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Pool participants, and mortal enemies, Jack (L) and Lauren (R), with their neutral, Switzerland-like brother Matthew (he of "The Wiggles" fame)

The Great American
March Madness
NCAA Basketball Pool

Hey, I was wrong the other day when I said that the Christian Laettner overtime shot against Kentucky was "the buzzer beater of all buzzer beaters." There's a new king. Check out this shot. Here's a kid who hits a shot at the buzzer to force double overtime in the Minnesota state HS championship game (which his team then won) ... FROM HIS BACK! You have to see it to believe it:

No, not even Ty Pennington and the crew from "Extreme Makeover: Bracket Edition" can save me this year. My bracket is beyond repair. And as it turns out, you only get to do "do overs" on American Idol. Ya just can't lose a Final Four team in the first round (Syracuse) and live to tell the tale. I even ended up going through every participant who had North Carolina as their champ trying to find some glimmer of hope, like nobody else having Louisville in the Final Four for example, but alas twas not to be. (At least it wasn't as bad as Judy Cosgrove a few years back. I remember her losing a Final Four team before the close of work on THE FIRST DAY. Still a pool record. Good memories, ay Judy? )

One of the great mysteries of the pool has been the performance of my Crooked Tree neighbor, Dan "I'm the real Slim" Sheedy. A rabid sports fan, Dan has inexplicably been mired near the bottom of the pool, a place he probably should get used to given his Wake Forrest selection. Coincidentally, Dan's brother-in-law, my coworker Jon "Major" Harris, is also in the pool. Jon has spent a lot of time researching and studying "what went wrong" with Dan's picks and has unearthed a startling discovery: hidden deep within Dan's selections are the coded answers to an age old mystery. You can learn all about it in the new book Jon has written on the subject:

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Pts Participant

Leah "New mom" Cadek
Lauren "turns 11 on Monday" Dennehy
Lisa "current wife" Dennehy (1)
Greg "3 behind!" Dennehy
Jason "Carrie Underwood's #1 fan" Cadek Mark "The VP" Heckler
Jim "no relation to Sean" May
Lisa "still my current wife" Dennehy (2)
Jack "Coach 'K' rock$!" Dennehy
Dan "actually lives on Armour Ct" Sheedy

Okay, games resume this evening from the left side of the bracket, with teams from the Chicago and Albuquerque regions seeing action. The television viewing schedule shakes out as follows:

7:10 pm
7:27 pm
9:40 pm
9:57 pm

vs (1) Washington
vs (1) Illinois
vs (6) Texas Tech
vs (2) Oklahoma State

(4) Louisville
(12) Wis-Milwaukee
(7) West Virginia
(3) Arizona

I think any chance of success in the pool for Team Dennehy this year will now have to come from 8 year old son, Jack. It would appear that if Jack's "Duke over Illinois scenario" comes to fruition, he may well be in the money. All the hopes and dreams of NCAA glory for the Dennehy family now rest on the shoulders of this man.

It's like something out of a Disney movie

Click

Speaking of my neighbors, Lauren has been wanting me to post something about how the standings look for the folks on our street, or "The Ultra Court Championship" as it's being referred to as:

Can even a
"bracket makeover"
save me now?

And hey, don't mess it up either, kid. If Duke loses tomorrow I've got a funny feeling that the good ol' Easter Bunny may not be hopping by on Sunday. Got it? (sometimes ya gotta play hardball with these kids)

Click here to pay your entry fee via PayPal

Hopefully CBS does a little better than they did on Sunday where they stayed with Louisville's 20+ point blowout of Georgia Tech right to the bitter end even though the Dukies were fighting for their lives in the final minutes of their game against Mississippi State. I'm assuming Louisville must be considered a "regional game" here in Cincinnati and that's why they didn't leave it? Whatever. Don't let it happen again. Yes, I'm looking at you, Les Moonves.

Later,

The Commish