1. Can I root for Oklahoma State, Tulsa, an Ivy League school, Boston University, Iowa State (homage to Kubicek), Oklahoma, Cal, Stanford, Ohio State, or Indiana?
(If both teams qualify for 1, the order listed is the tiebreak order.)
2. Can I root for a team seeded 14 or lower?
3. Nonwithstanding the two criteria above, can I root for Duke?
4. Can I root against Kansas?
5. Nonwithstanding the above, can I root for a Big 12 team against a team from some conference I dislike?
6. Nonwithstanding the above, can I root for some team or conference that strikes my fancy (this year: Missouri Valley all the way) against a team from some conference I dislike?
First round games that I care about (other than seeds 14 or worse), by the above rules:
15 Penn over 2 Texas
6 Oklahoma over 11 Wisconsin-Milwaukee
7 Cal over 10 NC State
2 Ohio State over 15 Davidson
6 Indiana over 11 San Diego State
13 Bradley over 4 Kansas
7 Wichita State over 10 Seton Hall
11 Southern Illinois over 6 West Virginia
10 Northern Iowa over 7 Georgetown
12 Texas A&M over 5 Syracuse
Wait, you always root *for* Ivy League teams? I mean, I wouldn't always root against them, but these are the schools I repeatedly hollered my lungs out against. In particular, I hope Texas pounds Penn by three hundred points.
Posted by: Nate at March 15, 2006 06:17 PMMy fave co-worker is quite conflicted over the Penn/Texas game. He is from El Paso, but also a Penn alum.
Posted by: Kubi at March 15, 2006 06:33 PMSo by my count, you care about 22 of the 32 first-round games. Almost easier to just care about every one and avoid the mental gymnastics...
Posted by: Kubi at March 15, 2006 06:34 PM1) Can I root against Dook? [hey, I'm a UNC-CH alum. It's one of the graduation requirements. The exception is if a Dook win leads to the next game being an NCAA final against UNC-CH]
2) General rooting for other ACC teams or any of the many schools I've attended or been associated with unless there's something about them that pisses me off (i.e. Michigan during the Bought, er, Fab Five era or now that they have a Dook alum as coach).
3) General rooting for significant underdogs.
Posted by: Tom Galloway at March 16, 2006 03:21 PMSo here are your results:
All the 16's lost, all the 15's lost (though you wanted one of them to lose anyway), but you do get Northwestern State over Iowa (believe me, that one feels good), Penn lost, Oklahoma lost, Cal lost, Ohio State won, Indiana won (blah!), Bradley won, Wichita State won, Southern Illinois lost, Northern Iowa lost, TAMU won.
6-14 overall, but 6-8 if you exclude the games where your sole rooting interest was for a 15 or 16 seed miracle.
Posted by: Kubi at March 17, 2006 09:50 PM