbush, “they're identical to the picks of colorful college basketball analyst Dick Vitale.”  What?  He can’t even muster the stones to pick his own brackets?

The world is in chaos and Americans look to the man in the White House for a sense of stability and safety.   

Dmitry Kiselyov, an anchor for state-controlled Rossiya 1 television, stood in front of an image of a mushroom cloud and boldly declared, “Russia is the only country in the world realistically capable of turning the United States into radioactive ash.”

The president should be seen as having his hand on the tiller of the ship of state.  Instead, we and our allies see him with a Sharpie® in his hand and dictators don’t fear the warnings of the leader of the free world.

Orange Sabres And Blue Devils Battle It Out For Conference Title

You know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men.  Months ago I bought tickets to the 2014 ACC Tournament.  A devoted fan of the Duke Blue Devils, I wanted to be there to watch my team play.

I came down with pneumonia and my dream of seeing my boys play in person was shattered.

The Blue Devils took on Clemson Friday night and defeated them 63-62.  With that win they advanced to the semi-finals to face NC State on Saturday.

I went to work confident that the Wolfpack would be no threat to the Blue Devils, but just an hour into my shift I began to feel so bad that I had to leave.  I went to the Emergency Room.  The game was on the TV in the ER Waiting Room.  Eventually I was taken into an examination room and the ER doctor ordered blood work, urinalysis, EKG and chest x-rays.

While all this was going on, I was fortunate that the exam room had a TV mounted on the wall.  The ER nurse was kind enough to turn it on for me so I could watch the game.  I guess she felt sorry for me because I was so sick.  It was determined that I was suffering from dehydration and viral syndrome.  So the doctor ordered an IV drip and sent me on my way with a stern warning not to return to work for three days.  I think I'll follow his advice.

It was exciting watching Jabari Parker and T.J. Warren trading baskets in the kind of shootout expected from the Atlantic Coast Conference's top two scorers.

Parker scored 20 points and the Blue Devils beat Warren and North Carolina State 75-67 earning Duke its 31st championship game appearance and its first since 2011.

The ACC Tournament Championship starts at 1:00 PM ET with Duke going up against the Virginia Cavaliers a team that Duke whipped in January 69-65.

Duke is the favorite to claim the conference title.

At 6:00 PM the NCAA tournament brackets will be announced.  A victory against the Cavaliers could earn Duke a No. 1 seed along with Florida, Wichita State and Arizona.

UPDATE 3:20 PM:  Congratulations to the Cavaliers.  You played a classy game.  You deserve to be ACC Champions.  Best of luck on your march to the Final Four.