Selection Sunday-NCAA tournament thread

What's your best and worst first-round pick ever? Best overall pick...

My best: 1991 Xavier over Nebraska
My worst: 1997 South Alabama over Arizona (which won the title)

Best overall pick: Syracuse to win the 2003 title. This was even sweeter because my paper had me write dueling columns with our dickhead columnist who picked Kentucky. At the time, there was some guy who was monitoring the picks of every published picks column and I was one of five of several hundred who picked Syracuse and I think two were students.

 

But if you're picking against your favorites, that's its own bias.

 

The Ivy League teams can be pretty dangerous. They play really disciplined ball and even when they lose, I don't think they're blown out that often.

 

Best individual pick: Hampton over Iowa State in the first round in 2001.
Worst individual pick: Oklahoma to over Florida in the second round in 2006.

Best overall pick: I've had a handful of champions right, but I'm going with LSU making the Final Four in 2006.
Worst overall pick: Vanderbilt to the Final Four in 2010.

 

In 1998 I picked Stanford to go to the Final Four -- I was in a $50 entry pool based on the East Coast, and barely anybody there even knew what Stanford basketball was at that time. I also took Kentucky to win it all that year, Tubby's first year when they came back from down 18 to beat Duke in the regional final.

Won $1,800.

 

In 2005, I was ranked in the top 50 in the nation in Yahoo's bracket pools. If Illinois had beaten North Carolina, I would've ranked 14th overall or something like that.

The Illini didn't win of course ... and I fell to 10,000th or something because of weighted scoring.

 

Harvard Lampoon
@harvardlampoon

America, we are sorry for messing up your brackets and also your financial system and everything else.

 

For years, I picked against Missouri and Arizona in the first round. Usually served me very well.

Mizzougrad has to go and remind me about South Alabama. Crap.

 

I honestly don't remember just about any of them. I won my brother's high school bracket twice when I was still in grade school, but I can't remember which years. I just know that it pissed high school kids (and their teachers) off that a grade school kid was beating them. $150 at that age was amazing. I haven't won a bracket since I got to high school, though.

The only major pick, good or bad, that I remember was I picked Davidson to make the Elite Eight the year they did it.

 

I think that's the only time I've ever picked the eventual champion to lose in the first round.

 

I really liked the NC State team with Julius Hodge. Picked them to get to the Final 4, IIRC. They may have lost in the first round.

 

What's worse, picking the champ to lose in the first round or picking the champ to lose in the second round to a team that didn't even get there?