Thursday, March 19, 2009

T-Minus Sixty Minutes Til Mega Millennial Madness!


Definition of fandom: After checking my email this morning the first place I visited on the Information Superhighway was Rob Neyer's blog. Jesus, do I love that guy. I think I'd read the warnings on the back of shampoo labels if he penned them. In case you were wondering, Neyer's three posts today focused on (a.) the third base issues in Houston, (b.) Boston's backup catching situation and (c.) whether it's worth it for a team to offer Pedro Martinez a contract. And I devoured every last word. There's nothing wrong with reading one man's opinion of these topics, of course, but it's kind of interesting when you on consider the following two items:

1. I hate baseball.

2. It's the morning of the best day of the year.

My Final Four picks:

Wake, UConnecticut, UNC and Duke.

UNC over UConn in the championship game.

(Note: Substitute Oklahoma for UNC if Ty Lawson isn't playing -- or even if he's a shell of himself. The Tar Heels can't do it without him. News flash, I know, but I have to cover my ass here.)

Before listing the opening-round Vickers, let me offer a glimpse into next football season, when Craig and I will unleash a more sophisticated Brian Vickers System, complete with weighted games. For instance: Instead of wagering $50 on every game, we will scale our bets upward when the lines are outrageous and scale them down when they're just a little off. Because even though our record was something like 360-300 when we last posted our daily picks in this space, we gave away a ton of cash on games that were borderline Vickers-worthy.

So, beginning today, and without a flashy new title, here's a sneak peak of what I'm talking about. And just to keep things easier to track, I've clumped games in five different groups, with the top group being our strongest plays of round one. Let's assume we place $500 on the top group, $400 on the next group and so on. I think you'll find at the end of the tournament that while our overall record is solid, the money raked in is more than a little impressive. Stay tuned.

********** $500 **********

Clev St (+8) vs. Wake
Pitt/ETSU OVER (148)
Steve F. Austin (+12) vs. Syracuse
Cornell (+12) vs Missouri

********** $400 **********

North Dakota St (+10) vs. Kansas
Wisconsin (+2.5) vs. Florida State
Morgan St (+16.5) vs. Oklahoma
Bob Morris (+15.5) vs. Michigan State

********** $300 **********

American (+15) vs. Villanova
Mississippi St (+5.5) vs. Washington

********** $200 **********

Tony Kornheiser (+24) vs. Duke
Akron (+14) vs. Gonzaga

********** $100 **********

Temple (+5) vs. Arizona St
Siena (+2) vs. Buckeyes

(One final note: Depending on the connection at my buddy's house I'll try to submit a few posts throughout the day. It won't be live blogging, necessarily (I hate that), but more of just a record of different shit that caught my eye over the course of the day.)

I'm horny for Gus Johnson.

-Brad Spieser (Brad@TwinKilling.com)
3/19/09

0 comments: