My NCAA Brackets....with a Twist

For many years, we have wanted to fill out the NCAA brackets simply based on the teams we liked best, or the teams that we would like to see in the Final Four.

So, this year, I decided to make a 'real bracket,' in which top-seed Syracuse prevails over the 16-seed underdog of underdogs, the UNC-Asheville Bulldogs from the Big South Conference, and one in which the Bulldogs pull the college basketball upset of the century.

There is a dose of reality in my 'fantasy bracket' as I just picked the Bulldogs as the lone 16-seed to knock off a Goliath. In addition, I have the 15-ssed Norfolk State beating the two-seed Missouri Tigers.

Thus, when all is said and done, my Elite 8 comes down to the unlikely match-up of ten-seed West Virginia, with Turkish player Deniz Kilicli, and 12-seed Harvard with Brandyn Curry from Huntersville, NC, in the east region. In the midwest, my dream match-up is not too implausible as it has 3-seed Georgetown taking on the top-seed UNC Tarheels (in the 'real version' two-seed Kansas plays North Carolina).

In the south region, there is a very realistic match-up between one-seed Kentucky and two-seed Duke. But, in the west, we have another fantasy match-up between ten-seed Virginia and 13-seed Davidson, a team that did in fact shock the world and make the Elite 8 a few years ago.

Thus, the 'dream Final Four' pits Harvard against Georgetown, and Duke against UVA. And, the final comes down to Harvard and UVA, with the Ivy Leaguers from Cambridge, Mass., winning it all.

Of course, it would be fittingly ironic if my fantasy bracket turns out to be more true than my 'real one!'

SIDEBAR: A fair number of the 68 teams in the NCAA tournament (actually as of writing, there are 66 remaining), have competitive teams in other sports. In wrestling, from the schools in the field, Ohio State, Misouri, Michigan, Lehigh, UVA and Purdue are all nationally-ranked.

In men's lacrosse, UVA, Loyola (Md), Syracuse, Notre Dame, UNC, Lehigh, Duke and Georgetown are all ranked.

Similarly, in women's lacrosse, UNC, Duke, Florida, Syracuse, Vanderbilt, UVA, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Georgetown and Loyola (Md.) have teams ranked in the top 20.

Sunday Sports Desk

All the talk in this part of the country, well between Maryland and South Carolina, has been on the Duke-UNC game in Chapel Hill last night in which the UNC Tarheels defeated the Duke Bluedevils 81-67.

But, we wanted to congratulate the UNC-Asheville Bulldogs for winning the Big South championship over Coastal Carolina University by a 60-47 score in Conway, SC (Myrtle Beach) yesterday.

My alma mater Radford University and my mom's alma mater Winthrop University are also Big South teams, so I always hope they do well in the NCAA tourney, as Winthrop did a few years back. Of course, it would be nice if Radford could win the tourney every year!

We also like to keep tabs on Turkish soccer (my late father was from Turkey) even though I haven't watched a game in two years. This weekend, the scores were as follows: Manisa 2 Kayseri 1; Ankaragucu 2 Konya 0; Gaziantep 3 Sivas 1; Eskisehir 1 Bucaspor 0; Bursaspor 1 Istanbul BB 1 (tie); GalataSaray (Istanbul) 0 KDCK 0 (tie); Trabzonspor 2 Besiktash (Istanbul) 1.

For more info, on the games, you can check out Ahmet Bob Turgut's Twitter feed at (twitter.com/turkish soccer).

Lastly, our very favorite sport is women's collegiate gymnastics and there were many meets of interest this weekend.

Due to space and time constraints, we will focus on just two of them.

For starters, Florida (#1) edged Utah (#5) in Salt Lake City thanks to stand-out performances from Gator gymnasts Alaina Johnson, Marissa King and Mackenzie Caquatta.

But, for the home team Utes, Fumina Kobayashi and Cortni Beers finished in a three-way tie for first place on the balance beam with Ashanne Dickerson of Florida, who also scored a 9.9 on vault.


And, our home state North Carolina State Wolfpack gymnastics team won a key road meet over Pittsburgh today thanks to a stand-out performance from Jess Panza, who scored a 9.925 on the balance beam. Panza's score was the highest single event score for a Wolfpack gymnast this season.

The image above, by the way, is of the late, great Howard Cosell (1918-1995) who would have perhaps been horrified to find out that in 2011, due to modern technology, there are many more things to do on a Monday night than watch NFL football on tv. In fact, if one desires, they can play World of the Witchcraft with their 'friends' in Australia for 48 hours in a row.

Yeah, I think that's a bad idea too, but those guys (well, I suppose women can get addicted to WOTWC too) do make us bloggers appear to be people who have real lives.