Cuse Country

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a front-runner.

Bracketeer Bishman scored a perfect 4-for-4 in NIT picks over the last few days, giving him a total of 23 of a possible 24 points to date, and sole posession of the lead in this still tightly-contested March Sadness Challenge. There were quite a few people who got all four of these picks correct. What’s more interesting is to look at those who got none of them.

There were two brave souls to completely screw up the right-hand side of their brackets, to the point where they were unable to choose even one team correctly out of four. It’s one thing to expect one, or even two, of the #1 and #2 seeds to fall in the first two rounds. It’s quite another to expect both #1s and both #2s to lose, especially considering they are the home teams in all their games. But two competitors boldly went that route. One of them is our friend Dave from Ohio State blog Old Columbus Town. Dave’s four teams for the right half of the Elite Eight were Creighton, So. Ill, Florida St. and Maryland. Making this feat doubly impressive is that Dave had chosen 7 of the 8 first-round games correctly, missing only the Akron upset of FSU. But then he got upset-happy in round 2 and now the entire right side of his bracket is dead. But his left side is still very much alive, and Dave might still end up firmly in the middle of the pack. The second oh-fer belongs to current last-place holder Rookie85, whose four picks were Creighton, So. Ill, Fla St and Minnesota. Rookie85 actually had Minnesota as his (or her) champion pick. The left half of his bracket is still alive, but features UAB making the finals. Rookie 85’s March Sadness run could very well be finished by late tomorrow night.

Full standings can be found here. Next update will be Tuesday, after the other half of the Elite Eight has been determined. And if you missed the prize list, it can be found here.