We were out dinner during the Pittsburgh Butler game last Saturday night. As the clock wound down, I did what any self respecting Dad would do and picked up my son out of his high chair so he could watch the game. Eli would have none of it. All through the last ten seconds of the game, which saw an amazing play for the go ahead layup by Butler and two controversial fouls, Eli kicked and fussed, clearly upset about my insistence that he watched this game. He didn’t seem to understand that he would ask me about this night a decade from now. Really, people thought Pitt was a bunch of chokers before Jamie Dixon’s team won a national championship? After the game, we headed out to my mother-in-law’s van to head home. Since Eli crawled into the back seat to play with some toys, I headed back to the restaurant to use the restroom. As soon as I left, he crawls up into his car seat and says “Bye, Daddy.” So much for showing my two year son the glory of March Madness.
In the Round of 64 and 32, The Power Rank went 24 for 42 against the line with 1 push and 5 games in which our prediction was too close to the line. That’s a 57.1% winning percentage. We found the wins by Butler, Michigan, Marquette and George Mason in the Round of 64 particularly gratifying, as The Power Rank called these winners while Vegas listed them as underdogs. However, we were humbled by the spectacular play of VCU and Florida State on Sunday night. Here are our Mountain West flavored predictions for the Sweet Sixteen:
San Diego State will beat Connecticut by 2.0
Duke will beat Arizona by 6.8
Brigham Young will beat Florida by 2.4, upset by lower seed.
Wisconsin will beat Butler by 4.6
Kansas will beat Richmond by 6.7
Florida State will beat VCU by 0.1
North Carolina will beat Marquette by 1.4
Ohio State will beat Kentucky by 5.1
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