ESPN reported last night that just two of the 5.9 million submitted Tournament Challenge brackets predicted the Final Four correctly. That’s roughly two more than I would have ever imagined picking Butler and Virginia Commonwealth to make the Final Four, but nevertheless I tip my cap to those two evil geniuses. After all, it takes real balls to put an 8- and 11-seed in your bracket’s Final Four, especially on the same side.
One of the two perfect Final Four entrants, “jspearlman”, is in first place, while the other isn’t even close (6,343rd place). But the man currently on top of the World Wide Leader’s $10,000 mountain isn’t in the clear just yet. He chose VCU to win it all, but the entrant only 50 points behind him, “dawgpound513”, still has 3 Final Four teams alive and Kentucky winning it all. And the person in third place has 3 teams remaining and UConn winning it all. And none of us really care that much because we lost weeks ago.
How about your “celebrities”, ESPN?
• President Obama: 650 points, 94.9 percentile
• Mike Golic: 580 points, 79.8 percentile
• Colin Cowherd: 560 points, 71.3 percentile
• Snoop Dogg: 500 points, 43.7 percentile
• Michael Wilbon: 480 points, 34.0 percentile
• Mike Greenberg: 450 points, 21.5 percentile
• Dick Vitale: 450 points, 21.5 percentile
• Bill Simmons: 430 points, 14.7 percentile
• Tony Kornheiser: 420 points, 12.0 percentile
• Matthew Berry: 420 points, 12.0 percentile
• Michelle Beadle: 350 points, 2.6 percentile
Out of all of these “experts” only Golic has a Final Four team left, with UConn, but his championship pick was Ohio State so he’s sharing a Kleenex box with Punte. President Obama’s run was rather impressive, but he of course picked all of the top seeds to make the Final Four, which put him in the same boat as most girls I know. Most upsetting on this list is Beadle, who should get an extra 600 points for being so damn adorable.
The Final Four teams also put an end to the impressive run of Matt Hasselbeck’s son, Henry, who was in 105th place heading into Saturday’s games. His lone remaining team is Kentucky, but he chose Florida to win it all. But I think his bracket success proves that even a 5-year old knows that the Big East is overrated.
