Drat.

"...Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out."


For some reason the coda to "Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Lawrence Thayer seemed an appropriate bow to put on the championship game from last night.  Not to take anything away from Connecticut who showed how height, athleticism, and talent coalesce into great team play.  And how they went all Nelson Muntz on Butler in the paint.

UConn's Alex Oriakhi defending Butler's Andrew Smith

The story, however, was how Butler couldn't score.  At halftime we were thinking, "Ok, the Bulldog Butlers are up three, they have been defending very well, their two best players haven't done anything yet.  Butler has got this one, because they can't shoot that poorly all game."

And, no, they didn't shoot that poorly; they shot worse in the second half.  Any team that misses more than 80% of its shots is hard pressed to win any game, so the fact that it was a relatively close game speaks volumes to the scrappy defense that Butler played all game.  Holding Uconn to 53 points, ought to have brought home the championship, but time after time Butler missed open shots.  Their missed layups alone would have made up the difference on the scoreboard.

Credit goes to Connecticut for winning this one and surely, we would be remiss from pointing out that Jim Calhoun joined a very exclusive club last night.  Not only is he a cancer survivor, but also joins John Wooden, Adolf Rupp, Bob Knight, and Mike Krzyzewski as the only coaches with three or more National Championships.


Enough with the recap, we are certain you, dear reader, are impatiently scrolling down to find out the dramatic conclusion to the Team Ben vs. Team Wilson2 drama.  We prefer to announce the denouement not with a bang, but with a whimper just like the end to the tournament.


Leaderboard
2. Wilson2
3. Ben


Here is an image of the set of four (4) left-handed sporks awarded to our second place finisher.  Bryan was not able to attend the awards ceremony, so his award was accepted on his behalf by John McEnroe.

Thou dost covet my sporks.

"You can't be serious!"

Fraud Alert: It has come to the attention of the prize committee that there are shoddily made, foreign impostor sporks being passed off as genuine Bracket Prediction Contest Second Prizes.  If you see one for sale on eBay, or craigslist notify the proper authorities.  The offending knock-off is pictured below, and can be identified by it's separate fork and spoon ends, violating the 1973 International Treaty on Eating Utensil Combinations (ITEUC), as well as the addition of a serrated knife portion on the leftmost fork tine.  Labeled a spork, the offending implement is clearly not a spork, but a knifoonk.  Accept no substitutes.

Impostor

Which just leaves us with the prize presentation for Mr. Ben Wang.  Ben was able to attend the prize presentation gala, and here he is being awarded his 3rd place prize, a handshake and/or a pat on the back plus $17.  With his winnings Ben may chose to buy a knifoonk, iPad1, or other equally useless gadgetry.

(This is not the end.)