Gone in 64 Seconds
Posted: March 14th, 2010 | Filed under: Other Sports | 32 Comments »
Something disturbing happened last year when I did my annual “Pick the NCAA tournament in 64 seconds” thing. I actually got some picks right. I picked North Carolina to beat Michigan State in the final, and that’s what happened. This led numerous people to make the remarkably absurd assumption that I actually know something about college basketball or making picks. I will simply say that this year’s picks should clear up that misunderstanding.
The idea remains the same: I pick the 63 NCAA Tournament games in 64 seconds. The reason? Well, for one thing, I believe in Malcolm Gladwell’s concept of Blink — it’s better in situations like to go with your instinct. Two, more importantly, doing the whole thing in 64 seconds frees me up to watch this Jabba The Hutt video a few dozen more times …
… and it frees me up to finish the most intense breakdown you will ever see of the 2009 season. No, seriously, I’ve been working on this thing for two days. It’s intense.
So, anyway, let’s get to it … a tournament bracket destroyed in 64 seconds. And, go:
First round (Elapsed time 29 seconds)
As always, I move the top two seeds through … they almost never lose. Well, the No. 1 seeds have never lost*, and the No. 2 seeds have lost only four times. None of the No. 2s feel vulnerable to me, though Villanova has been getting beat up lately. Every other year or so, a three gets beat … and I took an extra second to think about that Oakland (Mich) game against Pittsburgh. Oakland has won a 20 of its last 21, not that I knew that when I considered picking them (nor did I know their nickname was the Golden Grizzlies). In the end I stuck with Pittsburgh.
*The No. 1 seeds have won all 100 games played against No. 16 seeds. Right: The top seeds are 100 for 100. And they usually win by 30 or 40 points. You know, that seems pretty compelling evidence that we don’t need to ADD teams to the tournament.
A four-seed usually loses, and I’m going with the obvious upset choice, picking Purdue to lose to Siena. You have to feel terrible for Purdue having lost Robbie Hummel. The 5-12 game is almost always hottest upset match-up of the tournament — last year THREE 12 seeds knocked of No. 5s — and I pick No. 12 UTEP to knock off Butler, which might find itself confused because usually Butler is the 12 seed playing underdog. And even though Temple has been playing great, I’m picking No. 12 Cornell to win because I really like Cornell coach Steve Donahue saw the Big Red scare the heck out of Kansas in Lawrence and because Andy Bernard went to school there.
More upsets: No. 6 Old Dominion beats Notre Dame; No. 6 Minnesota led by Tubby Smith takes out Xavier; No. 10 Missouri outruns No. 7 Clemson; No. 10 St. Mary’s beats giant killer turned favorite Richmond. And in the 9-8 games, I got a split, with the “favorites” No. 8 Texas holding on against Wake Forest and No. 8 Gonzaga beating Florida State.
Second round (Elapsed time, 49 seconds — yikes!).
My bracket is disintegrating. I’m picking too many upsets. This is a mode I get into when I start running out of time and panicking. I should pick the No. 1s through to the Sweet 16 … but I can’t help myself. I pick Louisville to knock off Duke. It’s too perfect — Rick Pitino with an underachieving team exorcising the ghost of Laettner with a mighty upset. As soon as I write it down, I regret it … I know Louisville will not really upset Duke. In fact, I suspect Duke is a real Final Four contender with those three big scorers. But once I write it down, it’s too late. With 64 seconds, once you write it down, you’ve got to go. Duke is out.
All the twos go through, though I see Oklahoma State scaring Ohio State, with the winner getting to claim for a year that it is the true OSU (poor Oregon State, but being out of the tournament, is automatically disqualified). I have a couple of No. 3 teams getting upset … like I say, I’m picking too many upsets. I have Tennessee beating Georgetown. I know Georgetown is the darling of a lot of prognosticators but when that Tennessee team is good, they can (and have) beat anybody. I also have Marquette beating New Mexico because, well, I don’t know. I think I got confused there.
And rounding out the Sweet 16, I have No. 5 Michigan State beating No. 4 Maryland; I have UTEP upsetting No. 4 Vanderbilt, I have No. 11 Minnesota beat Oakland in the Cinderella ball game, and I have No. 5 Texas A&M knocking out Sienna.
Too many upsets. And I’m taking too much time.
Sweet 16 (elapsed time: 54 seconds — back on track)
I don’t have time to mess with things, so I try to fix my bracket by having order restored and the favorites winning. The only upset I pick is No. 9 Louisville over No. 5 Texas A&M — I don’t even LIKE this Louisville team. You ever have that happen to you in a bracket? You keep picking a team you don’t particularly like because, well, the momentum has already started.
Interesting games in my bracket include Kansas against Michigan State … a semi-rematch of last year’s tournament game, though not really. College teams fluctuate way too much for their to be a true rematch. Either way, it’s hard to take out a team coached by Tom Izzo. I picked Michigan State to go to the finals last year basically because I thought last year’s tournament was wide open and in those tournaments I would bet on the best coaches. I don’t think this year’s tournament is that wide open. I think there are six or seven really good teams and the rest are a step below. I know people some people think Kansas got a raw deal with Ohio State, Georgetown, Maryland and Michigan State in their bracket, not to mention Oklahoma State and Tennessee, the two teams that beat the Jayhawks this year. But let’s face it: Kansas is better than any of those teams. If they Jayhawks play good basketball, they’ll go to the Final Four.
Villanova has been pretty mediocre lately, but I expect Villanova to be pretty tough to beat in the tournament. They have a great backcourt with Scottie Reynolds and Corey Fisher, throw Corey Stokes in there too, and coach Jay Wright seems like the kind of coach who can take his team on a run.
Final Eight (elapsed time: 58 seconds)
I take one second for each pick. That’s probably not enough because I think each of these games has a chance to be epic. I think Ohio State’s Evan Turner is the best player in the country, even a touch better than Kentucky’s John Wall, but I think Kansas is just too deep and too good on both ends of the floor. So Kansas goes to the Final Four.
I think the Syracuse-Kansas State game has chance to be the game of the tournament — two intense and tough teams. I think people still don’t appreciate just how good Kansas State is … when Kansas State coach Frank Martin was hired, I thought (and wrote) that it was a mistake, that the school was only hiring Martin to keep a couple of big time recruits. Not long after, I wrote that while I still think that’s the reason the school hired Martin, I was rooting for the guy because he’s a good guy, he worked his way up through the coaching ranks, he never had anything handed to him. He has a great story. I wrote that I hoped he would be successful.
Well, he is successful. And he is a terrific story. Martin’s great ability is to get his players to play preposterously hard — not surprisingly this is also the great ability of the guy he coached under, Bob Huggins. Some coaches can draw art on a chalkboard, and some coaches can teach players a system, and some coaches can just recruit great talent and let them go. What Martin does is something different: He convinces his players that they can be better than what other people think and better than what they believe themselves. It has been a great year for Kansas State.
Of course, after all that, I think the Syracuse zone will be too much and Kansas State will lose.
On the other hand, I’m picking a related upset: I’m taking Bob Huggins’ West Virginia over Kentucky. I have a long and somewhat tortured history with Huggs going back to the days when I wrote newspaper columns in Cincinnati, columns (it’s fair to say) he did not always agree with. And we all know about Huggins’ various troubles. Still, I’m not sure people appreciate this: He’s one heck of a basketball coach. His teams play ferociously. And this West Virginia team is probably the best example of a true Bob Huggins team I have seen since his early days in Cincinnati. They have trouble shooting, and they don’t have a lot of size. But man oh man will they clamp on some defense, and they will get every loose ball, and they will get so many offensive rebounds that teams lose themselves in frustration. Kentucky is terrific but young; I’ve got West Virginia going to the Final Four.
And finally, I have Villanova ending that Louisville run that went on way too long in my bracket. I should have had Duke play through.
Final Four (elapsed time: 61 seconds).
I take two seconds on Kansas beating Syracuse. No offense to Kentucky, but I think that’s a match-up of the best two teams in America. The thing I’ve seen with Kansas, though, is their ability to adapt to different styles and beat teams different ways. I think the Jayhawks win this game.
And in the other bracket … Villanova vs. West Virginia. Whew. How did I lose control over my own bracket? I’m picking Villanova.
Final Game (elapsed time: 64 seconds).
OK, so, you probably knew a while ago that I am picking Kansas to win the national championship. The thing everyone understands is that the tournament can go so many different ways. To win six games in three weeks under intense pressure … so many things can happen. A team can hit 15 3-points against you and just shoot you right out of the tournament. And your team can go ice cold and not be able to hit any open shots. A certain style can baffle and frustrate your teams. As Kansas coach Bill Self says, “It doesn’t take but a second to find yourself on your heels. It happens fast and then it’s really hard to turn things around.”
So, I’m picking Kansas because I think the Jayhawks are the team best built — because of senior leadership, depth, shooting ability, defensive intensity — to handle the various challenges. But I also know I might come up with a different answer if I had another 64 seconds.
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Circle me orange
I’d like to see the 64-second video of Poz making his selections.
One could not waste time writing down the team names; would have to use seed #s.
I’m very curious to see how Purdue responds against Siena after their worst half ever against Minnesota in the Big Ten tournament. I’d like to see Purdue salvage their once bright season by at least making it to the Sweet Sixteen.
Nice to see my school (Siena) get a mention. The Little Franciscan School that could. With two opening round wins in the past two years and a squad filled with experienced seniors, they are the darling pick of a lot of folks right now. Especially with the injury to Hummel.
But the realist in me says that they lose to Purdue out in Spokane. They didn’t look particularly good against any of the solid non-conference opponents on their schedule this year. Well, maybe Temple, but that was pretty early on. Before Temple put it together.
It’s still pretty cool to see them as a potential Cinderella again. We’ll see.
This article:
http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/basketball/fba/story?page=tcmen\10brackettrends
points out that Purdue has the longest active first round wining streak with 11 straight wins.
Bring it, Siena.
Syracuse/Kansas was my national title game pick, so I’m upset to see them relegated to at best a semi-final game against each other. The Orange are my current picks to win, but that well may change between now and Thursday.
Heh, I wonder how many people are picking Cornell just because of Andy Bernard. Given that guy’s luck lately, I don’t like Cornell’s chances. Plus, even if they do win, it’ll probably turn out that Erin went to Temple and she’ll get turned off by his boasting.
btw, how the Office made it six seasons without ever doing a storyline about the office March Madness pool?
Did Pittsburgh forfiet the victory over Oakland? I see that they beat Oakland in the first round, but Oakland was still able to play Minnesota in the 2nd round.
“*The No. 1 seeds have won all 100 games played against No. 16 seeds. Right: The top seeds are 100 for 100. And they usually win by 30 or 40 points. You know, that seems pretty compelling evidence that we don’t need to ADD teams to the tournament.”
I just want to point out that while I don’t think there is anything wrong with being against tournament expansion, I do think that this logic as a reason is wrong. If the tournament were to expand, what teams would be added? Those bubble teams that we hear ESPN analysts whining about, some examples from this year would be Illinois, Mississippi St. and Virginia Tech. Those teams are much, much better than the 16-seeds. Expanding the tournament isn’t going to create more 1st round blowouts, it is going to create more mid-seed tossups between teams that would be thrilled to make the Sweet 16. Whether that is a good thing is what needs to be debated, not the ole 16-seeds already get blown out argument.
@Ken
Cut Poz some slack, maybe he got confused because UPitt is in the Oakland area of Pittsburgh!
But yeah, I saw that too. It’s an omen, I’m taking Oakland to beat UPitt.S
Agree with Andy. In a 96 team field the current 16 seeds would drop down. The 1 seeds would play the winner of a 16-17 game in which both teams would be better than the current 16s.
I’m not really for the expansion. I mean, are you ready for those 12-21 games?
I think it’s going to expand and the NCAA will quickly regret it, and then they’re stuck with it for a while because it’s going to be at least a ten-year deal.
Final Four- Kansas, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Duke
Finals- Duke over Kansas
If they expand, then they’re ignoring their own history. I barely remember when they had the field of 56 with a play-in game to play the top-seeds. My memory might be bad, but I kinda remember that ending when Rolando Blackman dribbled around for twenty minutes in a tie game against top seeded Oregon State and then beat them with like 3 seconds left. And everyone said it was because K-State had played a game already so didn’t have to deal with the nerves like Oregon State.
I wouldn’t mind if they added, say, seven more teams, making 72. Then the bottom sixteen teams have a preliminary play-in, the winners going to the first round as the 15th and 16th seeds in each of the four regions.
That might be fun, since the seven added at-large play-in teams would likely be big teams having mediocre years (UNC, for example), thereby increasing the TV ratings.
kc refugee – The same day as the game you mentioned, top seed DePaul lost to St. Joseph’s, who also had a “play-in” game. That might have been the same day as the U.S. Reed 60-foot shot to beat Louisville for Arkansas. Quite a day. A lot of top seeds lost in that era, maybe because the committee wasn’t that good at seeding but maybe also because of the nerves factor.
I can’t see the expansion to 96, because the brackets barely fit on one page now. Also, when would the games be played? 16 games on Tuesday? The weekend before? Can’t push it back a week because Jim Nantz would miss the Masters, and we can’t have that. (Actually he’d blow off the NCAAs, I’m pretty sure.)
Joe, you crack me up. You did your bracket in 64 seconds, but how long did it take you to blog it? I’m looking forward to more baseball posts. I love your work, man, and I usually think sportswriting is a bit lame.
That “circle me” crap is really stupid. Hey everyone, look at me! I need attention! Look!
Top seeds lost more often because there weren’t as many patsies. In the era of 64 team tournaments, 1s lose to 8s and 9s often enough (I mean, not a lot, but it does happen).
Expansion would be the worst thing the NCAA could do. And, as said above, they won’t be able to fix it. If they want more games, they could take the last 8 in and pit them against the first 8 out in 8 Tuesday games. The 8 winners become seeds 8 and 9 in the four regionals.
I found out probably 10-15 years ago that you can do reasonably well in the early rounds if you pick against the sleepers that Dick Vitale likes. I carefully watch ESPN waiting for Dickie V to tell us about his potential Cinderellas, and make sure I check them off as losses. It works very well.
Yesterday he said Siena was a team to watch out for. That’s the kiss of death, Baby!
@#7, on expansion.
I’m not a college basketball maniac but I catch a fair number of games. And I’m an Illinois alum, and I see a handful of their games a year. There’s a good chance I’m wrong about a lot of this.
The point of playing the tournament is to crown a national champion. The odds of this year’s Illinois basketball team winning 6 or 7 straight games against *anyone*, let alone with three of those being against Elite Eight-caliber teams, is basically zilch. And if by some miracle they did, if they won the NCAA title, would anyone be fooled into thinking they deserved a title for their season?
The tourney should be for the real contenders. And, at that, there’s not much harm in letting in small-conference champions as cannon fodder, because it’s hard to compare them, given their schedules, to the big-conference teams.
[...] Critics have not been nearly as kind. It is not strange that the man responsible for what was conDick Vitale Bracket 2010 – Tuesday, March 16, 2010. By umar. NCAA selection chair promises. Trained to deal with a class [...]
[...] Critics have not been nearly as kind. It is not strange that the man responsible for what was conDick Vitale Bracket 2010 – Tuesday, March 16, 2010. By umar. NCAA selection chair promises. Trained to deal with a class [...]
[...] Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » Gone In 64 SecondsMy bracket is disintegrating. I’m picking too many upsets. This is a mode I get into when… [...]
*The No. 1 seeds have won all 100 games played against No. 16 seeds. Right: The top seeds are 100 for 100. And they usually win by 30 or 40 points. You know, that seems pretty compelling evidence that we don’t need to ADD teams to the tournament.
————–
That isn’t at all evidence that teams shouldn’t be added.
Personally, I don’t really want the tournament expanded, but I wouldn’t be too upset if it was. My interests aside, the success, or lack thereof, of 15th and 16th seeds aren’t relevant to competitiveness of the NCAA tournament if more teams are added. 15th and 16th seeds are normally teams from the Sun Belt or SWAC conferences who have RPIs in the upper 100s. They aren’t actually the 57th through 65th best teams in the country. As it is, this year’s just-missed borderline school were Virginia Tech, Illinois, and Mississippi St. who, it’s safe to say, are much much better than Lehigh, Winthrop, and Arkansas Pine-Bluff. Allowing the VT’s, Illinois, and Mississippi St.’s of the college basketball world into the tournament will effect the competitiveness of the tournament for better or worse. If that’s the question, I’m fine with expansion by another 7 or maybe even 11 teams, which would result in 8 or 12 play-in games for the 15 and 16 or 14-16 seeds, respectively. Other than that, we don’t need an entire new round.
College basketball is getting deeper as top talent comes and goes in the form of one-and-done players and less talented but more cohesive groups learn and grow together at smaller schools. More importantly, there’s less reason to play at a big time program these days. Almost everyone is one TV or the internet. I’m not saying kids don’t care about big programs, but they can be recognized and seen and possibly even play earlier and more often at a mid-major.
And who the hell is Andy Bernard?
Just looked it up. And no, I’m not 94 years old. I’m 30. But I think The Office isn’t very funny and don’t remember celebrity names because too many people already do. Damn it. I’ll likely remember his.
[...] of my favourite sports writers, Joe Posnanski, does an annual NCAA March Madness bracket picks in 64 seconds flat. He alludes to Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Blink”, as the inspiration. I figure [...]
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Joe–where did Wisconsin end up in yours?
Sorry if my site created a waste of space and a ping back. I am not quite up the curve in terms of telling my site how to behave.
Thought this was a great idea, especially for those of us that participate in brackets but don’t follow the college game.
Joe, you were right about Georgetown. How in the world does a team with 10 losses get a #3 seed anyway? Do I detect a hint of East Coast bias?
Villanova OUT, Kansas OUT, Joe Pos’ bracket busted.
I had Kansas winning too, I figured picking the top team in the league was the right move.
It wasn’t.
And Joe’s bracket is up in flames…
Kansas/Nova final? Yikes.
The fact that he gets one Final Four team right is impressive in itself. I can’t imagine many people had more than that.