My competitive fires are beginning to do a slow burn with no volleyball to scratch my itch!
The results are in. The “Animal” nicknames for teams in the NCAA this year win with a score of 10, while both “Historical Humans” and “Inanimate things” come in at 3 apiece. In the Animal category it was a close competition as Birds were one up on the Wildcats by a score of 4-3. (2 Eagles, a Hawk, and a Duck over a Pack of Lions, a Leopard, and a Bearcat, which technically doesn’t qualify as a wildcat, but looking at Baruch’s Logo, they think it does, so I will give it to them.) I am told there is a protest on behalf of Springfield because technically a Pride is multiple lions. So from that vantage point, they believe the wildcats should have been awarded the victory over the Birds. I will keep you posted on the outcome of that as we have our best people on it looking for an NCAA Rule to govern how this protest is rectified. Honorable mention from the Animal strata goes to a Horse, a Dog, and a Buffalo. Not just any horse, dog, and buffalo, but a charging Stallion, a Terrier, and a Bison.
In the “Historical Human” genre, the Medieval Warriors came in with a 2-1 advantage to those who made the beer they’d consume after long battles on behalf of their King and his land. The “Inanimate” Category was also won by a 2-1 margin as “Looks Pretty” defeated the “Sounds Cool” class with Stars & Violets joining together to get by Thunder. Ironically, the last of these would send every animal cowering and bring the Medieval Calvary racing back to their kingdoms to avoid angering Zeus, the God of Lightning & Thunder, while wearing their metal armor. This, they had learned the hard way, could turn out really bad. (Ben Franklin didn’t fly his kite until much later.) By all historical accounts it would also increase demand for the production of ale so the townspeople could sit back, marvel at the storm from their shelter, and drink a brew while waiting for it to blow over the sky. This is the reason I see the Thunder and the Brewers dominating this year’s tournament to meet head to head in the championship, even though neither, as it presently stands, looks to be any better than 7% to get there, according to a different version of the bracket at the end of this post.
I am itching for some heated competition now that we have a whole week with no matches to check in on for the first time in 15 weeks! Can you tell? Maybe next year we could use an opening act in the middle of the week, like an opening band does for all the best musical artists, or a lesser known comedian typically does to warm-up a crowd for the main attraction.
I got it! The solution I have might even make it possible to not leave 3 of the top 12 AVCA Coaches Poll teams to sit this contest out in the future, too? And speaking of the AVCA Coaches Poll, the biggest losers this week were St. John Fisher losing 41 points & Carthage dropping 31 points from the previous week. Fisher lost to then #17 Nazareth who moves to #15 this week, and Carthage defeated #24 Augustana, and lost to then, and still #5, Loras, by a score of 3-1 in a manner generally expected when a #7 plays the #5 team in the land. I really must go back and see when the last time, in any year, any team lost so many Borda points in a single week because they lost to a team the consensus suggested they should? That’s very informing to determine if what I am thinking right now about human polls compared to computer models is true or not? LOL
Enjoy a bracket with every team’s chances to advance. The updates all weekend and next week can be found here.
The bracket below is before accounting for home court. When you click on the the link, it will have accounted for all home court, having improved the probabilities for the regional favorites to get to the F4, and then improved Loras chances should they get there, too. i.e. The latest rendering has Loras prospects to win the tournament at 18%, not 10% because of this compounding effect of what could be 4 consecutive home matches, something that improved Carthage’s chances a couple years ago when they won the title.
