CERRITOS, CA (smt)- A week is a long time and the three top favorites playing today were just not sharp.  #2E-Miami, #2W-Ohio St, and #1E-Indiana all trailed by double-digits in the first half.  But in the end, #3E-Marquette routed the Hurricanes 71-61 (not even close, 10-pt margin deceiving) and #4E-Syracuse easily stopped the Hoosiers 73-70 (again, 11-pt margin deceiving).  The Buckeyes rallied in the 2nd half but blew a 6-point lead with 1:34 remaining.  But I guess never put the Buckeyes in a tie game with the final shot as for the second straight game, a Buckeye hit a 3-pointer, this time LaQuinton Ross with 2 seconds left (vs Aaron Craft's 3-pointer with 0.2 seconds vs Iowa St) for a 73-70 victory.  #9W-Wichita St. jumped to a 16-point halftime lead to destroy the last of the Atlantic 10 teams, #13W-La Salle, 72-58.

So we are denied the powerhouse matchup between Indiana and Miami.  This is who Colin Cowherd, who I listen to regularly, thought were the best two teams he'd seen and definitely influenced my picks.  It was looming in our pool, too, as 117 of 131 entries had Indiana or Miami in the Final Four.

DenverDunks1, despite losing Gonzaga and Georgetown in his final (and thus, can only get a max of 115 points), remains in 1st place (91 pts), a point ahead of Lastminute who has the highest maximum point total (152).  His other entry, DenverDunks3 was the only one to go 3-1 for the day, rising from a tie for 106th to a tie for 28th (80). 25 entries went 0-4 (25 also went 0-4 last year) including The New Mrs. B who now takes over last place (56) and Ballz Deep who went from a tie for 7th to a tie for 28th. 

ChasCroix (3rd-Tied, 89) has the best chance for 1st (23.7%) and money (55.4%).  Lastminute has a 12.2% chance for 1st and 51.5% chance for money while The Rat Pack (3rd-T) has a 49.1% chance for money.  85 are still alive for money and 35 can still win the 1st place prize of $530.  The Mighty Mobelfakta and SlackJaw each have just a 1 in 2,048 chance for money (both 46th-T, 78).

In the Bonus1 race, the Big East picked up 2 wins while the Big 10 picked up one.  That means only these 2 conferences can now be the Winningest Conference.

           Teams  Curr  Max Poss
Conf.      Left   Wins  Wins
-------    -----  ----  --------
Big10        3    11     19
BigEast      3     8     14

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