• Join The Gaming Tailgate ESPN.com Tournament Challenge

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    cdj
    Published on 03-12-2011 10:55 AM
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    March Madness is here! Show your basketball prowess - or supreme guessing ability - in The Gaming Tailgate Tournament Challenge on ESPN.com. Make your picks beginning 6 PM ET Sunday, March 13.

    There is no entry fee and all entrants are welcome, so feel free to get your friends into the group as well. The winner will receive a prize which will be announced at a later date. Continue on for full group details.

    Group Name: The Gaming Tailgate
    Password: tailgate2011
    Comments 80 Comments
    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes - 03-17-2011, 03:02 PM
      Ok, who just got reamed thanks to Louisville? Thank God, even though I'm 0-3 so far today, every single team that screwed me over, I had losing in the next round, so only minor losses so far, no major blows.
    1. HWill's Avatar
      HWill - 03-17-2011, 03:06 PM
      I switched from Morehead to Louisville about 10 minutes before brackets had to be submitted.
    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes - 03-17-2011, 03:19 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by HWill View Post
      I switched from Morehead to Louisville about 10 minutes before brackets had to be submitted.
      Ouch. Sadly, I never even looked that closely into the Morehead-Louisville upset. I've been big all week on Belmont over Wisconsin and Oakland over Texas, but I never even considering Louisville going down. At least, if Richmond proves me right and wins this afternoon, they'll have an easier road to the Sweet Sixteen, so a potential major help booster to my bracket and my Sweet Sixteen teams.
    1. morsdraconis's Avatar
      morsdraconis - 03-17-2011, 03:31 PM
      Boy did Louisville drop the ball on that one... Way to make the Big East look good...
    1. JBHuskers's Avatar
      JBHuskers - 03-17-2011, 03:36 PM
      I only had Louisville going to sweet 16, had ODU going elite 8....but I do have Princeton going to the sweet 16 so maybe that will make up for it.
    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes - 03-17-2011, 04:03 PM
      Just flipping around between these games right now, I do not remember a recent tournament where every single game was so close like they are today. Not even just close games that are expected between 8-9 seeds or 12-5 seeds, but even #1s and #2s being played close and/or taken to the wire, and multiple #4s being upset and/or in very close danger of being upset.
    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes - 03-17-2011, 04:06 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by morsdraconis View Post
      Boy did Louisville drop the ball on that one... Way to make the Big East look good...
      Yeah, I'm sort of happy about that. I'm so sick of hearing about the Big East getting 11 teams into the tournament, I sort of want to see the Big East just absolutely bomb and faceplant today and tomorrow and only see two or three BE teams get through to Saturday and Sunday.

      Actually, make that four. Syracuse, UConn, St. John's and Pitt. All four are in the Elite Eight for me, so everyone else can bomb, as long as those four win.
    1. morsdraconis's Avatar
      morsdraconis - 03-17-2011, 04:13 PM
      Well, I guarantee you that WVU doesn't bomb against Kentucky. Cheatapari has never beaten Bob Huggins and he won't on Saturday either. Kentucky hasn't faced a team that can out rebound them like WVU can. If we continue to shoot as well as we did against piss poor Clemson, we'll be fine.
    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes - 03-17-2011, 04:33 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by morsdraconis View Post
      Well, I guarantee you that WVU doesn't bomb against Kentucky. Cheatapari has never beaten Bob Huggins and he won't on Saturday either. Kentucky hasn't faced a team that can out rebound them like WVU can. If we continue to shoot as well as we did against piss poor Clemson, we'll be fine.
      Yeah, I'm pissed at Clemson right now. I've been calling Clemson over WVU since Monday, even before Clemson pimp slapped UAB. And for 85-90% of the first half today, Clemson was proving me right. Until they forgot that the first half is 20 minutes long and that there was still a second half to be played. :rolleyes:
    1. morsdraconis's Avatar
      morsdraconis - 03-17-2011, 04:54 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by SmoothPancakes View Post
      Yeah, I'm pissed at Clemson right now. I've been calling Clemson over WVU since Monday, even before Clemson pimp slapped UAB. And for 85-90% of the first half today, Clemson was proving me right. Until they forgot that the first half is 20 minutes long and that there was still a second half to be played. :rolleyes:
      Pretty sure WVU's defense had something to do with that.
    1. HWill's Avatar
      HWill - 03-17-2011, 04:54 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by morsdraconis View Post
      Boy did Louisville drop the ball on that one... Way to make the Big East look good...
    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes - 03-17-2011, 05:44 PM
      Richmond! Richmond! Richmond! I am so glad I had Richmond going to the Sweet Sixteen now! And I'm also pissed that I had the 12-13 match-up Saturday in the Southeast, instead of in the Southwest. Now I'm uncomfortable with my Utah State-Belmont-Oakland picks. No way in hell three 13 seeds are going to win. Two maybe, three no.
    1. morsdraconis's Avatar
      morsdraconis - 03-17-2011, 06:42 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by SmoothPancakes View Post
      Richmond! Richmond! Richmond! I am so glad I had Richmond going to the Sweet Sixteen now! And I'm also pissed that I had the 12-13 match-up Saturday in the Southeast, instead of in the Southwest. Now I'm uncomfortable with my Utah State-Belmont-Oakland picks. No way in hell three 13 seeds are going to win. Two maybe, three no.
      Infact, only THREE times has two 13 seeds won their first game (1987 - Xavier over Missouri and SW Missouri State over Clemson | 2001 - Kent St over Indiana and Indiana St over Oklahoma | 2008 - San Diego St over Connecticut and Siena over Vanderbilt) and never has there been three 13 seeds winning their first game since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

      More interesting facts:

      In 1985, Navy became the first 13 seed to upset a 4 seed by beating the shit out of SEC favorite #4 seed LSU (who was 19-9, which just amazes me that they got a 4 seed with that type of record; they must have won the SEC Tournament or something) (after looking, nope, didn't win the SEC Tournament, Auburn did that year).

      The deepest any 13 seed has ever gotten in the tournament has been the Sweet 16; achieved by 4 different schools - 1988 Richmond, 1998 Valiparaiso (everyone remembers the cardiac Cinderella team that won the first two games with last second shots only to be knocked out by Rhode Island who beat the favorites to win it all Kansas the game before), 1999 Oklahoma, 2006 Bradley.
    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes - 03-17-2011, 07:16 PM
      Quote Originally Posted by morsdraconis View Post
      Infact, only THREE times has two 13 seeds won their first game (1987 - Xavier over Missouri and SW Missouri State over Clemson | 2001 - Kent St over Indiana and Indiana St over Oklahoma | 2008 - San Diego St over Connecticut and Siena over Vanderbilt) and never has there been three 13 seeds winning their first game since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

      More interesting facts:

      In 1985, Navy became the first 13 seed to upset a 4 seed by beating the shit out of SEC favorite #4 seed LSU (who was 19-9, which just amazes me that they got a 4 seed with that type of record; they must have won the SEC Tournament or something) (after looking, nope, didn't win the SEC Tournament, Auburn did that year).

      The deepest any 13 seed has ever gotten in the tournament has been the Sweet 16; achieved by 4 different schools - 1988 Richmond, 1998 Valiparaiso (everyone remembers the cardiac Cinderella team that won the first two games with last second shots only to be knocked out by Rhode Island who beat the favorites to win it all Kansas the game before), 1999 Oklahoma, 2006 Bradley.
      Yeah, I knew going into today that the Southeast Region was going to absolutely slaughter me. There was no doubt about it. That was the region I had the most difficulty filling out of the four. Too many weak teams that could lose in the first round, or could go all the way to the Final Four.

      And I never knew that about Navy being the first 13 seed to upset a 4 seed, and an SEC team to boot. That awesome.
    1. JBHuskers's Avatar
      JBHuskers - 03-17-2011, 08:32 PM
      That makes two abortions for Pitino in one year.
    1. morsdraconis's Avatar
      morsdraconis - 03-17-2011, 08:37 PM
      I just LOVE watching Pitino fail. $10 says that he blames the refs like he did when WVU beat them towards the end of the season.
    1. gschwendt's Avatar
      gschwendt - 03-18-2011, 12:16 AM
      I'm ready to kick myself... less than a minute before the deadline, I convince myself to give Utah State a little love and change for them to the sweet sixteen. :/
    1. morsdraconis's Avatar
      morsdraconis - 03-18-2011, 07:19 AM
      I don't remember if it was this bracket or one of the tweleve others I have, but I picked them to the Final Four in one of them :/
    1. SmoothPancakes's Avatar
      SmoothPancakes - 03-18-2011, 09:48 AM
      And I was correct in my predictions from yesterday. The other three regions I did good in, going 6-2, but as I predicted, the Southeast abused and slaughtered me. Pittsburgh, BYU, and Florida were my only correct picks in Southeast Region. Pitt and BYU were the only ones of those three I had going to the Sweet Sixteen, and none advancing past that as I had Michigan State-Utah State for the Elite Eight and Michigan State making the Final Four.

      So I can cross off the entire Southeast now and completely focus my attention on the other regions. That'll also make it easier when it comes to deciding what games I want to watch next week between the Southeast and West region games that are on at the same time.
    1. JBHuskers's Avatar
      JBHuskers - 03-18-2011, 10:27 AM
      Does anyone do a calcutta pool where you pay for a team auction style, and payouts are based on the # of wins they get? I'm in one that gets insane....the #1 seeds went for $300, but the tourney winner will get $1,100. I only spent $115, paid for Memphis, Cincinnati, St. Peter's, Old Dominion, and UCLA. If I get two Sweet 16 teams, I'll make money. One win is about $20, two wins is about $80.
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