March 2018 – Uncle Crappy

March 26, 2018

not terrible. but not great.

I will say this after calculating the first points in the Twelve-point-five-th Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Piper’s Pub): It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.

I was expecting a figurative bloodbath. What I got instead is a majority of TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) contestants scoring at least a couple points. And I even got two contestants who correctly picked three of the four actual Final Four teams, a thing that I’m going to go ahead and call miraculous this year.

Oh. And there are a few who are ready to receive this year’s first awards. Including me.

But let’s get to the points first.

If you’re on this list, I have good news and bad news. The good news? You scored two points, a remarkable achievement this season. The bad news? You didn’t pick your correct Final Four team to advance, so you’re done.

Sports Chump
Slappy White
Kewyson
Dish
Clumberkid
The Coochie Doctor
Matlock
AJ
Gina and her dog
Scooter
President Obama

This one-person list is for those who correctly picked two Final Four teams but had them both losing in the semis. And that one person is:

Lorenzo

Next up — contestants who picked just one Final Four team correctly, but can earn another four points in the semis. You’re not going to win, but you should be proud of your effort:

Redbuppy
Daria
Pghrugbyref
Calipanthergrl

And then we have contestants who picked just one Final Four team correctly, but can earn another six points if that team wins the title, as they have predicted. An exception effort, but this group can’t catch up with the leaders, even if their points are maxed out.

Otimemore
Carla
JD

One more one-person list, for the guy who picked two Final Four teams but can get just four more points:

Father Spoon

And here’s where it gets interesting. This group picked two Final Four teams correctly, and their picks to win the title are both alive. The bad news: their respective championship picks match those who still have more points, meaning even winning out isn’t going to get them caught up.

Pghrugbyangel
Yay Toast

And then there are two more. These guys are already winners in my book, because picking three of the Final Four teams this year qualifies you as a freaking college basketball savant. And if either Kansas or Villanova wins, I’m pretty sure one of these two will be your TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) champion.

Curl Girl Michelle, who picked Kansas
Breaking Brews, who picked Villanova

And if Michigan or Loyola wins? Good lord, I have no idea. We’ll find out this weekend.

That accounts for all of our distinguished TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) contestants. And, of course, we’re left with the not-so-distinguished TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) contestants, those whose futility was so magnificent that they deserve awards all their own. Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present this year’s Blutarsky Award Winners:

Uncle Crappy
Momsbrain
Susan
HP
Diane the Beer Lady
Juan

For those of you who are still alive, get ready for a crazy weekend ahead. And for those who are not, thank you for playing — I hope, as always, you got your money’s worth.

March 19, 2018March 19, 2018

that’s not good.

It is as much of an AUCNFFC tradition as the long-ass entries post or the Blutarskys — the post-first weekend post where I lament how terrible our brackets are looking.

And that’s where Twelve-point-five-th Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Piper’s Pub) is special.

As in especially bad.

We’ve already noted the historic 16-over-1 upset from Friday night, but honestly, the upsets never really let up. UNC? Gone. Arizona? Gone. Michigan State? Gone. Xavier? Gone.

Remember, TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) contestants don’t start getting points until teams start making the Final Four. Even so, we can still get a pretty good sense of who’s doing OK and who is struggling (a whoooooole bunch of us). Here’s a look, using categories we’ve used in the past:

Holy crap: All. Four. Teams. In. (Team Statistical Anomaly)

Beer lady Diane

Title game, champion and third team in (Big point totals could still be in the future)

Uh, yeah, no

Three teams and champion still in (They didn’t pick the title game correctly, but could still rack up some big points)

Curl Girl Michelle
Breaking Brews
Matlock

Three teams in, champion out (If things go to hell, could still score enough to win)

Sports Chump

Title game and champion in (Gotta be perfect to have a chance)

Otimemore
PghRugbyRef

Two teams and champion in (Not ruling them out, but it’s looking tough)

Redbuppy
PghrugbyrefTwo Final Four teams, one in title game, champ
Otimeore
Susan
AAA
YayToast
Coochie Doctor
AJ

One in Final Four, one in title game, and the champ

Carla
HP
JD

The remaining entries have lost teams ranging from their champion pick to nearly everyone … otherwise known as our 2018 Blutarsky nominees. Listed in order of increasing futility, as in from almost sort of respectible to, uh, not at all. Thank you for playing.

Kewyson
Daria
Clumberkid
Father Spoon
Calipanthergrl
Lorenzo
Dish
Gina and her dog
President Obama
Uncle Crappy
Momsbrain
Scooter
Juan (and Phil’s mom)

Good luck this weekend, everyone. We’ll be back next week with points and probably quite a few Blutarskys.

March 17, 2018

well, then.

Sixteen of your Twelve-point-five-th Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Piper’s Pub) contestants had them in the final four.

Seven of us — including yours truly — picked them to win the whole thing.

No, I’m not talking about the UMBC Retrievers — no one had those guys making the Final Four. I’m talking about Virgina, which is now the only No. 1 seed in the history of the men’s tournament to lose to a No. 16.

I mean, it was fun to watch … and then we all remembered what it would do to our brackets.

I guess it’s not too early to start thinking about Blutarsky candidates, huh?

March 15, 2018March 19, 2018

TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) tipoff.

Here we go — our nearly annual rundown of your entries in this year’s hoops contest: the Twelve-point-five-th Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Piper’s Pub).

As is tradition, we begin with my entry:

Virginia vs. Xavier / West Virginia vs. Michigan State

Virginia vs. Michigan State

The best team of the year wins the title: Virgina, 77-71

Otimeore has higher hopes for Ohio State than I do:

Villanova, Clemson , Virginia Ohio St

Nova, OSU

Nova

72-65

Sports Chump:

Virginia, Gonzaga, Villanova, Duke
Virginia over Duke in the final game by a score of 74-64

Slappy White, whom you may also know as Fred:

Bar-racket in the year of our unix 1514764800 – 1546300799
UVA, UNC, VILLA, IZZO
UVA, IZZO
IZZO
125 and 2/3

Momsbrain, whom you may also know as Ethel:

Ohio State, Cincinnati, Purdue, Michigan State

OSU v MSU

Champion: Michigan State

Score 141

I get the sense that Kewyson isn’t really trying:

In honor of 3/14; I also computed an irrational pick, using the first 36 digits of Pi.

Georgia State v. Houston
St. Bonaventure v. TCU

Houston v. St. Bonaventure, with Houseton winning.

Score: 88

If this doesn’t Blutarsky, I’d be shocked

Or wait — maybe he is (Clarification: I’m using this one as his official entry):

Arizona (Wildcats) v. UNC (Tar Heels – Rameses)
Villanova (Wildcats) v. Doooke (Blue Devils)

Animals with horns always beat feline opponents.

UNC v. Doooke; with UNC repeating, because that’s the way it should be down here in Carolina (as a neighbor told me, he’s lived his whole live in NC, except for the 3 years he went to Duke Law).

Total score – 151 – bc that is a very flammable rum

My friend Susan who I finally met in person last year:

Cincy, UNC, Purdue, Duke
UNC, Purdue
Purdue
123

Guess which state Lorenzo comes from:

Virginia Michigan / Villanova Michigan St.

Virginia Michigan St.

Virginia 71-65.

Since he doesn’t have a Pittsburgh team to cheer for, Redbuppy went in an entirely different direction:

Kentucky over Xavier. Villanova over TCU. Kentucky over Villanova, 73-68.

Daria, all the way from Boston:

Virginia/NC, Villanova/Duke -> Virginia/Villanova -> Virginia 78-76

Pghrugbyref, who speaks for all of us:

Thank you Mindy!

Final Four: Arizona Gonzaga Villanova Oklahoma

Final: Villanova Gonzaga

Champ: Gonzaga Total score: 146

And Pghrugbyangel, whom you may also know as AAA:

Tennessee vs North Carolina / Villanova vs Kansas

Tennessee vs Kansas

Kansas, 88-72

Carla, whose MTSU Blue Raiders kinda got jobbed:

OK, here goes nothing …

Virginia/UNC, Villanova/Michigan St.

Virginia/Villanova

Villanova, 151

HP on the North Shore (the one in Ohio):

I have just enough knowledge of college b-ball to be seriously…….well, not much of a threat. However, here are my picks:

TN vs Texas A&M
SF Austin vs Duke

TN vs Duke

Duke, Final Score: 76-64

My only hope is that I can beat Juan, oh he of even less basketball knowledge.

Curl Girl Michelle:

Final Four: Virginia vs Michigan; Villanova vs Kansas

Championship game: Virginia vs Kansas

Champion: Kansas 77-68

Thank you so much for bringing this back!!!!

YAY for Yay Toast:

Final Four: Arizona vs. Xavier, Villanova vs. Kansas
Championship: Arizona and Villanova
Champion: Villanova 72-69

Every Yay Toast needs a Dish:

Glad to see you’re doing this again, Mike! I think I’ve only
successfully picked 1 Final Four team per year, maybe this is the year
I turn it around.

Cincinnati over Gonzaga, Michigan State over Villanova.

Final:
Cincinnati over Michigan State, 67-61.

Clumberkid, perhaps our youngest contestant ever, who was only partially influenced by his mom:

UNC
Virginia
Duke
Villanova

Virginia
Duke

Virginia 75-69

(As you can see, my efforts to brainwash the child have been only partially successful.)

My brother in Booze Media, Breaking Brews:

Basketball thing, aka predictions sure to go wrong:

FINAL FOUR – Nova, Kansas, Michigan, Virginia – Nova beats Kansas, Virginia beats Michigan in the semis.

Nova wins it all. Tie breaker 153

The Coochie Doctor:

UVA, Ohio State, Kansas, WVU

WVU beats UVA, 77-71

And Matlock (an actual WVU grad):

UVA, Xavier, Kansas, WVU

WVU beats Xavier 89-84

Previous AUCNFFC champ Father Spoon:

Final 4: Villanova, Virginia, North Carolina, Kansas Final: North Carolina vs Villanova Champion: North Carolina Score: 70-60

Previous (actually, defending, now that I think about it) AUCNFFC champ AJ:

Xavier, Miami FL, Purdue, Kansas

Purdue, Xavier. Purdue champion. 132 points.

Boiler up.

Gina, and her dog, one of several who have helped her with her picks:

OK. Made my picks, then let the dog decide the final four on.
Virginia, Gonzaga, Villanova, Auburn
Virginia, Auburn
Virgina 78-66

Scooter (From the Land of Caucasian Shooting Guards):

Virginia, North Carolina, Michigan State, Villanova

Virginia, Michigan State

Michigan State

60-55

Calipanthergrl, who doesn’t have Pitt or Louisville to cheer for this year:

Houston Virginia Kansas Texas Tech

UVA/Kan

UVA – 123 points

Diane the beer lady:

Kentucky vs Gonzaga
Texas Tech vs Duke

Kentucky vs Duke

Duke 90 over Kentucky 85

My former colleague JD:

Arizona v. Xavier, Nova vs. Mich St.; Arizona vs. Nova; Nova, 83-80

One special guest entry: It recently came to my attention — thanks to Slappy White up there — that Barack Obama is following Uncle Crappy on Twitter. Given our new friendship, I thought I’d invite him to participate in TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) … and that I’d use the picks he posted on Twitter Wednesday to make his entry. If he wins? I mean, how cool would it be to have sausage rolls and Scotch eggs at Piper’s with a former president?

Virginia vs. North Carolina / Villanova vs. Michigan State

Sparty beats the Hoos. We’ll see if we can get a tiebreaker out of him soon.

And finally, we come to Juan, oh he of very little basketball knowledge. Juan’s picks are courtesy of Phil’s Mom once again:

Nevada vs. Xavier / Arkansas vs. Auburn

Xavier beats Auburn.

I suspect we won’t need a tiebreaker for this one.

And there we go, folks. If I missed you or otherwise screwed up your entry — which, as we all know, is not just possible but probably likely, given how busy I am today — just let me know and I’ll get it fixed right away.

Thanks to each of you for participating. Thanks to our friends at Piper’s for playing along. And good luck to everyone … especially me.

March 15, 2018

TPFAUCNFFC (BTYBPP) countdown.

Yinz guys have about two and a half hours to make your picks and get signed up for Twelve-point-five-th Annual Uncle Crappy NCAA Final Four Challenge (Brought To You By Piper’s Pub).

Instructions and rules? They’re here.

Prizes? One big one — a $50 gift card to Piper’s Pub, in addition to a lifetime of bragging rights.

How do I enter? Use one of the 57,994,847 ways the internet provides to get in touch with me. Do it by noon today. Boom, you’re in.