NCAA Picks - Men

For the 2005 NCAA Men's Tournament, i looked at the FG% statistics for each team, both offensively and defensively, and both in the context of their conferences and then against the field of 64.  I adjusted the offensive FG% to account for 3-pointers, but couldn't find detailed enough stats to do so on defense (i don't think it would matter anyway).

By this metric, the surprising top team was Utah State, a 14 seed.  So obviously i don't have a perfect metric here, but i do think it will be a good guide.  And i gave it heavy weighting in my picks.

First round upsets:  Utah State over Arizona, St. Marys over Southern Illinois, Creighton over West Virginia, New Mexico over Villanova, and NC State over Charlotte (don't really think this is an upset).

Second round upsets: Utah State over LSU, Utah over Oklahoma, Cincy over Kentucky, Pacific over Washington.

My Elite Eight: Illinois, Oklahoma State, Louisville, Gonzaga, Florida (can't pick Carolina to win 3 games; pained me enough to pick them to win 2), Kansas, Duke, and Utah.

Final Four: Duke/Kansas, and Illinois/Louisville

Duke beats Louisville in a rematch of the 1986 championship game.

Forward for a Friend

A good friend of mine from my Atlanta days is putting together a book for his son, and asked a few folks to contribute something for the book's forward.  This is what i sent him:

I don't remember exactly how or when i first met your Dad.  It wasn't that he was unremarkable, but rather that i was in the midst of falling in love, getting married, and becoming a dad myself -- all of which crowded out most other memories.  But i know that we were living in the Atlanta area, working for the same auto insurance company.

And over these years, i have grown in admiration for your Dad, despite my having moved to another state, and seeing him only once or twice a year, when we get together for a fantasy sports draft.

Your Dad has an awesome love for you and your family, an unquenchable love for God, and a passion for friendships.  He has a unique and entertaining writing style, demonstrated in his email missives about life and faith.  These in-box gems at once challenge us, mystify us, and make us laugh.  

I write at times, too, though usually less publically in a journal.  I wanted to close with something i wrote when my own son was born.  This was written on the first day of the new millenium, when my son Jackson was one day old:

"... it's difficult to imagine your future.  Not only what your 21st century world will bring, but also, and more relevantly, your role in it.   It's always a Daddy's dream and hope that his kids exceed him, especially his sons.  Dreams & hopes...

• To take all the greatness you are already blessed with, by God, and make the best of it. 
• To know, appreciate, hone & use your talents. 
• To aspire to God-directed greatness.
• To seek and face challenges and never settle for the mundane.
• To be a man of God, learned in His Word and shaped by His love
• To listen well
• To have balance between all that will compete for your attention
• To value integrity & purity
• To make wise choices
• To dream of greatness, for yourself and for the world"

Tournament Taking Shape

Right after i posted the previous March Madness entry, i realized i had put it in the wrong blog.  "Thoughts About God and Man", huh?  Well, college basketball around these parts is a quasi-religion, where coaches are the messiahs, and the arenas are shrines.

No change at the top this week, with 3 ACC teams still in the top 4.

Compared to the RPI (even more flawed than usual this year), Sagarin looks more favorably on the Big 10 and the ACC, and less favorably on the Big East.

For Duke, the key to a long run will be the play of our disappointing enigma - Shavlik Randolph.  He went on a tear in last year's tourney, and he could certainly do it again.  Also, should we make it to the Final Four, we hope to have PG Sean Dockery back, and we'd need him to beat a team like Illinois.

New Musical Discovery

In the my long line of musical "discoveries", including Alison Krauss, Dixie Chicks, and The Waiting, i offer the latest:  Taylor Sorensen.

In his own words, "my music is about love, the love that let the nails go through the hands of Jesus.  That love applies to a kiss or to serving in an AIDS-stricken country or to playing music. It's a love that makes these things holy, that makes them sacred, that makes them the gospel. It's a love that's revolutionary because the gospel is revolutionary."

Vocally, the Michigan native has been likened a bit to Bono (U2).  Musically, his songs have Brit pop/rock flavorings, with one critic calling it "reformed American rock with a European soul."

The Overflow - link to the album on Amazon

March Madness (a day early)

It's time for March Madness!  Every Monday this time of year, i do a mock NCAA Tournament bracket, based solely on the Sagarin ratings.  The only adjustments i make are to make sure that conference teams cannot possibly face each other prior to the Regional Finals, and to make sure that two teams from the same conference are not seeded #1 and #2 in the same regional.

Sagarin's top 4 teams are, in this order:  UNC, Illinois, Duke, and Wake Forest.  Yes, 3 ACC teams.  It really is better out here.

For the automatic conference qualifiers, i assume that the top team rated by Sagarin in each conference will win their tournament.  And then i take the remaining top X teams to get to 64 (i ignore the play-in game).

The last at-large team in this week is Stanford, rated #48.  First team missing the cut was Wichita St.

By conference, the ACC gets 6 bids, including the Wolfpack.  The Big 10 gets 6, as does the Big 12 (including the surprising Aggies).  The Big East has 7 teams, including two 11 seeds.  The SEC also gets 7.

For my Blue Devil friends, the Duke path starts with Farleigh Dickinson, then the winner of Arkansas vs. Texas A&M.  Then a likely path of Boston College or Wisconsin, and then either Washington or Michigan St.

For my brother, the Tar Heel, UNC starts with Mississippi Valley St (who gave Duke a scare about 15 years ago in the first round).  Then, Iowa/Mississippi St.  Then, Villanova/Texas Tech.  And then, Oklahoma St./Louisville.

My Biggest High School Failure

As a high school senior, i was persuaded to serve as the president of our drama club -- we called it the Masque & Wig Club. I had roles in almost every play throughout my HS career, so i guess i was deemed the natural fit, even though i wasn't really motivated to lead the group.

And while i didn't make a great club president, that wasn't my greatest failure. No, that would be my failure to get a very talented freshman to try his hand with acting. Kid's name was Eric Bishop, and he was clearly that most talented kid most of us had seen -- dude could play the piano, sing, do spot-on imitations, tell jokes, and just flat-out entertain.

And today, that kid, now grown-up and star-named Jamie Foxx, is the favorite to win a Best Actor Oscar in tonight's Academy Award ceremonies, for his born-to-play portrayal of Ray Charles. He's also nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the cabbie Max in Collateral (where i felt he out-performed Tom Cruise).

One of the world's top actors, at least for the moment, was in my high school, and we didn't get him into the school plays. Doh! Just how good would our one-act play of The Glass Menagerie have been if Eric was playing the gentleman caller, rather than me? We would have won the district competition, for sure. (An added bonus: i wouldn't have the scarring memories of being panned by the judge -- i haven't acted since.)

Anyhow, what's past is prologue, as some playwright once said. Prologue for what i hope is a Foxx victory tonight. It would make his success, and my failure, complete.

Strange Things are Afoot at the Harris Teeter

Valentine’s Day weekend, Julie & i were returning from a nice dinner out when we stopped by the grocery store to get the right kind of diet dog food. It was about 830pm on a Friday night.

Checking out, we all of a sudden hear a man shout from somewhere behind us. Stop!” or “Hey!”, something like that. Everyone naturally turns to see what’s going on. As we turn, I see the flash of a young woman run out the swooshing double-doors, with the man hot on her heels. At the 2nd set of automatic doors, she has to pause just long enough that her pursuer catches up. The guy tackles her just outside the store.

Meanwhile, customers and employees alike are trying to decipher the sequence, and decide whether we should do anything. My first thought was that the man was some sort of psycho, and the girl was trying to get away from him. Maybe just a natural inclination that the more powerful male must be preying on the weaker female (that’s not some grand political or social commentary; just an observation of pure physical prowess among these 2 folks).

I eventually (what? 3-5 seconds later) decide that I should go outside and see if everything is ok. By the time I get outside, the girl is tearing off in her car as a bagger tries to jot down her license plate. Turns out that she had snatched the purse of the man’s wife, while they shopped. When he tackled the thief, he got the purse back with little struggle.

Crime, in the suburbs!

The guy walks back into the store, a bit disheveled, and looking quite annoyed at the rest of us for not helping him. But the cliché of “it all happened so fast” is quite true. The situation is just so unexpected and comes upon you so fast that your brain cannot make sense of it quickly enough for you to help.

Thoughts at Christmas

Not all my thoughts, but just a couple...

When i think of Christmas, i think of babies.

Babies who grow up to be great kids
Babies who grow up to be Godly young men and women
Babies who grow up to be beautiful brides and humble grooms
But most of all, babies, or i should say, a baby who grows up to be our Savior

I also think of giving.  Not only giving gifts that we wrap and put under the tree, but also...

Giving of our bounty to those less fortunate
Giving of our time and talents
And, most of all, giving of our very lives as sacrifices

On Buying a Christmas Tree

Since this is the first year in a few that we'll be staying home for Christmas, it's also the first year in a few that we've had a Christmas tree up in the house. Kids had asked to go out every weeknight last week, but i decided that we'd wait for a sunny weekend day, which turned out to be this past Sunday.

Turns out that dozens of other folks had the same idea, as we managed to hit the local tree place at quite the rush-time. I found it funny to feel the competitive juices kicking in as we strolled through the rows of trees, looking for the right one, not wanting to get beat out by the other families on the same mission. You'd get these furtive glances back and forth. "You're not checking out MY tree, are you, pal?" And none of us, most likely, able to pick out quality Fraser Firs, anyway.

:raisingarizona: "I think I got the best one"

Settled on one about 7 feet high, so that it doesn't dominate the piano room. TreeDude sawed off the pudding-skin from the trunk-bottom, then wrapped it and strapped it to the Suburban. DadDude carried it in the house, while everybody watched. Locked it into the tree stand, then fed it its quart of water.

A Field Day with Emily

Emily and i enjoyed a pleasant Sunday afternoon recently, taking in the NCAA Championship game in Women's Field Hockey.  The game was in town, on the Wake Forest campus, and pitted my Blue Devils (Duke) against the 2-time defending champions of Wake Forest.

Even though the game turned out to be a dud (if you were a Duke fan), with Wake taking a 3rd straight title with a 3-0 victory, we both had fun.  Emily was quite the wiggle worm, and was naturally more excited about seeing the Duke band and mascot, and the Wake cheerleaders.  And the free pen she got from the NCAA exhibition booth was an unlikely hit.

Still, i think Emily took in enough of the game to understand what she experienced.  She could explain afterwards how the game works (in the most general sense, of course -- you hit a ball with a stick and try to shoot it in the goal), and she knew which team was which.

After the game, we stopped at Burger King for a late lunch / early dinner.  Bought her a Spongebob watch, which i don't think she's worn since, and probably couldn't even locate it in the house.  Grabbed two Burger King crowns on the way out -- one for her, and one for Jackson.