CERRITOS, CA (smt)- Ah, sleeping through the semifinals with a 101 degree fever, I had to rely on my wife (BABY SPENCER (53rd-Tied, 122 pts) for information on how the flow of the games went... so I checked ESPN as well.  #1S-Ohio St. kept their nice lead for most of the second half in beating #2E-Georgetown, 67-60, for this first title game since 1962.  Both big men played well but both were in foul trouble, limiting their time.  In the second semifinal, #1MW-Florida kept a double-digit lead throughout the last 15 minutes of the second half in once again beating the #2W-UCLA Bruins, 76-66, and keeping alive their quest for back-to-back titles.  The Gators seemed to put their game in cruise control in the last ten minutes and if not for offensive rebounds for easy put-backs and UCLA not finding their outside shooting touch, this game could have turned around (and the Bruins were one missed 3-pt shot away from cutting it to 7).

So once again Buckeye center Greg Oden gets into early foul trouble.  Once again, the Gators beat UCLA.  And once again, gosh darn it, we have another Ohio St.-Florida championship match-up (the other, of course, just four months ago when the Gators upset Ohio St. for the college football BCS title). But luckily we only have two days of radio banter instead of the excruciating six days between Regional Final and Final Four.  That is way too much time and even on the radio they stopped talking about the tourney for the upcoming football draft, the baseball season, and the pitiful Lakers and whether or not we would like to have Shaq back (isn't this really, really old news?).

But in the important stuff, VAN&SAM leads by 16 points (the final is only worth 12 pts) and thus, is our new HWCI NCAA Pool Champion.  Her 166 point total and 55 wins extends her existing records (she has only missed 7 games!  Four people missed 7 games on the FIRST day!).  She has been perfect since the Elite 8 and if Ohio St. wins, she'll become the first person to go a perfect Last 15; 8-0 in the Elite 8, 4-0 in the Final Four, 2-0 in the Finals, and 1-0 for the champion.  In case you're wondering, only two people have gone a perfect Last 15 on the flip side - 0-15 (GOBAY in 2002, and REGGIEK945 in 2005).

As for the rest, there are six entries remaining and none have guaranteed themselves any money.  GO 9ERS! saw her win streak stopped at 13 (notice both with the long win streaks are women?) with UCLA's loss and is tied for second with SLACKJAW with 150 pts.  The Bernardo husband-wife team of THAI SPICE and BUCKEYE MIKE are tied for 4th with 145 pts and one of them will win money.  SNOOP'S DOGS (6th, 144) and DC944 (7th-T, 141) are also still in the running for money, depending on the outcome of the Final.

42 picked Ohio St. and 34 picked Florida, making this the first time since 1999 (Duke & UConn) that the top two teams picked made the finals.  In 1999, the underdog won (UConn) so this year Florida is the underdog being picked by just 13 to win it all (vs. 31 for Ohio St.).