The Road to the Final Four


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I will be honest right off the bat here, I only watched one of the Elite Eight games last night. I knew something was up when I woke up this morning and my Facebook feed was eerily silent. None of my misguided friends who are U of M fans posting #goblue or #hail on their page. I knew my dream had come true!

Actually, that is lie. I woke up in the middle of the night at around 12:30 so I figured I would check my phone and see what the final score was. I knew in the early hours of Wednesday that UCLA had bested U of M by two points to make it to the Final Four.

Apparently it was a pretty fantastic game with a couple of missed shots in the last seconds that kept Michigan from moving forward. I think it is very fitting that the UCLA team who knocked out my Michigan State Spartans also are the ones to knock out the Wolverines. They are going to have a tough run of it next game when they find themselves up against Gonzaga.

Speaking of Gonzaga. I watched most of their game against USC. I had told my wife at the tip off that "this should be a good game". About halfway through the first half she said "I thought you said this would be a good game". Gonzaga was so dominant. They basically picked them apart for the first ten minutes of the game and that momentum just continued through the rest of the game.

What I thought was going to be a close match ended up being a cupcake game. Isn't that the best way to describe most of Gonzaga's games this year though.

Probably the most exciting part of the Gonzaga/USC game was the official that keeled over in the middle of the first half. Apparently he is doing okay, but it was awfully scary watching him just fall over like a chopped tree. His head hitting the floor was the worst. I haven't heard a follow up, but I have known some people to do that when they lock their knees in a high stress situation (like a wedding). I hope that he fully recovers with no issue and they can figure out what happened.

Monday night we saw Baylor roll over Villanova to make it to the Final Four. I didn't watch all of that game either, but there was a point that Villanova fought back to make it close. Going into the game, I wouldn't have been surprised to have seen Nova come out on top.

It sure does look like we are on a collision course for the Gonzaga/Baylor matchup that people have been dreaming about all season. Houston is not a team to discount though and their win over Oregon State puts them in the way of Baylor making it to that game against what will probably be Gonzaga (barring an epic meltdown).

My bracket was busted long ago. My niece shared with me the other day that she was smart and went with Gonzaga, so she is still in the running. Best of luck to her! I hope she wins her family contest!

How about you? How is your bracket looking?

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5 comments
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My bracket was posted in the outhouse the first weekend as an emergency back-up plan after the first weekend. lol I went heavy on the BigTen like I always do. Whoops. I didn't look this year but I can't imagine more than a handful made it out of rounds 1 & 2 perfect. They have that million dollar bracket challenge or whatever. Didn't see it this year but I imagine it happened. No way anyone was even close this year.

Congrats on having your arch-nemesis go down. I'll be looking forward to watching Gonzaga and my Minnesota kid try to complete the perfect season.

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I will be looking forward to that as well! As much as I bagged on them through the season, they have proven they deserve to be there. I agree with you. I doubt there are to many brackets that didn't get absolutely trashed. Anyone who still has Gonzaga is probably okay, but it is going to be by a slim margin.

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You didn't even comment on my shout out to your squad in my Final Four post. lol I thought sure you'd be all over that.

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The thing with Gonzaga is that I would be willing to bet that most people picked them to roll to the final and probably win it. That would be an interesting stat to see. A lot of people that I know, including you, went with someone else in the hopes of getting big points off of a hope and a prayer. When most competitions are choosing the winners, I don't think the Zags will be a big part of it since most people probably have that all the way to the end anyway.

Ok I just looked it up, Illinois was picked by 15% of all brackets (no idea how they collect that information) so I guess you weren't just winging it :)

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Haha, I often wondered how many people did the same thing as me as well. Actually, typically I do two brackets. One is my hopeful bracket and then the other is usually my "this is probably who it is going to be" bracket. That second bracket is usually pretty much what every one in else in the world has.

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