A cut for Chris?

ASM... pretty good method. I finished 4th, 4th (argh!) and 2nd in my 3 pools --

The worse of the 4th-place finishes was my annual SU "homer" pool (gotta go for it, even tho I knew SU was gonna suck in this tourney), picked everything else by ASM. Wasn't really even close to being in the money, but the competition was weak.

The near-miss (tied for 3rd but lost tiebreaker on final-game total score, by 3 lousy points) was picked by a combo of ASM and personal opinion. Oklahoma State's crap-out (In my mind a tournament-tough team with the goods to beat any team on any night of the NCAAs) really hurt me in that one. Wake's loss hurt me too, but damn, that was such a great game I really didn't mind that much.

The in-the-money finish was picked with probably 75% adherence to ASM, not counting the 1st-round games where ASM just didn't seem like it could possibly be accurate. My brackets were hosed, hard, after the first 4 days of play. But so were everyone else's. Seemed like the only teams making it out of the first weekend for me were final four teams -- 3 of them, my 4th was Wake. 3 of 4 final 4s, picking both semifinal games correctly and picking the championship correctly -- and, I might add, predicting the final score to within one point -- is going to be worth a nice little wad of cash.

And no, Chris doesn't get a cut. But he does get the satisfaction of knowing that his _fighting,_ and I mean _fighting_ Illini, played some of the most breathtaking, tough ball of the season in this tourney.

Postscript illustrating my boss' boss' way with words:

She's the former chancellor at Illinois. You may remember when she got run out of town on a rail over the Chief Illiniwek flap

Anyway, we've set her up to meet regularly with the editorial board of the local daily paper. In Monday's meeting, as it was wrapping up, one of the sports eds. asks her, laughing, "so, you going to be wearing orange tonight watching the game?"

She frowns snaps back, "No, you know who I'll be rooting for. I'll be wearing Carolina blue." Nice commentary on the kids that were recruited and coached under her tenure, don't you think?

Anyway, it was dutifully reported on p. 1 of the Post-Standard yesterday. As a PR guy it means bad news. But honestly, I kinda got a kick out of it.