My 35 correct picks out of 48 is nothing to write home about, but it is four better than where I was last year this time and leaves 7 of 8 of my Elite Eight picks intact and all of my Final Fours. I’ve learned to respect USC basketball a little more this weekend, was thrilled with my signature pick (Winthrop over Notre Dame) and delighted in watching the ‘Dores (gotta love that Lionel Ritchie!) play through to the Sweet Sixteen as I boldly predicted. As much as I hate to admit it, UNC’s depth and talent are going to be tough to overcome. Sans mask, “Psycho T” Hansbrough looks even scarier (is there a real human being behind those empty, dark eyes or is he merely a pre-programmed basketball borg?)<\/p>\n
Speaking of Lionel Ritchie, with UNLV, Georgetown, Memphis and Southern Illinois in the mix, the Sweet Sixteen also has a little bit of a retro flavor. Those schools fielded some good teams back in the 70s and 80s, and for the most part, we’ve haven’t heard from them in a while. Having Memphis around is especially good since Coach Calipari is always good for a few choice quotes, such as this gem:<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m firm with these guys. If you\u2019re sitting close enough, I\u2019m hard on them. But they know I love them. They know I love them and I care about them, so I can treat them like I would my own son. I can grab them at times. You\u2019re not supposed to grab them? I do. I kiss them at times. What? Oh, I kiss their sweaty faces. I won\u2019t kiss them on the lips, because that\u2019s a little bit too much. But I\u2019ll kiss them on the face or on the forehead. Especially if I really ram them. I\u2019ll walk over and say, \u2018You know I still love you.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Coach C., that may be a little too much information. In this day and age, you gotta be careful going around talking like that.<\/p>\n
That’s my first weekend postmortem. How’s your bracket doing? And, having seen everybody in action now, who do you think has the right stuff to go all the way?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My 35 correct picks out of 48 is nothing to write home about, but it is four better than where I was last year this time and leaves 7 of 8 of my Elite Eight picks…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9649,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions\/9649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}