David Rodeback's Blog

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

The Bracket: Seventh Grade 1, Blogger 0

One more look at the bracket. I was vanquished by my daughter's seventh-grade class.

I started the bracket watch here at the blog, so I suppose I'm obligated to finish it, now that the tourney is over.

At the beginning, I picked Wisconsin, Pitt, North Carolina, and Ohio State as my Final Four, with Ohio State beating Wisconsin in the championship. So I was one-for-four, then one-for-two, as Florida and Ohio State advanced to last night's final game.

You already know who won, I suspect, but I'll pretend there's some suspense long enough to note an amusing statistical phenomenon.

My seventh-grade (but first-rate) daughter caught bracket fever this year for the first time. Her class collectively produced a bracket, based on principles which, by her account, didn't have much to do with a knowledge of this particular year in college basketball. (In other words, they are only slightly less qualified than I am.) On Sunday, she and I sat down with our brackets to see how we were doing, comparatively.

There are several different common ways to score a bracket, differing in the number of points assigned for being right in each round. It didn't matter which method we choose, because she (her class) and I, though our actual picks were different, had exactly the same number of correct picks in each of the first five rounds. The final round would be the tiebreaker: Her class picked Florida to win; I picked Ohio State.

I didn't watch the game last night. I was at the youth theater, as you may have read. So tonight the kids and I packed MFCC off to an evening meeting, then broke out the party food and watched the game on tape. It was a very pleasant evening, even if my bracket was finally vanquished by that of a seventh-grade class, and even if I already knew the winner.

Oh, in case you're wondering, Florida won. I'm not an Ohio State fan, actually; I just guessed they would win when I filled out my bracket. So I won't need therapy -- at least not for that.

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