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Fill out those brackets! The Road to San Antonio begins. It's that time of year, sports fans nationwide are making their picks, filling out their brackets, hoping they choose the winner of this year's NCAA Basketball Tournament. Which one of the 65 teams will emerge as champion?
Gothamist remembers winning once way back in high school, but has not had tournament success since. For those IRS auditors out there, we were playing with imaginary money. Gothamist, like the NCAA, does not encourage sports wagering, but if you must, check out our official tournament bracket (.PDF file - print it, copy it, distribute it).
Unfortunately, Gothamist doesn't have any of our alma maters in the tournament, so we're going to pull for the local teams. While the they are unlikely to be crowned champions, you can never count them out from being a Cinderella team. Manhattan, Mounmouth, Seton Hall, and Princeton are all in the mix.
Manhattan (24-5), from the MAAC, looks like an excellent Cinderella pick. Led by Luis Flores, Manhattan looks to make it through the first weekend of games to the Sweet Sixteen. Flores is Manhattan's new career scoring leader, grew up in Washington Heights and from Norman Thomas High School. Last year, the Jaspers lost to Syracuse, the eventual champion, in the first round. This year, they take play Florida in the first round, where the relationship between the two coaches spans 20 years. Mounmouth (21-11), representing the NEC, finished the season undefeated at home and is making its third tournament appearance. The Hawks are led by junior forward Blake Hamilton, and Coach Dave Calloway is happy to be in the dance. Both Manhattan and Mounmouth received automatic bids to the tourney after winning their respective conference tournaments. Seton Hall (20-9) is in the tournament as an at-large bid, despite losing in the first round of the Big East tournament on a last second shot. Andre Barrett, from Rice High School in The Bronx, leads the Pirates in their quest for the championship. Princeton, the Ivy League champions, meet up with Texas, a team that it is familiar with, playing them three times in the last six seasons with a 4-1 record against Texas on neutral courts. The Tigers are led by Wallace Judson, a first-team All-Ivy player.
Gothamist likes Manhattan to make it into the Sweet Sixteen, Seton Hall to lose to Duke in the second round, and both Monmouth and Princeton to lose in the first round. After about five minutes of analysis, and a few hours of TV watching, Gothamist is picking Kentucky to win. We're in New York, our teams aren't in the tournament, so we're going to jump on the UK bandwagon. We like UConn as their matchup in the final game. If you're looking for some final four teams, we recommend Pittsburgh and Cincinnati in addition to Kentucky and UConn.
The NCAA Women's Tournament starts Saturday and ends April 6th in New Orleans. Making the trip locally is the Red Foxes of Marist (20-10) who are making their first-ever tournament appearance and are representing the MAAC. Head Coach, Brian Giorgis is the MAAC Coach of the Year.
The men's tournament starts Thursday, when you can catch it on CBS. The woman's tournament starts Saturday and can be seen on ESPN. After Sunday for the men and next tuesday for the women, 49 teams will be eliminated, leaving us with the Sweet Sixteen. Mmm...sweet sixteen. Gothamist wishes we were in Vegas parked in a sports book, but we'll be stuck at work, constantly reloading CBS Sportsline for updates.
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This is awesome! Now, if Gothamist had some sort of bookie sideline, we'd be set. Thanks, tien!
Go Huskies!
If Gothamist is going to cover sports now . . . then shouldn't the posts be about, um, NY sports? Who gives a crap about the college tournament. All those big southerna and mid-western schools. Bah!
jen - sure thing. i hope everyone uses that bracket. it's clean and fun!
j - there will be ny sports coverage, hopefully some everyday, but the ncaa tournament is big enough to cover with any site, no? besides, if you continue to read, there is coverage of the local teams in the tournament, as well as some rudimentary analysis.
anyway, i hope people enjoy the sports stuff.
I'd argue to say that besides a local pro-team winning a championship, the NCAA tournament is the largest sporting event in the country including the US. In regard's to j's comment, there are plenty of other schools outside of the South and Midwest and Gothamist gave props to the local talent. But being an AZ Wildcat I gotta disagree with the Seton Hall pick. Go Cats!
Gothamist likes to cover New York, but we've been known to cover non-NY and national stuffs (the Presidential election, Arnold for governor, Hollywood, weird tech stuff in Japan). It all filters into our lives somehow. Plus, part of the NCAA tournament is held in New Jersey.
There just is nothing like being emotionally invested in college sports, be it, basketball (Duke, baby!), football or soccer. I've seen friendships made and broken over my beloved ACC basketball. If you are in the right town there is simply nothing like the excitement found during the ACC and NCAA tournaments. School is interuppted, jobs allow for absences. Or else TVs are simply wheeled in and everything stops so a game can be caught. It's just so much fun.
If you are going to include Seton Hall and Monmouth in "Gotham", what about Princeton?
Kind of agreeing with Mike; except of course for the "Duke, Baby!" comment. Why? Because we handeed you your arses yesterday afternoon! Who is the ACC champ this year? HA!
Oop! I meant "Mick" not "Mike". Sorry about that Mick, but we kicked your arse.
The Pittsburgh Panthers have an local NY connection. Two of their best players, Carl Krauser and Chris Taft are from the Bronx and Brooklyn (I forget which is which at the moment).
ugarte, you're right. i'll update with some princeton info soon.
gene, i think a lot of teams have local connections, but i would have gone insane researching all 65 teams.
Seton Hall beating Arizona? Not likely...
See, this is what I mean! One mention of Duke and fires ignite. But being a Duke grad, I've dealt with that everywhere. Duke is even pretty hated in NC. In NC, Chapel Hill is on par with Heaven. And I mean that seriously. Why else would God had made the sky Carolina Blue? Gag, Ech!!
Yes, Mick, I agree. Duke is to college basketball what the Yankees are to Professional Baseball, everyone loves to hate them.
I think the Carolina Duke hatred Chapel Hill love can be boiled down to a Have and Have Not antagonism ... public university populism opposed to private university elitism.
Besides, Nixon went to Duke! So Duke has to be evil, right?
Personally, I have nothing more against Duke than I do against any other Atlantic Conference team other than my Terrapins. But yesterday (hell, the whole damn weekend) was such a sweet sweet victory. We were jumping, screaming and hugging after the game; all the while yelling "F... Duke!" at the television.
Nobody, not even us devout Maryland supporters expected anything from our young team this year. The past five games have shown that the team has really found it’s voice and surpassed everyone’s expectations. I’m not going to stick my foot in my mouth and predict that we’ll make it to the final four or anything, but I’m hoping for a NCAA run as exciting as the ACC tournament.
Fear the huskies, people. Fear them. Uconn alllll the way!
... i hope.
wrong huskies. think u-dub.