We had six Timberwolves players (Brewer, Foye, Gomes, Richard, Smith and Snyder) fill out NCAA Tournament brackets, and after the first round, Chris Richard held the lead. However, Randy Foye's solid second round - including picking his own Villanova Wildcats into the Sweet 16 - pushed him into to the top of the standings.
Foye continued his impressive week of prediction through the Sweet 16, connecting on 7-of-8 games to hold off timberwolves.com - correct on the same number - and push 10 points clear of Richard. Joining Richard in third place was Smith, after his 6-of-8 Sweet 16.
Then, as all four number one seeds advanced to the Final Four, Foye (100 points) still managed to maintain his slim lead over Richard and timberwolves.com (98 points each). Foye and timberwolves.com picked 3-of-4 teams to San Antonio, while Richard nailed all four. Craig Smith, meanwhile, is on life support, needing UCLA to beat UNC to take the cake.
Instead, Memphis and Kansas emerged victorious, vaulting timberwolves.com into first place, and giving only Chris Richard a chance to overtake the top spot should Kansas beat Memphis.
The brackets of Gomes, Smith, Brewer and Snyder are already dead, and since Foye had Georgetown winning it all, his is dead as well. Basically, it's timberwolves.com (Memphis) vs. Chris Richard (Kansas) for the title.
Just when timberwolves.com thought it was all over, Kansas mounted its fierce comeback to
effectively win Chris Richard his third consecutive NCAA Championship. Well ... he won two himself, and then Mario Chalmers helped him out.
"It hurts bad," said timberwolves.com. "It hurts real, real bad. Let somebody else win, Richard."
WOLVES BRACKET STANDINGS
(Final Standings)
1) Chris Richard (146)
2) Timberwolves.com (130 points)
3) Randy Foye (116 )
4) Ryan Gomes (82)
5) Craig Smith (78)
6) Corey Brewer (65)
7) Kirk Snyder (62)
COMPLETE BRACKETS
Corey Brewer's Bracket
Randy Foye's Bracket
Ryan Gomes's Bracket
Chris Richard's Bracket
Craig Smith's Bracket
Kirk Snyder's Bracket
Timberwolves.com's Bracket
Gomes Likes Being Underdog
"Before you know it, I'm going to be on top," said Gomes of his NCAA bracket. Foye's on top but had Georgetown winning it all, and Chris Richard's bracket looks real nice.
Gomes Not Giving Up
Gomes, Richard Go At It
Though it wasn't in the NCAA Tournament, we listened in and goaded on as Ryan Gomes and Chris Richard discussed Florida's beating of Providence a few years back.
Gomes, Richard Chatter (1)
Gomes, Richard Chatter (2)
Other NCAA Notes, and Trash Talk
- Rashad McCants (UNC, 2005) and Antoine Walker (Kentucky, 1997) have one NCAA championship each, while Corey Brewer and Chris Richard (Florida, 2006, 07) have won two.
- The Villanova Wildcats of Randy Foye and assistant coach Ed Pinckney, just a 12th seed, took out Greg Buckner's Clemson Tigers in the first round, 75-69. 'Nova takes on a fellow upsetter, 13th seeded Siena, in the second round.
- "I think the talk before they actually made the tournament was that they had to win one game in the Big East Tournament, and they did that and satisfied the judges," said Pinckney before the first round. "I'm impressed, because they are so young. They started out hot and were ranked at the beginning of the season, but they fell on hard times, and had to turn it around again.
- "They're athletic, they look to press, their bigs are very talented, and that's Villanova's weakness, having a really young front line. The backcourt is young too, however, with Scottie Reynolds just a sophomore. I know a lot of prognosticators have picked Clemson, but I have Villanova, 100 percent."
Good pick, coach.
Before the game, Buckner said that they didn't even need to play it, he was so sure that Clemson would win. Oops!
- Clippers guard Brevin Knight said he feels bad for Randy Wittman, whose son plays for Cornell and drew Stanford in the first round.
