Final Four

It was strange watching the Sweet Sixteen this weekend and not having Wisconsin or Marquette in the mix. It is nice to already look ahead to next year though. The Badgers are only losing Landry and Krabenhoft. The bad news is those guys were the team’s leading scorer and rebounder. But, the Badger rotation generally involved nine to ten players every game and there are a lot of returners that should have a huge impact next year like Jason Bohanen, Trevon Hughes and John Leuer. The question with Bo Ryan’s teams are never “will they be good”, it’s “how good will they be”. Maybe next year’s Badger crew can be closer to the 30-win teams of 2007 and 2008 instead of the 20-win team of this past year.

Marquette will have a tougher time replacing their talent as McNeil, Matthews and James all graduate. But there is a lot of young talent on this teams that is going to be smarter and stronger next year. It’s going to be fun. The only bad part is that we have to wait through a 3-month NBA postseason, another boring baseball season hearing about the Yankees, Red Sox, Yankees, Red Sox, Yankees....oh, just wake me up when football season starts please!

Matt Franko is going for his third consecutive Songer Bracket Challenge win (actually Heidi reminded me that she actually won last year but since I buy her dinner all the time we would give it to our second place entry) and he is in good shape after the second weekend. Matt has 74 points and is in first place. Unfortunately for Matt like many of us though, he can’t pick up any more points the rest of the weekend. In fact, our two contestants tied for last are the only ones you can get more points. Matt Mealey can move into second place with a Connecticut win over Michigan State next Saturday but that is as high as he can go. Only Tim Urness has a chance of catching Matt. Tim needs North Carolina to win the championship to win the pool. If anyone other than North Carolina wins, Matt Franko will pick up the 3-peat and will likely be a no brainer for election into the Songer Bracket Challenge Hall Of Fame.

Here is the update:
Place-Name Points, No. of teams left in Final 4, more points possible (predicted winner)

1. Matt Franko 74, 1, no more points possible (Louisville)
2. Heidi Songer 68, 0, no more points possible (Pittsburgh)
2. Tyson Fox 68, 1, no more points possible (Pittsburgh)
2. Eric Songer 68, 1, no more points possible (Louisville)
5. Tim Urness 65, 1, 11 more points possible (North Carolina)
5. Matt Mealey 65, 1, 5 more points possible (Pittsburgh)