Bracket Showdown, Day 8: ...Step 3 = Kentucky.

After a weeklong vacation in Las Vegas, Bryan triumphantly returns to the blog with an update on the 36-entry Feats of Strength Bracket Showdown.

After two glorious weekends, four teams are headed to New Orleans to compete for the college basketball championship. Sixty-four other teams are not headed to New Orleans or, at least, if they are, will be mostly limited to drinking hurricanes on Bourbon Street. Let's look back at our Bracket Showdown and see how our contestants are doing. The full scoreboard is available in this Google Document.

Bracket Showdown, Day 2: Where the hell is Lehigh anyway?

"Sir, the possibility of St. Bonaventure winning the tournament is approximately 3750 to one!"

The first round of the tournament is in the books, and my bracket is in enough disarray that I can stop worrying about winning my office pool (which was never going to happen anyway) and start rooting for chaos. Let's go Mountain Hawks!

Anyway, let's check in on our team of experts and computer simulations and see how they're doing:

Bracket Showdown, Day 1: Barack, Chalk, Jayhawk

The greatest first day of the tournament I ever had was back in 2008. Between a series of brilliant thefts of other people's deductions and some good old-fashioned dumb luck, I actually got all 16 games correct. Like a pitcher in the middle of a perfect game, I refused to talk about it, but spent a good part of the morning going back to ESPN's bracket challenge page to admire the score.

It wasn't long, of course, before I got my first loss of the tournament. It was all downhill from there, and I finished somewhere between "mediocre" and "flipping coins" that year.

All of which to say that March Madness is not a mad dash, but rather some kind of mad marathon*. Still, it's never to early to jump to conclusions! Let's take a look at the scoreboard and discuss the results of day one:

Bracket Showdown: Just the FAQs, Ma'am

As the NCAA college basketball championship gets underway, The Feats of Strength will be hosting a showdown between dozens of brackets from college basketball experts, analysts, celebrities and more. Winner gets an aluminum pole -- very high strength-to-weight ratio*.

"No decorations. I find tinsel distracting."
Today, I explain the rules of the contest. What better way to do that than the ol' Frequently Asked Questions gimmick? Well, except that no one's reading this blog, let alone asking questions, so let's call it the "Fruitlessly Anticipated Questions" section.

Announcing the Feats of Strength Bracket Showdown!

The header on this blog might lead you to believe that actual analytics will show up on this blog someday. For a variety of reasons, that day is not today, and it's probably not tomorrow, either. As a cop-out, I'm taking a page out of junior high science fairs everywhere and seeing which laundry detergent works best* whose March Madness bracket predictions are best.

I've compiled 34 36 brackets from four categories: experts, celebrities, analytical systems and simulations, and a miscellaneous group of controls. The current list is below the jump.

EXPERTS
Nicole Auerbach, USA Today
Jay Bilas, ESPN
Jeff Borzello, CBS Sports
Dennis Dodd, CBS Sports
Gregg Doyel, CBS Sports
Jeff Goodman, CBS Sports
Andy Katz, ESPN
Tony Kornheiser, ESPN
Matt Norlander, CBS Sports
Jerry Palm, CBS Sports
Gary Parrish, CBS Sports
Peter Tiernan, CBS Sports
Eddie Timanus, USA Today
Scott Van Pelt, ESPN
Dick Vitale, ESPN
Michael Wilbon, ESPN

SYSTEMS
Massey Ratings
Ken Pomeroy
Prediction Machine
Jeff Sagarin
Nate Silver
Joel Sokol
Stat Junkies
Tiernan high-risk
Tiernan medium-risk
Tiernan low-risk
What If Sports

CELEBS
Common
LeBron James
Barack Obama
Rajon Rondo
LaMarr Woodley

MISC
CBS Users' Bracket
Harvey Dent (a.k.a. the coin-toss bracket)
Chalk (i.e., highest seed always wins)
Mascot fight

Not all brackets are currently available. As the missing brackets get uploaded, I will paste in the links here.

Details about the scoring system will be posted tomorrow. Check back after each round for an update and see who wins!

Now, I know what you're saying, O reader, because I've hacked into your computer and have a live feed coming from your camera. You're saying, "Wait, what the hell?", but before that, you were saying, "This isn't very scientific! What good is a sample size of one?" And that's true. But like I said, this is more fun than anything else. Everyone makes these predictions every year, and wouldn't it at least be nice to go into next March knowing who did the best last year? Nevertheless, Operation Frantic Googling may yet reveal some past predictions to add to our sample. Rest assured, we have our top men working on it.

"Who?" "Top. Men."
___________

*-I've seen like a hundred of these and the winner is always Tide. Always.

Thinking Out Loud: Point-Shaving Detection

Those knee-deep in the hoopla of NCAA conference championship tournaments might not have noticed, but Yahoo! Sports reported yesterday that Auburn guard Varez Ward was being investigated by the FBI for point shaving. Auburn, that upstanding institution of higher learning whose athletics program has always followed the straight and narrow before, joins an august group including Boston College, Northwestern, and (my alma mater) Tulane.

Of Course It's About the Money

When announcing the decision to release longtime franchise quarterback Peyton Manning yesterday, Colts owner Jim Irsay insisted the decision was not motivated by money. "In the end, before we ever go into any specifics, it's never been about money. It's never been about those tpe of things," he said.

I didn't see the press conference, but it seems he said this with a straight face.

For those unfamiliar with the situation, Peyton Manning's contract stipulated that the Colts owed him and his laser rocket arm $28 million if he were on the roster on March 8th. We are led to believe, then, that through some epic, earth-shattering coincidence, Manning was released March 7th.

Why lie about it? From a business perspective, the decision is reasonable, and the reasons for it were referenced time and time again in Manning's farewell press conference. Manning has had countless* procedures on his neck in the last year, and may never throw another pass in the NFL. Even if he completes his rehab procedures and suits up once again, the man has been in the league since 1998. Years upon years of vicious hits** take their toll after awhile. At this stage in his career, the great Peyton Manning is morphing into that 1995 Subaru wagon you had in college: no matter how many things you fix, the next breakdown is right around the corner.

The Irsay family is of course infamous for unpopular business decisions compounded by abysmal public relations, but Manning deserves a more honest send-off. With such transparent financial motivations, why not tell the truth? Why not say, "As much as we appreciate everything Peyton Manning has done for the Colts and the city of Indianapolis, this football team is at heart a business with the goal of winning football games. And it makes no sense from that perspective to pay eight figures to a 36 year old*** with a debilitating neck injury who may never throw another pass.

"It's not personal; it's strictly business."
______

*-countless (n): a number I can't be bothered to look up
**-Not including those leveled by bounty hunters.
***-Ok, 35 and 11 months.