" title="Spartans Weblog">Spartans Weblog

A statistical look at Michigan State basketball, with a dash of football talk

Final Bracket Contest Standings

Posted by kj on Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

Courtesy of Dan (thanks again, sir):

Devin 156
Dr Huxtable 147
TMadison25 146
Kurt 139
kj 137
GBBound 124
spartanproducer 124
wifeofaspartan 114
Erik J 113
Hoopraker 111
Dave 105
Dan 96
NorthernSparty 75

For those interested, teams worth the most points this year:
Davidson 30
WKU, Villanova 24
Kansas 21
Memphis 15
West Virginia 14
Siena, San Diego 13
Kansas State 11
Michigan State 10
UCLA, UNC, Louisville, Xavier, Texas A&M, Arkansas 9

Maximum points possible: 229 if these were your 16 picks. (Interestingly, six of these teams come from the West regional - only Purdue and Duke won games in that regional yet fell short of the list. Five from the Midwest, including three of the top four; three from the East - and none in double-digits - and two from the South.)

Congratulations, Devin.  There’s not a concrete prize to be had–just the admiration of the Spartans Weblog community.

In retrospect, I should have gone with a traditional contest with a really high entry fee, as I had Kansas winning it all . . .

« « Championship Day Musings | Season Review: Point Guard Edition » »

Filed in ncaa tournament contest

5 Responses to “Final Bracket Contest Standings”

  1. Kurton 08 Apr 2008 at 8:37 am 1

    ha, KJ!

    Actually, I really enjoyed this format this year. Possibly because I was in the top three for most of the time, unlike my other brackets!

  2. Spartalyticalon 08 Apr 2008 at 9:18 am 2

    Maybe I’m still sour-graping it here, but I thoroughly enjoyed last night’s championship game in too many ways to count.

    Once again, I throw my genuine disclaimer out there that I do believe that this Memphis squad is extremely talented, very athletic, and is dangerous when up against line-ups that are either a bit smaller or slower (or both), which, in an attempt to kid no one, is a good number of opposing teams out there.

    However, to carry the chip on their shoulder that they have over the last three weeks, to repeatedly snap at the media for justifiably not putting 100% faith in your self-proclaimed “dream team” status (justifiable because until the last half of the tournament, this team hadn’t gone toe-to-toe with and defeated anyone nearly as impressive as Calipari’s ego would suggest), only to choke that badly down the stretch of the title game was just about as pleasing a turn of events as I could have hoped for. There’s no way Memphis should have lost this game. They had the talent and speed to hang with Kansas, which they essentially did. But they did lose it. And I loved it.

    The one thing that the talking heads kept point to all tournament was the poor free throw shooting. Calipari didn’t refute the numbers. He just said it didn’t matter. They’re way too good to end up in situations where free throws matter, he said. And if they found themselves in such a situation, they would make them when they counted, he said. So, which is it, John? Where’d all that smug confidence go when explaining this to reporters last night?

    “They don’t make every one. They’re not machines, these kids. They’re just not. And under that glare of that significance.” (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080408/us_nm/basketball_ncaa_dc;_ylt=AudU35xU8pGimSIEOfXp_YSs0NUE)

    Objectively, these rants of mine haven’t been fueled by MSU’s utter destruction at the hands of the Tigers a week and a half ago. We were outmatched in just about every way. I think we could have come out a little more prepared, but if Memphis was playing in any manner other than a complete and exhaustive derailment from their capabilities, there’s no way we win that game. What has served as fuel is watching the demeanor of certain players and Calipari during and after their wins this postseason.

    The cupboards won’t be bare next year, but without Rose, CDR, and Dorsey, they’ll definitely be down a notch. They will continue to recruit well, however, and will likely have a top 20 team for a good long time. I just wish they were in a real conference though, as it would oust Calipari from the comfort zone he’s found. And all those wins records would be left for teams that actually earned them.

    Now that the tournament is done, maybe I’ll calm down now. Maybe.

  3. Daveon 08 Apr 2008 at 1:40 pm 3

    I have to agree. The best part was seeing Dorsey watch his team implode from the bench after that last stupid foul.

  4. Danon 08 Apr 2008 at 4:24 pm 4

    Spartalytical, I’d post something along the same lines, but you said it better than I could.

    kj, if you’re interested, I could send you the spreadsheet I used for scorekeeping - pretty simple to use once it’s set up (all you have to do is fill in who picked which teams, how many games each team wins, and it adds up the points for you).

  5. spartanproduceron 08 Apr 2008 at 8:50 pm 5

    I found it interesting that one of the game stories talked about how Memphis tried to foul at the end of regulation and the refs didn’t call it. And who was one of the refs??? Our good friend Ed Hightower, the Kansas player who got knocked down (Collins??) even admitted he got fouled.

    This was combined with Nantz and Packer raving about Eddie’s “judgment” after CDR spiked the ball, to create more moments of Hightower genius (and I’m sure the Big Ten will use this to give Hightower more prime assignments).

    I mean really, there aren’t three better refs in all of college hoops?? If true, this is a sad, sad statement.