MONTEREY, CA/CERRITOS, CA (smt)-  The return of the traditional powers of UConn, UCLA, North Carolina, and Arizona did not bring back normalcy to the tournament as for the second straight year brackets were smashed early as top seeds fell early and a small school from Indy made the Final in back-to-back years.  One thing remained normal.  UConn is a high seed in the West Region and wins the title (#1 in '99, #2 in '04, #3 in '11).  Although the high number of bricks thrown up by both teams in the final was painful to watch (can't someone just slam the ball?  There were only 2 slam dunks the whole game), last year Butler led a poor-shooting, turnover-filled final with Duke.  Maybe it's not a good thing to have Butler in the final.

Although we have had four teams (out of 248 teams) win the title at least twice in our 17 years (Duke, Florida, UNC, UConn (3)), only one person (out of 256 people) has ever won 2 pool titles.  Roy W won our biggest prize ($515), is our 16th different champion and is now our 2nd highest money winner ($650) behind Robinson C (Team Samurai, $680).  David F got his 4th win for a total of $490 (tied for 6th).  The other five are first-time winners bringing our total to 54 different people who have won money.  Blakeley H became the first person in 21 tries to win money on his 3rd entry.  Charles D also entered three times and won on his 2nd entry making it 4 out of 21 overall winning when entering 3 times.

Well, with the lack of time and the incredible amount of entries (and the fact I almost had to call a boring nickname like "Craig" a champion), I've punted on the annual nickname issue.  But the nicknames won't go away as I'll use some of them for the final thoughts on this crazy tourney.  Also, with 16 issues, this is the fewest since 2000 when only 15 updates were issued.

• Buzzer Beaters/Jump Off That Sofa: There was only one true buzzer-beater as Butler put in a basket to win their first game over Old Dominion.  Temple scored with 2 seconds left to beat Penn St, Kentucky just nipped Princeton in their first game and Morehead St. shocked Louisville with a 3-pointer with 4.2 seconds left.  All 4 games occurred back-to-back-to-back-to-back.

• #Winning Picks:  Craig and Krimsonguard won 16 straight games at one point.

• Bracket Buster/Poolraider:  First it was #4 Louisville.  Then #1 Pitt, #3 Purdue, and #3 Syracuse fell in the 3rd round. And it snowballed from there taking out all 4 #1 seeds and all 4 #2 seeds before the Final Four.

• Lickety Split/JD Salinger's Cats/Keeber's Three Sum/Buckeye23/Buckeye Mike:  Ohio St. was the #1 overall seed and failed to make it out of the Sweet 16 losing to Kentucky.  It was the Buckeye's first loss to Kentucky in the tourney in six years.

• DunkinDenver/Brettdenver: Crazy games in the Denver subregional as #11 Gonzaga, #12 Richmond and #13 Morehead St won second round games with Morehead St winning the third round game.  #3 BYU was the only favorite to win (2nd & 3rd round).

• GoHuskies: He only had UConn making the Elite Eight.  Had he picked UConn to win it all (+26 pts), he would've won 1st.

• Chief's Wife/The Wife's Bracket/Jonna's Picks/Crazy Lady:  The women were shut out of money for the first time since '08.  No these weren't the only women in the pool, just ones with cool ladylike nicknames.  There were about 17 entries from women this year.

• John Galt/Danny Taggart:  Just saw the trailer for this movie on HDnet and it looks cool.  Was wondering what the heck these nicknames were about.  Nice!

• Aztec Cutters/Aztec Oski: A SDSU fan and a Cal fan rooting for SDSU couldn't get the Aztecs out of the Sweet 16 losing to eventual champion #3 UConn.

• Union Strong:  What kind of collective bargaining perks could we get with 97 people?

• 9ers in '12/Go Gauchos:  Two local Big West teams who met in the conference final with UCSB advancing over Long Beach St.  Although one picked UCSB it wasn't Go Gauchos.

• You Can't Beat Me/Wishing4luck/Belucky2:  Apparently, 78 entries can beat you.  And luck was involved in Craig becoming the first person to ever win one of the top money spots while getting no Final Four teams.

• TheComeBacker:  Butler came down from 11 points late to force Florida into OT and eventually advance to the Final Four.  Butler also nearly blew a 20-point lead against Wisconsin, Duke nearly blew a 15-point lead vs Michigan, and UCLA nearly blew 23-point lead against Michigan St.

• Punani52/Punani59/Kona Coast Sliders/Team Samurai:  These just remind me that I need to take a vacation and the Hawaiian Islands sound nice right now.

• Fear_The_Beard:  The closest to my favorite best hair category.  Morehead St's Kenneth Faried gets my vote.

• C$:  A record $1,250 doled out to 7 people.  The first time we had a 6th place prize.

• PFC Bradley Manning/BINLADEN:  Two very bad people (nicknames) and one of them won.  Apparently no one leaked the results of the tournament because this was our lowest scoring pool ever.  Thanks to UConn, at least all six winners were above 100 points (the only six). 

• Slamjam51/The Fabone NC-17:  There were only two slam dunks in the final. Yawn.  That shouldn't have been seen by anyone under 17.  My eyes are still burning.

• Eris/Sisyphus/Pikermi or Bust:  Always love the Greek references. BTW, Eris is the Greek goddess of Chaos, which is what we had in spades.

• Move It Like Berney/The Downtown Fiction:  I think I could actually do this dance.  Whether I want to is a different story.  68 teams got to go dancin' this year for the first time.  And don't forget to check this band out.

• Thomas Chuggington/Flying Ace/Jcar13/Mr Gas Man:  Planes, trains, and automobiles. And they need gas which VCU ran out of against Butler in the Final Four.  It didn't seem to affect UConn who won 5 games in 5 days in the Big East tourney and all six games of the tourney.

• Flying Elvi/Elvis26:  One exists and has played in 15 of 17 years.  Hint: It wasn't Elvis26 who was the only entry to be removed (entered accidentally). 

• Pinkocean/Yellow Monkey/GoBigBlue:  Where's green, my soon-to-be 4-year old's favorite color?  It was good to get some of the Big Blues back in the tourney (UCLA, UNC, UConn).

• RockChalkHater/GatorsReturnToGlory/PRIDE OF TROY/BamaG/BamaG 2:  The Rock Chalk chant stopped for Kansas and glory will have to wait for Florida, as both lost in the Elite 8.  USC didn't even make it out of the First Four while Alabama lost in the Final (of the NIT).

• Lea's Bees/Cobi's Crusaders/PSW ExSpence:  Nicknaming after kids didn't help these entries. 

• Fabio/Hendo/Bono/WE LOVE GORDO!!:  Oh, no!

• Queen B/Davy ESPY/Larzby/Bizarro Larzby:  Gee, wee!

• Malk/I Hate Twilight/Rainman/For Narnia/Slumdawg/Little Miss Sunchips/Silver Surfer/Rat Pack:  Pop culture!  Who would've thought a mispronouncing of "milk" was funny.  And thanks to Sant C for changing his nickname from "Rain Man" to the great "I Hate Twilight" since we had a "Rainman" already.  I love Narnia but without the older kids, I'm not as interested in seeing the third film.  And  then we have the old standbys from films.

• MB Camel Jockies/Sirlaxalot/Real Sporting FC:  Horse racing, lacrosse, and soccer don't mix with basketball although the latter did win the First Four for Charity. 

• Jokers' Wild/Mr Wizard:  Used to love these shows as a kid. Butler could've brought back the past becoming the first mid-major to win since 1990.

• Carseroni/Doughboy/CustardPie/Krispy Kremer/Krispy Seconds/DeeJay Marshmallow:  Getting hungry.  Hungry for a better showing next year. 

• Chief's Revenge/Pattons Revenge:  Florida avenged last year's loss to BYU.  Kentucky got revenge on an earlier loss to UNC in the Elite 8 but couldn't do the same to UConn in the Final Four.