I know Jessica Biel is hot, but I was holding out hope that Elisha Cuthbert (the future Mrs. MFH if Julianne Hough turns me down) had enough to take her down. Have you all seen The Girl Next Door? At least I did a good job seeding the movie region with the 1 and 2 seeds meeting in the regional final.
I can’t say I’m too surprised with the results of the TV Region, although I did think Vanessa Marcil – who got my vote – would squeak out a win over Stacey Keibler. Let’s face it though, Keibler had a huge height advantage (almost a foot) and that is just too difficult to overcome. Also, being one of the older competitors in this competition, I think Marcil, whom I was hoping to run into while I was in Vegas (did you know the Montecito isn’t a real hotel?), just ran out of gas.
It wasn’t tough to predict that Jessica Simpson would be a powerhouse in the Music Region – the weakest region in this year’s tourney. I was a little surprised by Shakira’s run through the first two rounds, and I’m pleasantly surprised that Carrie Underwood has what it takes to make the erotic 8 (or erection 8, what did we finally settle on?). I do expect Simpson to win the battle of “Tony Romo’s been there” by a fairly substantial margin. Either way I’d like to beat the hell out of Tony Romo just because he has such a better life than I do.
The strongest region this year has definitely been the Modeling Region. I knew Giselle was ripe for an upset and this was the round I was looking for it to happen. Let’s face it, Alessandra Ambrosio deserved better than a 5 seed (someone should have words with the committee over that dropped ball). She has to be the strongest 5 seed ever to partake in a 64 or 65 member tournament. I saw her making the regional final from the beginning and she has not disappointed, with three super strong performances. It’s rare to see a one seed get spanked like Giselle did in the Sexy 16 (yes I did just make reference to Giselle getting spanked). Speaking of spankings, I knew Marissa Miller was tough, but I thought Adriana Lima would put up a little more of a fight than she did. This was really not her best showing, I know she has more in her. This regional final is going to be a dog fight…er, cat fight. My money is on Double-A in a tight one.
Wait, did you think I meant thoughts on the NCAA tournament? I guess I can give you a few of those as well:
I love the way West Virginia plays basketball and I am a fan of Joe Alexander. The kid can flat out play. He actually reminds me of myself in my younger days, except I didn’t have the spring he has (however I would have made the free throw at the end of regulation to put them up one). Even though I had Xavier moving on in my bracket I was really rooting for WVU, mainly because I’d love to see those animals that attend West Virginia burn down half the campus in celebration if they went to the Final Four. This West Virginia-Xavier game was a great game, the kind of game you expect to see in the sweet 16. Unfortunately, this was really the only one this time around.
Western Kentucky hung in with UCLA for a while, which certainly was a surprise to me. They got down big and then came back to make it a game, but you never really got the feeling they actually had a shot to win. By the time there were two minutes left, UCLA was up ten and I was wishing I hadn’t stayed up until 12:30. UCLA looks vulnerable, but I think they match up pretty well against Xavier and they should stroll into the Final Four.
Carolina-Washington St. went exactly as I expected. Wazu kept Carolina’s score low, but failed to score more points than my fifth grade team (Editor’s note: we won the league championship that year, for the record) used to score and got blown out.
Tennessee looked bad in their loss to Louisville. They looked like a compilation of very gifted athletes with very little basketball intelligence. I really like Bruce Pearl. I think he did a good job with UW Milwaukee. He has a good sense of humor about himself and he obviously has a great passion for the sport and for his school. So it pains me to say this: Bruce Pearl may not be that great a coach. If you watched the game against Louisville you saw a very talented streetball team take on the Cardinals, who are coached by one of the best in college basketball. I was baffled as Tennessee constantly looked out of control trying to force themselves into the lane while throwing up blind, acrobatic shots that might go in 2 out of 10 times. Any good coach would have calmed them down and forced them to run an offense. Instead, they continued to look like an And-1 mixtape squad right through to the end of the game. You would think after four straight times rushing down the floor and wildly going at the basket 1 on 3, only to come up empty, an adjustment would have been made. But inexplicably there was no adjustment, and so predictably Louisville ran away with the game. Unfortunately for the ‘Ville, Carolina is well-coached, with more talent than Tennessee.
The Friday games were all blowouts, so there isn’t much to say. How about Davidson though? Stephen Curry is one hell of a player. If I had known he was this good before the tourney began, I would have picked them to go to the elite 8 in my pools rather than having them fall to Wisconsin in the Sweet 16. The kid (and the team) is truly a treat to watch. Too bad for them, they have to play Kansas on Sunday. Kansas is no Wisconsin or Georgetown; the Jayhawks will definitely put points up on Davidson. That said, despite having Kansas winning the whole thing, I would love to see Davidson pull a George Mason. However, I think they get beat by close to 20 on Sunday.
And now time for a little bragging:
Heading into this round I was in the 96.4 percentile on ESPN because of my uncanny ability to pick winners. I didn’t go upset crazy just so I could brag about picking San Diego (which I did not) and Siena (which I did) both right, while at the same time picking ten other upsets that never materialized. I have seven out of the eight Elite 8 teams correct and all my Final Four teams still alive. I hope you’ll keep this in mind next year when you think about ignoring my advice like some of those suckers out in Vegas did when I pushed Siena, Kansas St, and Davidson in the first round and West Virginia in the second round (which sadly I could not, as a Duke fan, put my own money behind).
Leave your own thoughts on either tourney in the comments section down below. Or email me with thoughts, ridicule, praise, or the addresses of any of our Tournament of Hotties competitors at mfh@subwaychatter.com
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