No million dollar brackets here

Being paid to cover sports is fun and all, but because I am, I stay away from sports more in my down time than I did when I was growing up or even as a radio producer for the first part of my career in media and that is why I've become a bad fan of my teams: Iowa, Syracuse, UNLV, Cubs, Pacers, Dolphins, VGK, Flyers, Galaxy, etc., etc.

That all being said, I've usually been good at something that knowledge can often hinder, picking NCAA brackets.

I had half an article written last week that broke down my picks and admitted pre-tournament tipoff that the more anyone knows, the less chance they have to win a March Madness pool and as a formerly credentialed college basketball writer for UNLV and several conference tournaments, I would probably be sharing my last place picks and thus advised people not to wager any valuables if copying my bracket.

I decided not to post the article and of course I picked a bracket that, at one point Saturday morning after Tennessee defeated Iowa, had me ranked 15,000th out of 17.2 million entries on ESPN.com.

In the first round I correctly predicted 28 out of the 32 games, missing No. 12 Liberty over No. 5 Mississippi State, No. 3 Purdue over No. 14 Old Dominion, No. 9 Oklahoma over No. 8 Ole Miss and No. 9 Baylor over my No. 8 Syracuse Orange. That's two 8-9 games with one of them being my team and the other two were an upset that barely happened and an upset that almost happened so I'm cool with those four incorrect choices.

Flip your losses

After going 28-4 in the first round and 1-0 after the Volunteers beat the Hawks, I was in the top 15k and with Wofford leading Kentucky I had a chance to move up since the majority of brackets would have the Wildcats of course. Unfortunately, Big Blue marched on and I went 5-3 in Saturday's second round games, dropping me out of the top million entries and ruining my chances at the million dollars.

The good news is that not only did I go 7-1 on Sunday to improve my overall pick record to 40-8 for the opening weekend, but nearly every team I predicted wrong lost in the following round, allowing me to get back on track after a missed pick.

Because of this, I have 12 teams remaining and could have seven of the elite eight and all four of the final teams that make it to Minneapolis for the semifinals.

Who's left

In the East, I have Duke over Virginia Tech and Michigan State over LSU. In the West, I picked Gonzaga over Murray State although the Racers were knocked out in the second round. I did get both Michigan and Texas Tech in the bottom half of that quadrant, choosing the Maize and Blue over the Red Raiders. I correctly predicted Virginia versus Oregon in the South and even had the Ducks over UCI in round two. I also have Tennessee, unfortunately I thought they would play Villanova, a team close to my heart, instead of the Big Ten's Boilermakers. The Midwest was my worst corner with North Carolina over Auburn but I missed both Houston and Kentucky, thinking it would be Ohio State defeating Wofford.

Final four

I have Duke defeating Michigan State in the regional final before beating Gonzaga in Minneapolis. I also like Tennessee to beat Virginia in the South regional before besting North Carolina in the other semifinal.

Duke is my prediction over Tennessee with the final score 79-64. Zion Williamson will be the Most Outstanding Player and I will cry during One Shining Moment like I always do.

Fun fact

Two people are tied for first place overall and one of them, Molly, picked every game right so far EXCEPT Iowa over Cincinnati and would have been S.O.L. had the Hawkeyes completed their amazing comeback against the Volunteers.