Coyote Blog

Incredibly, out of 32 initial NCAA championship games, there were only two real upsets (I don't count 9 beating 8 as a real upset).  Maybe my memory is faulty, but that seems like a really low number by historical standards.   Conventional wisdom would hold that we should probably see more rather than less upsets, as early flight to the NBA of the top players has tended to level the playing field out.

We had 91 brackets submitted this year for our NCAA bracket challenge, which is great!  Let the fun begin.

PS:  Based on past history, my current rank (in a 91-way tie for first) is probably the last time I will be front.

Note: This post sticky through 3/16.  Look below for newest posts.

We had a blast with it last year, so back by popular demand is the annual Coyote Blog
NCAA Bracket Challenge.  Yes, I know that many of you are bracketed
out, but for those of you who are self-employed and don't have an
office pool to join or who just can't get enough of turning in
brackets, this pool is offered as my public service. 

Last year we had over fifty entries, and we expect more this year.  Everyone is welcome, so send the link to friends as well.  There is no charge to join in and
I have chosen a service with the absolutely least intrusive log-in
(name, email, password only) and no spam.  The only thing I ask is
that, since my kids are participating, try to keep the team names and
board chat fairly clean.

To join, go to http://www.pickhoops.com/Coyote and sign up, then enter your bracket.

Scoring is as follows:

Round 1 correct picks:  1 points
Round 2:  2
Round 3:  4
Round 4:  6
Round 5:  8
Round 6:  10

Special March Madness scoring bonus: If you correctly pick the underdog in any round (ie,
the team with the higher number seed) to win, then you receive bonus
points for that correct pick equal to the difference in the two team's
seeds.  So don't be afraid to go for the long-shots!

Bracket entry appears to be open.  Online bracket entry closes Thursday, March 15th at 11:30am EDT.  Be sure to get your brackets in early.

Update: I have managed a lot of bracket pools over the years, with a lot of tools.  I would not hesitate to recommend Pickhoops.com.  Least intrusive, cheap, good tools, easy to use.

Congratulations to Gene Wright, who won the first annual Coyote Blog NCAA bracket contest.  Gene only had one of the final four picked (UCLA) but did so well in the opening rounds he had the contest locked up even before last weekend.  Second place was Michael Gunter and third was Bob Houk.  Interestingly, no one out of 34 contestants had Florida in the finals or winning it all.  By the way, yours truly limped in at 24th, though my son helped uphold the family honor at 10th.  If you were not in the pool, you can still click here and enter email "coyote -at- coyoteblog -dot- com" and password "coyote" to see all the results.

By the way, I highly recommend the www.pickhoops.com site for your brackets.  It costs $9 to set up, but it has no ads, the registration is MUCH less intrusive for your players than free sites like Yahoo, they have great analysis options, and they are much faster at posting results.

Note: This post sticky through 3/16.  Look below for newest posts.

As promised, we are proud to announce the first annual Coyote Blog NCAA Bracket Challenge.  Yes, I know that many of you are bracketed out, but for those of you who are self-employed and don't have an office pool to join or who just can't get enough of turning in brackets, this pool is offered as my public service.  In particular, I invite bloggers who are experiencing post-Weblog-Award depression to reignite the spirit of online competition.  I mean, why should NZ Bear have the monopoly on ranking bloggers? 

I don't know if we will get 1 or 100 entries, but all are welcome, so send the link to friends as well.  There is no charge to join in and I have chosen a service with the absolutely least intrusive log-in (name, email, password only) and no spam.  The only thing I ask is that, since my kids are participating, try to keep the team names and board chat fairly clean.

To join, go to http://www.pickhoops.com/Coyote and sign up, then enter your bracket.

Scoring is as follows:

Round 1 correct picks:  2 points
Round 2:  4
Round 3:  6
Round 4:  8
Round 5:  10
Round 6:  20

In honor of the Blogfaddah, we have added the special "Army of Davids" bonus scoring:  If you correctly pick the underdog in any round (ie, the team with the higher number seed) to win, then you receive bonus points for that correct pick equal to the difference in the two team's seeds.  So don't be afraid to go for the long-shots!

OK, so what about the prizes?  Well, fame and recognition on this weblog should be enough, but, for those who enjoy recreation, my company will give the winner a choice of 3 nights free camping at one of the public campgrounds we run, or a half-day jet ski rental at Lake Havasu, or a half-day boat rental at Burney Falls State Park in California, Blue Mesa Reservoir in Colorado, or Patagonia Lake in Arizona.

Disclaimer: I sincerely hope that there is something about this purely recreational activity that violates the ridiculous gambling laws we have in this country, because I feel the need to protest them at every turn.  For example, can any politician explain to me why gambling in many Midwestern states is moral on a boat but immoral and therefore illegal on dry land next to the boat?

Update:  We already had a number of entries in the first hour this was up, so it looks like it is going to be a lot of fun.  Go ahead, sign up, it just takes a few minutes.  You don't have to know that much about basketball -- last year our family's tournament was won by an 11-year-old girl.

Blogging has been light of late.  If you are confused about why, see here.  I am also working on the first annual Coyote Blog NCAA bracket challenge, so stay tuned.

The NCAA has effectively banned the use of "hostile and abusive racial/ethnic/national origin mascots, nicknames or imagery" at NCAA events.  Apparently, despite the broad language, the rules are aimed narrowly at teams named using Native American imagery, since "Fighting Irish" is not on the hitlist, despite the fact that Notre Dame has no formal approval from Ireland to use the name, while "Seminoles" is on the hitlist, despite the fact that Florida State has the Seminole tribe's blessing to use the name.  The "Dutch" and the "Dutchmen" are apparently OK, as are other teams named after non-Indian peoples such as the "Gauchos", the "Highlanders", the "Quakers", the "Norse", the "Scots", the "Swedes", the "Trojans", the "Vandals", the "Vikings", and of course, the "Nads" (Go Nads, go).  Complete mascot list here.  As a resident of Phoenix, can I sue the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay for denigrating me?

So I started to think about the University of Utah Utes, who are also on the hitlist.  Apparently, using a name derived from the Ute Indian tribe is no longer Kosher in the NCAA.  Which leads to the obvious question - can the University of Utah even use the name Utah any more at NCAA events, since it is derived from the Ute tribe?  Instead of "Utah" on their uniforms, will they have to have something like "that state between Nevada and Colorado"?  Same with Missouri, Illinois, and both the Dakotas, all state names derived from local Indian tribe names.  And don't even get me started on the 40 or so state names (including my own Arizona) derived from Indian words.  How about Indiana, which means "land of Indians"?  Or Oklahoma, which is Choctow for "red people".  If we can't put "redskin" on a NCAA jersey, how can we put "Oklahoma"?  Coming soon: The Nebraska Cornhuskers vs. The Far North Texas Sooners.

The FIRE website has more, noting the irony of university presidents suddenly chafing under the same type of vague and arbitrarily enforced speech code that they have blithely imposed on their own students for years.

Update #1: I heard an interesting interview on this topic with an NCAA spokeman on the Dan Patrick Radio Show.  The host pressed the NCAA figure on why FSU can't use the "Seminole" name, when the Florida Seminole tribe had given their blessing.  The response from the NCAA official was typical of a lot of elitist thought nowadays.  It boiled down to "its for their own good, even if they don't agree".

Update #2: Being from Texas, I knew that calling Oklahoma "Far North Texas" would incite some response.  I have gotten several emails.  The conclusion to an email from reader Dale was typical:

So,
from one fellow libertarian to another, can you do me a favor?  Henceforth,
please refrain from associating my Sooners with anything texas-like.  Thank
you.