2009 NCAA Men’s Tournament Bracket

I’ve been so busy with work, I haven’t had a change to watch much ball these last few months. I’ve caught a few Kansas, Gators, Pitt, UConn, UCLA and Memphis games but I almost missed the deadline to get in a bracket. I spent time analyzing blogs, radio shows and ESPN and came up with the NEO bracket. Then from there did two more variants for two other “leagues”.

My Round 1 Upsets are (based on the NEO research):
Siena over Ohio St. : Siena is a sleeper for sure. They went big last year and I think will give Louisville a run

USC over Boston College : BC is streaky (4 game loss streak including Harvard at home?). USC won the Pac-10 championship going through Arizona St., Cal, and UCLA.

Texas A&M over BYU : These two have meet before and BYU hasn’t won in the first round in 6 years. The Aggies will make that 7.

Northern Iowa over Purdue : The is my only stretch 5-12 upsets because I still think Purdue is a sleeper to go to 16s if they do beat UNI. The Boilermakers haven’t been full strength all season and if UNI keeps it close it will go their way. (in my other two bracket’s I’ve taken Purdue).

Maryland over California : Cal has great three point shooting with Randle, Christopher, and Robertson. The ex-Stanford coach, Mike Montgomery has tournament experience but these guys aren’t that big. I’m still a Bear’s fan secretly hoping I’m wrong in this pick. The Terrapins can turn up the D, like they did beating Wake Forest and UNC so I’m picking them in this one.

Tennessee over Oklahoma St. : I know nothing about these two, but I have read terrible stats about Tenn. and the Cowboys suck at D. This is just one of those fluke wins where Oklahoma fails more than Tennessee steps up.

VCU over UCLA : Yes, UCLA has been in the final four the last three years and have Collison and Shipp but history doesn’t matter: it’s what happens on the court this year. VCU though won the Colonial Athletic Association tournament. Maynor leads the team in scoring (22.4) and with Sanders’s size they’ll be disruptive to UCLA. It’ll be a great game to watch.

Western KY over Illlinois : This is my strong 5-12 upset prediction. WKY beat Drake with a buzzer beater last year and this year they’ll hit the headlines again beating Illinois. They beat Louisville early on and have been crushing the competition lately by winning 15 of their last 17 games.

Michigan over Clemson : Clemson made it into this tournament with their defense and turn over conversion but unfortunately for them Michigan has sticky fingers which won’t give them any advantage. With Clemson coming off losing four of their last five, they are down and soon to be out.

I think the BIGGEST upset on my bracket is LSU taking out North Carolina in the 2nd round. The X factor here is Ty Lawson who isn’t expected to play today and if he can go on Friday, I don’t expect him to be effective, putting UNC at a disadvantage and hopless as LSU blindsides them with a win.

My Final Four are: Louisville, Memphis, Pittsburgh and Syracuse with Pitt and Memphis meeting in the National Championships and Memphis taking the title. Here’s my brackets:

NEO Bracket:

QFunk Bracket

A6 Bracket

Winter Jam NYC 2009

This month we had the annual Winter Jam in NYC starting the evening of Feb 5th with the erection of Mt. Red Bull, a 90-foot tall Snowscraper launch to a “double-sided pyramid landing” for explicit tricks by armature and pro snowboarders including Shaun White, Pat Moore, and Travis Rice.

I didn’t make it to the Thursday night event for the $100,000 purse but was able to catch the day time events on Saturday the 7th for the live bands and show case of the pros just going big for fun (NYC Parks Events).

The day was cool but clear with the air crisp, ripe for a great day of boarding. It almost felt like a day on the mountain in Tahoe but you know the man made snow is shredded to ice. I caught a few great pics of the aerial action. The full gallery can be scene on my photo site. I just hope they continue to do this event year after year, and bigger each time.

Amazing Bowl XLII

It might as well be. This year’s Superbowl is right up there with the finish of last years Giant’s win over the 18-0 Patriots. I’m not going to argue with NYer’s or Steelers fans as to which was more significant because it’s just a football game, however, this was definitely a fun finale to the season to watch.

You have the underdog Cardinals, captained by the seasoned Kurt Warner who over came a fantastic game against the Carolina Panthers to be here. Against the Pittsburgh Steelers who clawed ugly game after ugly game up the mountain to get to the bowl game.

The spread was +6.5 favoring Pitt and after a disappointing 3-0 first half, I was thinking this one was going to be a bust.

This was historic for many reasons, Mike Tomlin is now the youngest coach in history to reach the Superbowl.

Then you have the longest play in Superbowl history with the interception at the goal line returned 100 yeards for a defensive touchdown by the Steelers James Harrison.

You have Larry Fitzgerald with 127 scratched out yards and two touch downs that brought Arizona back in the game for what seemed like a game winning drive in the bottom of the 4th quarter.

You have a historic, less than 3 minute, last ditch drive by the Steelers. Santonio Holmes capped a 8 play, 78 yard drive to win the game with 18 seconds left on the clock (click the video link above).

The Steelers have now won a record 6 Superbowls which makes them now the longest standing hated team.

Lastly, Club Jenna watchers in Arizona were interrupted by some football game. Talk about Bonus Coverage!

ESPN compared the two drives of this and the last bowl game in their similarity to yardage, timing and end result. I would argue you still have to say NY has the more amazing result in that NY was the underdog in last year’s game, and that the Steelers were just taking back their rightful spot from the hungry rookies. Regardless of the ridiculous lack of sportsmanship of the Steelers (kicking players when they are down, late hits, clipping and fights on the sidelines) they earned this amazing game for the record.

However, because of the economy no one would pony up to my pool so I didn’t have a shot at winning some funds this year. Next year guys…. Next year

UPDATE: 43 is now the most watched game ever according to Nielson Ratings.