You Take Your Victories Where You Can Get Them

Baylor beat Arkansas last/Monday night to reach the Final Four.  A lot of people in both of my pools predicted as such.  I didn't; I thought Purdue was going to win.  Silly me.  Because of that, I have a good, sobering feeling that my chances of winning any money in either pool has shrunk just about to zero.

However, earlier in the evening, Houston beat Oregon St. to reach the Final Four.  I predicted the Cougars to win, phew.  Any, and I mean any, chance I would have of winning money in either pool is dependent on Houston winning the National Semifinal/Final Four Game, like I have them doing.  And they would have to defeat, well, Baylor, who has been murdering teams throughout The Big Dance.  Gulp.

Oh, well.  I had to zag when others in these pools are zigging, otherwise the only differentiation between my bracket and theirs would be whether we had, say, Florida beating Virginia Tech, and I usually lose all those early-round Games.  And who knows, maybe Houston really buckles down on the offensive glass and Baylor has those periods of time where they can't score, except that it expands to, like, a ten-minute drought or something.

At any rate, I should look at the bright side.  The bigger of the two pools I'm in -- the way bigger -- is run by a guy who gives us updates on where we all stand by the round and/or day.  And because I still have my championship matchup intact (Gonzaga over Houston), plus picking USC to win its Sweet Sixteen Game, I have rocketed up the standings.  More often than not I have been on the bottom ... I mean, like, rock bottom.  No joke; I have compiled my final standing in relation to the group each Year, and once I was, like, 50th-worst and one Year I was 14th-worst.  This Year is different -- way different.  In fact, going into yesterday's Elite Eight Games, I was in 31st place.  I have never been that high in this man's pool before.  Ever.  And the pool is so big that he awards cash to the top ... 30 contestants.  So close!  And I might not be close anymore because other people picked Baylor and I didn't!

Maybe a better, more concrete accomplishment I should hang my hat on: With Houston beating the Beavers, I have picked at least one team to reach the Final Four for the first time in a long time.  I mean, I want to say that it's been at least five Years.  I could totally be wrong about that, I could just be flagellating myself with paper copies of my broken brackets from Years past, but recently I have been totally 0-for-4.  The Cougs might meet certain oblivion playing the Bears, but honestly, I am glad I accurately predicted a team to win a region because that means I don't completely suck at prognosticating sporting events.

Those two, uh, "wins," picking Houston to reach the Final Four and being on the cusp of getting into the money, for some reason reminds me of Harry Lime in the climactic scene of The Third Man:

Ooh, the feeling of picking the men's basketball tournament right -- so close!!!