A Foolish Consitency

Ralph Waldo Emerson, or as I like to call him, R-Dub, once wrote "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." In modern parlance, this roughly translates to "learn from your mistakes, dumbass." Aside from wanting to sound clever (or, more likely, pretentious), I bring this up because NFL scouts are busy making the same mistake they make every year in the days leading up to the NFL Draft: Getting seduced by quarterbacks who fit, what they view as, the ideal mold of a quarterback; Tall, strapping, strong jawed, barrel-chested players with unusually strong arms. The scouts lay awake at night dreaming of these young, chiseled athletes completing seventy yard touchdown bombs, while joyous owners exultantly sing their praises and buxom blonds fall helpless at their feet.

The sad reality is that the most ridiculous part of that dream is the quarterbacks completing seventy yard touchdown passes. A few owners will undoubtedly sing the praises of their scouting staff (though exultantly might be a stretch) and I'm sure a few scouts manage to parlay their NFL careers into the occasional buxom blond, but few, if any, seventy yard touchdown passes will be thrown in any given NFL season. In fact, this past year, in 512 games, quarterbacks completed only eighteen passes of 70 yards or longer (a rate of about one every 29 games). Even if we conveniently overlook the fact that most of these passes were the result of long runs after the catch, it still equates to the average NFL team completing one 70 yard bomb every other season. Yet, for some reason, NFL scouts continue to put a premium on arm strength and a big body even though those traits rank somewhere between chiseled jaw line and singing voice on the list of important modern quarterback skills.

As the game has transitioned from a smash-mouth, physical match up into a high octane passing contest, the skills required of quarterbacks have changed as well. In the seventies, a quarterback was expected to hand the ball off to a running back fifty times a game, take hits in the pocket, throw the occasional deep pass, look tough and grow a beard. Today, modern quarterbacks need to know how to read defenses, throw the ball thirty times a game, and complete a high percentage of passes to keep drives alive. Rather then arm strength and toughness, the most important skills are:

• Accuracy
• Pocket Presence
• Field Vision
• Intelligence
• Courage
• Leadership

Everything else is just a bonus. It certainly helps when the quarterback is 6' 6", runs a 4.4 forty yard dash and can throw a frozen rope forty yards down field (I have to be honest, I really just wanted to write, frozen rope), but those skills are not requirements. Just ask Rich Gannon or Chad Pennington. My pregnant wife can throw a football significantly farther then Chad Pennington can (never underestimate the strength of a pregnant woman. I don't know where it comes from; I'm a little afraid to ask. Just kidding, honey.), yet Pennington has had a successful career and numerous playoff appearances, while "can't miss" prospects, with phenomenal size, speed and strength (Ryan Leaf, Akili Smith, Joey Harrington, David Carr, Alex Smith, do I really need to continue?) have single handedly killed franchises.

But, something strange happens to scouts when they see a quarterback take his shirt off. All of a sudden, they care more about how the quarterback looks in a wet T-shirt contest -- "Johnny, do you see Flacco's abs under that baby-T?" -- then how accurately they throw the football. For example, let's review this year's post-combine press coverage.

After watching all the quarterbacks work out, Peter King gushed about Joe Flacco. "Now, Delaware quarterback Joe Flacco threw like Randy Johnson here Sunday. By throwing better than any passer in the workouts, Flacco certainly helped himself." Similarly, senior NFL writer John Clayton said "Joe Flacco of Delaware continued to show the strongest arm in the draft, nudging even closer to first-round status." No mention of accuracy, touch, or vision. But because Flacco threw harder them everybody else, he apparently threw "better" then everybody else. (In other news, King and Clayton think Johan Santana has an outside chance at being a low first round draft pick.)

Perhaps most mind boggling, is the newfound love affair with trendy sleeper Josh Johnson. Following his workout, SI writer Don Banks wrote, "NFL scouts love his accuracy, his athletic gifts, and his toughness. He didn't have an impressive workout throwing the ball on Sunday, floating several deep passes, but he did run fast (4.55) and jumped 33.5 inches to lead all quarterbacks." Wait a second...they love the accuracy of the guy who did not have an impressive day throwing the football???!!? Kicking it up a notch, one NFL scout had this to say about Johnson "He threw a bit of a wobbly ball at times, but he was accurate in spurts. His ball, I don't know why it floats, but it comes out floating a little. He didn't look great, but he's still an intriguing guy." Really? Intriguing? Because he couldn't hit the beach if he was aiming for the ocean?

Meanwhile, Colt Brennan, who shredded defenses and put up mind boggling numbers three years in a row, completed 18 of his 18 passes at the Combine, yet, the only thing people talked about was that he weighed 186 pounds. No mention of his quick release. Nothing about his freakish accuracy. No word about his perfect touch on the ball. All scouts could see was a guy who weighed 190 pounds soaking wet.

This pedantic preoccupation with an "NFL body" boggles my mind. Would you rather draft a quarterback who needs to work on his footwork, improve his mobility in the pocket, learn how to read defenses and fix his mechanics to improve his sub-par accuracy or draft a quarterback who needs to gain weight?

According to Bill Walsh, "the most important attributes for a quarterback are accuracy, courage and intelligence." And Colt Brennan has these in spades. He completed over 70 percent of his passes in college (yes, you read that right. SEVENTY PERCENT) and was the unquestioned leader of an undefeated Hawaii team; His teammates voted him the captain of their Senior Bowl team; He speaks with uncommon candor and infectious enthusiasm; He possess unparalleled field vision and pocket presence; He has one of the most accurate throwing arms since Dan Marino and Jeff George. Yet, because he doesn't have prototypical size and speed, he is not taken seriously.

So, enjoy the hype on draft day, Matt Ryan; Enjoy the praise from scouts and front office people, Chad Henne; Enjoy the praise from the media, John David Booty. Just don't blame me for laughing in three years when Colt Brennan's an NFL star and Joe Flacco is working at Frank's House of Pancakes.

"Another cup of coffee, sir?"

Sure. As long as you don't throw it to me.

NBA Playoff Prognostication 2008

Before I begin expounding on the minutia of the upcoming NBA playoffs, I need to let you in on my dirty little secret:

I was the shooter on the grassy knoll.

(No, wait. Wrong secret. Let's try that again.)

I don't know anything about the NBA.

That's right. I'm embarrassed to say it, but it's true. Over the years, due to factors I'm still unclear about, my time spent at the office has greatly increased, while my time spent sitting on the couch, drinking beer and watching the NBA has precipitously dropped off. If the battle for my free time was a presidential election, the super delegates would have shifted their allegiance to the candidate endorsing hard work and a strong economy because the pro-couch/beer/basketball candidate no longer had sufficient funds to bribe them. I still have time to catch the occasional game, watch SportsCenter every once in a while and read enough online articles to make a convincing argument for who should win the MVP award -- Chris Paul narrowly edges out KG and Kobe for making Tyson Chandler an offensive force. Seriously, how do you turn a player with teeny woman hands and zero offensive moves into a 12 point per game scorer? This fact alone should guarantee him the award. -- but I simply don't have time to watch enough basketball games to make enlightened observations about the current state of the NBA.

A large part of this has to do with Fantasy Sports. I'm a big proponent of Fantasy Baseball and enjoy the bourgeois appeal of Fantasy Football, but no matter how hard I try, I can't get in to Fantasy Basketball. It just doesn't work for me. In baseball, statistics tell me that Barry Bonds gets on base every other time he steps up to the plate, hits home runs like Ike Turner hit wives and that his defensive range and base stealing abilities have developed inversely proportional to the growth of his cranium. In basketball, statistics tell me that Jason Kidd has a superb assist to turnover ratio, but they can't explain that he gets used more then a beer bong at a frat house when he tries to guard anyone with two functional legs. You can make the same argument about football statistics, but Fantasy Football isn't about statistics; Fantasy Football is what we use to explain to our girlfriends why we have to watch the Seahawks play the Ravens on Thursday Night Football instead of attending her cousins third birthday party ("I really WANT to go, honey, but it's the second week of the season and that's, like, the most important week.").

Since I don't play Fantasy Basketball, I don't spend hours and hours pouring over basketball statistics the way I do football and baseball stats. I can easily rattle off who has the lowest batting average in major league baseball right now -- David Ortiz at a stunning .121 -- who's leading the majors in home runs -- Carlos Pena, Derek Lee and Mike Jacobs are all tied with 6 -- or even who led the NFL in rushing last year, -- Ladanian Tomlinson with 1474 yards -- but I can't, for the life of me, tell you anything about basketball other then LeBron James led the league in scoring with 30 points a game, and only because I heard that on ESPN radio on the drive home.

So take what I say with a grain of salt. In fact take it with a lot of salt. Get out a Margarita glass, line the rim with salt and let me pour my delicious, refreshing and hilariously uninformed thoughts, musings and predictions into it for your enjoyment. Because, let's face it, my predictions can't get any worse.

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2008 NBA Playoff Prognostication

First Round

Eastern Conference

Celtics over Hawks

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
(My response to: "Will the Hawks win a game in this series?")

Pistons over Sixers

I had to look on Yahoo sports to see who the Pistons were playing in the second round. That's embarrassing. Not for me, for the Sixers. Is there anyone who takes this team seriously? (Ok, anyone who doesn't live in Philadelphia?) Is there anyone who can name a player on the Sixers other then the Andres (Igoudala and Miller)? I'd rather watch the WNBA then watch the Pistons dismantle the Sixers. Check please.

Magic over Raptors

Ummm...really? I'm not sure I could know less about either of these teams. I'll summarize my collective knowledge:

1. The Magic have Dwight Howard
2. The Magic also have JBorhood favorite Hedu Turkoglu, or as my brother likes to call him, "Glu" or "Elmer" (In reference to Elmer's glue and, more importantly, the fact that he just looks like an Elmer.)
3. The Raptors have two players with cool foreign names: Andrea Bargnani and Jose Calderon

That's it. I'm out. In lieu of any insight, I'll go with the superstar. I say Dwight Howard dominates down low and Elmer knocks down some big shots.

GO ELMER!

LeBrons over Wizards

New year, same crappy supporting cast for LeBron James, same end result: LeBron straps the chumps on his back and single handedly wills them to victory. The Wizards are the popular pick this year, since Cleveland struggled down the stretch and the Wizards are finally at full strength, but I don't see what's different about this Washington team then the team that has lost to the LeBrons the past two years in the first round. Sorry Wizards, better luck next year.

Western Conference

Lakers over Nuggets

Whenever I think of Kobe, I'm reminded of the Eminem song, "Kill You".

You don't, want to f*ck with Kobe
(Cause why?)
Cause Kobe, will f*cking kill you

Seriously, Kobe scares me. Nobody does the Michael Jordan I'm-going-to-win-this-game-by-the-sheer-force-of-my-facial-expression better then Kobe. He looks like a man on a mission this year and there's no way he loses to Enver in first round. (By the way, that was not a typo. There's no "D" in Denver.)

Mavericks over Hornets

Speaking of crazy facial expressions, have you seen Dirk Nowitzki play lately? He's reclaimed the sneer he used to propel the Mavericks to the NBA Finals in 2006. Why is the sneer so important? Well, without the sneer, Dirk Nowitzki he looks like David Hasselhoff's sissy oafish brother. With the sneer, he looks like like Karl from Die Hard. If you're a Mavericks fan, which one of those guys would you rather have leading your team?

Now, I fully expect Chris Paul to make a mockery of the defender formerly known as Jason Kidd, but I think that in the end, the sneer will win out.

Suns over Spurs

Has their even been a more exciting first round match-up on paper then Spurs/Suns? Duncan, Ginobli, and Parker vs. Shaq, Amare, and Nash. I am more excited about this series than about any series in the remainder of the playoffs (with the possible exceptions of the Kobe vs. Shaq or Chris Paul vs. Deron Williams potential match-ups in the Western Conference finals). There have been NBA Finals match ups where both teams are worse then either of these two teams, AND THIS IS THE FIRST ROUND!

I have no idea what to make of this series. San Antonio plays the best team basketball in the league, but the new-look-Suns with a revitalized Shaquille O'neal, are a destructive force on offense and on defense. My gut tells me that the Spurs will win like they always do, but my heart desperate wants the Suns to win and vindicate Steve Kerr and his huge balls. Kerr was torn to shreds in the media for months for having the giant swinging cojones to pull of the Shaq trade and nothing short of an NBA title will get people off his back.

Here's to Steve.

Here's to the Shaq.

Here's to the Suns.

And, of course, here's to huge swinging balls.

Jazz over Rockets

Kudos to the Rockets for their 22 game win streak and kudos to Tracy McGrady for his (soon to be) 7 series long playoff losing streak.

Conference Semi-Finals

Eastern Conference

Celtics over LeBrons

As LeBron proved last year, he's good enough to beat most teams all by himself, just not the great teams. I've got bad news for LeBron and Cleveland fans: The Celtics are a great team.

Pistons over Magic

I want to believe that Dwight Howard has the ability to put the Magic on his (admittedly large) back and carry them past the Pistons, ala LeBron James last year. Unfortunately, at this stage in his career, Dwight looks like a great ball player who lacks the killer instinct, more Kevin Garnett than Kobe Bryant. But he's young and maybe he just hasn't had the opportunity to prove me wrong. Here's hoping, because, as a Bulls fan, nothing makes me happier then watching someone wipe the smug, stupid, cocky grins off the faces of Chauncey, Rip and Rasheed.

I hate the Pistons.

Western Conference

Lakers over Jazz

I'm going to conveniently sidestep the fact that I know so little about the Utah Jazz but bring up my biggest grievance with their team: Their name makes no sense! There's no Jazz in Utah. The team just kept the name when they moved from New Oreleans, the birthplace of jazz! If they wanted a Utah appropriate name they should have gone with the Utah Caucasions, the Utah Polygamists or the Utah Salt Lake Aquatic Mammals (look, I understand that no animals except an extreme saliophile, and ceratinly not a mammal, could survive in the harsh climate of the Great Salt Lake, but go with me for comedy's sake).

Until the Jazz relinquish the rightful name of the New Orleans franchise, the JBorhood hereby decrees that they shall never win an NBA title. Say hello to the Curse of the Jazz!

Suns over Mavericks

The Suns are to the Mavs what John McClain is to Karl. Sorry big fellah, but sneer or no sneer, your playoffs end here.

Conference Finals

Celtics over Pistons

Did I mention that I hate the Pistons?

Well, with that in mind, nothing short of a Chicago Bulls run to the Finals could get me this excited about watching an Eastern Conference Finals. Not because I think the games will be exciting, but because I'm excited to watch Kevin Garnett rip Rasheed Wallace's heart out of his chest and eat it at center court. Nothing would please me more then watching the Piston's starters sulk on the bench with towels on their head as they watch the Celtics close out a four game sweep and effectively end the Pistons stranglehold on the Eastern Conference.

Lakers over Suns

Shaq vs. Kobe with a trip to the Finals on the line. Good lord.

I would love for the Suns to win and validate Steve Kerr's moxy, but that would violate my Kobe Rule: When in doubt, pick Kobe. It's that simple. He has the abilty to take over a fourth quarter to such a degree that even my wife, who loves watching basketball with me, but doesn't know Manu Ginobli from Boris Diaw (wait, what am I saying, neither do I), when asked what the Lakers should do on any given possession, will say "Give the ball to Kobe" (In case you doubt this, I just asked her the question and the exact words out of her mouth were "Give the ball to Kobe". Ahhh, I've trained her so well.)

So, sentimentally, I love the Suns, but I can't shake the feeling that 2008 is the year of the favorite. First all #1 seeds make it to the Final Four and now the two best teams in the NBA will go at it in an NBA Finals for the ages.

Get ready for...

NBA Finals

Celtics over Lakers

Yeah, we're gonna party like it's 1989! (Ok, ok, I realize that the Lakers met the Pistons in the '89 Finals, but if I say party like it's 1987 -- the last time the Lakers met the Celtics in the Finals -- then I completely lose the veiled reference to the Prince song. Jeez, you're a tough crowd...)

Anyway, after I spent three paragraphs explaining why it's sheer lunacy to bet against Kobe, I'm going to violate my own rule (meanwhile, my wife is shaking her head at me, saying I should "give the ball to Kobe"). The Lakers are great. Kobe is otherworldly. But the Celtics are the best team to grace the floor of the NBA in 10 years. They won their games by an average of 10.3 points per game, an average that includes the last month of the season when KG, Pierce and Allen all played vastly reduced minutes. That 10.3 points per game differential is higher then all but three teams in the moder era (and all those teams had a little someone named Michael Jordan).

Now, Kobe may go all Michael on us and take over the Finals, but short of a truly Jordanesque performance, the Celtics are too deep, too talented and too driven to be denied. It should be a Finals match up for the ages, but I see future NBA Finals MVP Kevin Garnett finally hoisting the trophy that has eluded him all these years.

(Of course, now that I've written that, it'll probably be a Utah Jazz, Detroit Pistons Finals. But, then again, what do I know?)

A Farewell to Jimmy

As Kenny Rogers said, you gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away and know when to run. I took this information to heart the past weekend and rode my recent string of good luck into Sin City with my brother Jordan and my buddy Shithouse. (Don't look at me. He chose the nickname himself, but that's a story for another day. Let's just say that Kelly Slater had something to do with it.) None of us are big gamblers (read: none of us gamble at all), but because I had done so well in the first half of the Jimmy, I managed to talk them into putting down some money on the NCAA tournament. The way I saw it, whether we won or lost, it would be worth the money to watch the Sweet 16 in Vegas on huge monitors, sitting in comfy leather chairs with hundreds of other fans. So, I flew out to visit my brother in LA and we hopped in his truck, slipped on our sunglasses and headed east on Route 66.

Next stop, Caesars Palace.

On the way to Vegas we discussed the first games of the day: Texas vs. Stanford and Davidson vs. Wisconsin. I had a good feeling about Texas since they were playing in Houston, but I didn't know what to make of the other game. I picked Wisconsin to make it to the Elite Eight in the Jimmy, so my initial inclination was to go with the Badgers, but Jordan, who isn't the world's biggest sports fan, surprised me with his strong opinion. He said, "we HAVE to bet on Davidson." Apparently, on his way out the door, he randomly bumped into his buddy Harris. When Harris heard where we were going he gave Jordan three words of advice: "Bet. On. Davidson." No matter what I said, I couldn't convince Jordan that Davidson would lose. It wasn't happening. So, I decided to let it ride and go with the underdog. Viva Las Vegas.

Since we got a little bit of a late start (I assure you, our hangovers had NOTHING to do with it...) and were arriving after the start of the first games, I phoned Shithouse (it never gets old, does it?), who had arrived in Vegas a day earlier and had him put money on Texas and Davidson to win outright for us. He told us he'd try to get to Caesars early and grab some seats. With nothing left to do, Jordan and I turned on the radio, popped open the bag of beef jerky -- because really, what's a road trip without beef jerky? -- and began the home stretch. Vegas was so close we could taste it (and I must say, Vegas tastes suspiciously like beef jerky...)

As I mentioned earlier, I'm not a big gambler. It's never been my thing. I somewhat enjoy winning money, but I absolutely can't stand losing money. I could win $100 playing blackjack and kick myself the rest of the night for playing one last hand and losing $5. It's not rational. It's just my thing. I hate losing. Needless to say, listening to the first half of the two games on the radio as we sat in traffic heading to Caesars was one of the most agonizing experiences in my life. Texas clung to a thin lead, while Davidson was doing the impossible and keeping up with the heavily favored Badgers. Jordan and I were literally jumping up and down inside the truck, screaming at the top of our lungs, willing our teams to victory and scaring the people who, through their own misfortune, were stopped next to us in traffic. Mercifully, the traffic abated as we neared the casino and flew down the streets of Las Vegas Boulevard. Leaving tire tracks in my wake, I flew into the Caesars Palace parking garage. Jordan and I hit the ground at a full sprint and entered the casino floor.

There's nothing quite like entering a Vegas casino. The combination of the flashing lights, artificial oxygen, profuse amounts of alcohol and extraordinary mix of seedy locals, gawky tourists and impeccably styled high rollers makes it feel more like walking into the set of a bizarre seventies movie then a hotel lobby. The rhythmic clang of the slot machines and twisting maze of video poker machines lull you into a hypnotic trance. The only thing missing is David Bowie walking on the walls singing a creepy love ballad.

Today, however, the casino had a slightly different feel. There was distinct audible hum that hung in the air above the usual swirl of casino noise. The volume rose and fell in a seemingly random, almost organic pattern. As we slipped through the throngs of gamblers towards the sports book, the noise steadily increase in volume until we identified the cause of the commotion: hundreds of cheering people, crowded shoulder to shoulder with all eyes on two huge monitors playing both NCAA tournament games simultaneously while droves of cocktail waitresses mingled among the crowd dispersing alcoholic concoctions of all shapes and sizes (if you ever wanted to watch an NCAA tournament game, sipping on a 48 ounce margarita, you know where to go.). After a ten minute search, we managed to track down Shithouse and his girlfriend, who thrust Bud Lights into our open hands and proudly displayed the tickets for Texas and Davidson, both of which were leading. After exchanging the requisite chest bumps and awkward man-hugs, we searched for a place to sit but the only one open was behind a roped off section and marked VIP. Bolstered by a false sense of confidence from the current Texas and Davidson leads, two Bud Lights, aviator sunglasses and the post-chest-bump-adrenaline, I held open the velour rope for Jordan, Shithouse and his girlfriend and we grabbed a seat in the leather bound luxury of the VIP section. I'm of the school of thought that if you act like you own the place, people tend to assume that you do, so we kicked back in the high rollers lounge and enjoyed the action from the lap of luxury.

I know what you're thinking. Wow, Justin. What a string of luck. You're winning the Jimmy, you win the first two bets you ever placed and you stroll into VIP seating at the world's most famous sports book. What a day. And you'd be right. Only we weren't done yet.

After the first games wrapped up, we decided to place two more bets on Kansas and Memphis to cover the spread. Over the next three hours, we watched Kansas and Memphis roll to 20 and 30 point half time leads respectively and never looked back. Vegas didn't know what hit 'em.

I strode to the sports book counter, winning tickets in hand, with the swagger of Michael Jordan after he nailed the jumper over Byron Russell to win the NBA title. When I got to the front of the line, I slammed the tickets on the counter like Muhammad Ali towering over Sonny Liston. Then, my face took on the cool, collected sneer of Scarface as I gazed upon the grand total of my gambling opus:

$43.75

That's right. I placed four $10 bets. Technically, I placed the bets together with Jordan, so in truth, I placed four $5 bets. Real Bill Gates action. It may not have been a large chunk of change, but we strolled out of Caesars like millionaires. The best part, is that from then on, anytime we bought a drink, ordered food, or tipped our strippers (just kidding, mom), we said "that was the money from the games!" At the end of the night, we must have turned that forty three dollars into three hundred, but it never felt like we paid a dime.

Vivaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Las Vegas!

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. My string of good fortune ran out when North Carolina knocked off Louisville two nights later and I ended up settling for third in the Jimmy, my title dreams deferred. But don't you worry, JBors, I'll be back next year and I'll ride my wave of good luck all the way to the title.

You see, I may have fallen short in the Jimmy, but I made it out of Vegas right when my luck ran dry. Who's lucky now?

See you next year, everyone!

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2008 Jimmy Final Awards

The Jesus Award: Shaun (WWTCD)

The Jesus award is presented to the participant who saved the Jimmy

I would like to extend a heartfelt debt of gratitude to Shaun Holaday for singlehandedly rescuing the Jimmy from the disastrous prospects of a victory by "autopick". Without Shaun's gutsy selection of Kansas as the eventual champions, the Jimmy would have likely been won by Juan, who selected two upsets (that's right, two) in his entire bracket. Hopefully, future participants will learn a valuable lesson from Shaun's bracket: It's better to be unfathomably lucky, then any good at picking basketball games.

Way to go, Shaun!

The Four Leaf Clover Award: Shaun (WWTCD)

The Four Leaf Clover award is presented to the participant who had a significant tournament run, despite picking the least amount of games right.

When I said "unfathomably lucky", I meant unfathomably lucky. Aside from the two participants who didn't fill out their brackets and the two participants who did not realize that the number next to the teams indicated their relative strength, Shaun picked less correct games then anyone else in the Jimmy. Yes, you heard that correctly. The eventual champion picked less correct games then every other competitive participant. This certainly brings up the question of whether we need to amend the scoring system to give more weight to picking many games correctly versus just picking the champion, however, that does nothing to take away Shaun's victory (tarnish? sure. take away, sorry guys.)

(For the record this has nothing to do with bitterness over finishing third after picking the most games correctly. Noooooooooooooooooooooooo, nothing at all...)

The Bridesmaid Award: Deanna (DZaster)

The Bridesmaid award is presented to the tournament's runner-up.

I suppose I should call this "The Disciple Award", since Deanna would have ended up winning and saving the tournament if Shaun did not complete his miraculous comeback, but either way, I would like to give a far overdue congratulations to Deanna for her impressive tournament finish. In fact, this is the second year in a row that she submitted a nearly identical bracket to my own and ended up beating me because of one game. Next year I'm going to have to randomly change a few games just to throw Deanna off my tracks.

(Deanna, in case you're wondering, I'm picking all the #1 seeds to lose in the first round next year. Trust me...)

The No-Seriously-I'm-not-Bitter Award: Justin (The Almighty J)

The No-Seriously-I'm-not-Bitter-Award is presented to the person who picked the most games correctly, but ultimately lost the pool.

Stupid weighted scoring system...

The Whatever Helps you Sleep at Night Award: Eric (winterFrostGum)

The Whatever Helps you Sleep at Night Award is presented to the participant who avoided finishing in last place due to two people not filling out their brackets, one person not realizing the numbers by teams names indicated their rankings and one person picking Sienna to win the tournament because "Sienna is the greatest city in Tuscany!".

Due in large part to Georgetown's early exit and Clemson's inability to make it out of their first game, Eric wound up selecting only five of the fifteen games in the Midwest region correctly. For the record, this is only one game more then the two participants who did not understand the correlation between a teams seeding and their ability to play basketball. Similarly, this is only five games more then the participants who did not fill out a bracket. However, before I single Eric out, it is important to note that he had serious competition for the award. He managed to narrowly hold off Mike (pitt is it.) and Trenton (UCLA! Fight! Fight! Fight!) by 1 and 2 points respectively to secure the award.

The best part is that I tried to find one game that could have gone a different way and changed the outcome, but I couldn't. They all missed so many games (Clemson over Kansas, Stanford over Texas, Tenn over Louis, GTown in Final Four, Georgia over Xavier) that it was impossible to narrow it down to just one. A truly admirable effort by all parties.

The End Justifies the Means Award: Dad (Big3JDaddy)

The End Justifies the Means Award is presented to the participant who's early mistakes didn't end up costing him.

At the beginning of the tournament, Dad inadvertently did not enter his picks for the championship games. Heading in to the Final Four, this looked like a serious dilemma because both of his participants were playing in semi-final games. In a funny twist of fate (well, funny at least to the half of the league that didn't pick a UNC/UCLA final game), both UCLA and North Carolina lost their Final Four match ups and their omission ended up not affecting Dad's bracket at all.

But, I'm sure if you ask Dad now, he'll say he had Kansas over Memphis the whole time.

The Think Outside the Box Award: Anyone without a UNC/UCLA Championship pick

The Think Outside the Box Award is presented to all participants who did not select a championship game of UCLA vs. North Carolina.

Speaking of UNC/UCLA, I would like to issue kudos to all the participants who did NOT pick a final match up of UCLA versus North Carolina, because exactly half of the league participants submitted this championship game that was not to be. Further kudos to Jenn (WINNAH!!!!!) for being the only person to put neither UNC or UCLA in the final game, though I'm not sure Sienna vs. Texas turned out much better.

The At Least I Didn't Pick a UCLA / North Carolina Championship Award: Chris (BOOTLEG)

The A.L.I.D.P.A.UCLA.UNC.C.A Award is presented to the participant who finished in the top half of the bracket without picking UCLA or North Carolina to win the championship.

Congratulations to Chris for managing to finish in the top half of the final standings without picking a UNC/UCLA Championship game or Kansas. A lesser man would have rolled over when their championship pick lost in the second round (may I suggest that no one mention Stephen Curry while Chris is in earshot...), but Chris battled back and can proudly claim a spot at the big kids table. He may not have won, but he certainly lost with pride.

The Get What You Deserve Award: Juan (Juan's Bracket), Sandy (ArtStar) tie

The Get What You Deserve Award is awarded to the participant(s) who picked primarily favorites, yet did not win the tournament

I suppose one could (or in Juan's case, did) make the case that picking all number one seeds to make it to the Final Four took guts, since it had never happened before, so I won't open that Pandora's box. Furthermore, it's tough to mock anyone for picking that way since it...well...turned out to be the correct pick. So, before I get to the real issue at hand, I want to congratulate Juan and Sandy for picking all four teams in the Final Four.

The real issue, is that Sandy and Juan's lack of creativity clearly angered the basketball gods. They may have been able to appease the basketball God's with an all favorites Final Four since it had never happened, however, they

The Don't Even Have Bragging Rights Award: Jason (JD Fly)

The Don't Even Have Bragging Rights Award goes to the participant who did not win the tournament and, to further the sting, lost to his brother.

I'll try to be the bigger man here but… HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

The Division II Award: Tori (TrickyPix)

The Division II Award is awarded to the participant who won the battle of the people who didn't know what the numbers next to the teams meant.

In a race that turned out to be surprisingly close, Tori narrowly edged Jenn for the DII title when Memphis knocked off Texas in the Elite Eight.

You want to know what's really scary? If UCLA had won the championship, Tori would have actually tied someone else. I'm not sure if you can recover from that one. That might be a career ender.

(For the sake of the participant in question, I have left their name out. I will only say that it rhymes with Beric.)

The What-If Award: Ryan (RDUB)

The What-If Award is awarded to the participant who could have won the entire tournament their Final Four pick hadn't been eliminated on the first day of the tournament.

There's nothing quite like watching your championship dreams end on the first day of the tournament. You spend three days pouring over stats, listening to pundits debate about this year's Cinderellas, and figuring out which 12 seed will knock off the 5 seed only to watch your bracket go up in flames two hours after tip-off of the first games. Worse yet, to watch the team you picked to get the championship game, not just lose, but get eviscerated by a lower seed.

But, fear not Ryan. The tournament may have been tough, but I'm sure you would have traded a potential title for the coveted What-If Award, anyway.

The AYSO Trophy Award: Kolsky (thatiswhytheysendmeiamexpert), Hayes (Bruin Blue)

The AYSO Trophy Award goes to the participants who failed to distinguish themselves in any notable way, but still receive an award (along with orange slices, a mini bag of Doritos and a Capri-Sun).

Because, here in the JBorhood, we're all winners.

Aloha everyone and see you next year. Thanks for making this the best Jimmy, yet!

JBorhood Quick Hit #2

First and foremost, congratulations to Shaun (WWTCD) for winning the third annual Jimmy (in truth, it's the first year we've called it the Jimmy, but I'm down with revisionist history). I'm working on doling out the final awards, but I want to make sure I don't miss any of the good, bad or ugly picks from the final brackets so I need to take a little more time. I'll have the awards up this weekend and notify all the participants via email. In the mean time, I leave you with this hilarious vignette concerning a fantasy baseball website.

Now wait, before those of you who don't care about baseball or fantasies leave (see, now you don't want to go, right?), I want to assure you that the following comedy takes absolutely no baseball knowledge to understand. That's right. Equal opportunity comedy here at the JBorhood. It's affirmative action for the wanna be sports fan.

So, I'm in a fantasy baseball league, which, for those of you who don't know, is a collection of men who form a league where they select actual baseball players to form teams and then use these teams as an excuse to berate one another. Good times. But this isn't just any league. No, this is a twenty team, gigantic monstrosity of a league that people take INCREDIBLY seriously. There's nothing at stake. No money, prizes, beer, women. Just pride. But that doesn't stop people from working themselves into a frenzy over anything that bugs them.

The current issue at stake is the website we use to keep track of our teams. We just moved from an old website, which sucked, but had a number of good features, to a new website that looks pretty and has flashy colors, but makes you want to set yourself on fire when you use it. I think the designers of the website showed three possible versions to three focus groups and chose the one where the users gouged their eyes out after usage, instead of the one where the users hung themselves or simultaneously drank poison kool-aid. (I'm only partially kidding.) This new website has lead to some spirited discussion about whether or not we should move back to the old crappy website or stay with the new, hilariously awful site. I'll spare you the majority of the details, but I wanted to share one managers thoughts on what the slogans should be for the old (TQ Stats) and new (Fanball) sites.

(From the mind of my Mike Oppenheim)

TQ: If you leave, you'll miss us like your kinda shitty ex girlfriend who gave decent head.

TQ: We promise to agitate you just a little less than the rest!

TQ: Where the bare minimum is considered a standard of excellence!

Fanball: You won't believe what six dollars will get you. Seriously, you won't believe it!

Fanball: we promise nothing, and offer nothing in return!

Fanball: Where the shit hits the fan!

Fanball: A retarded monkey with epilepsy could design a better functioning site! We went with a retarded genetically engineered chicken instead!

Bravo, Mike. Bravo.

(If you enjoyed that tirade, you can catch more of Mike's glib witticisms at www.mikeyopp.com. He's going to kill me for using that post as an intro, so please go read his stuff. It's great. I promise.)

JBorhood Quick Hit #1

My recent focus on The Jimmy as well as a recent trip to California and numerous mid-week engagements have disrupted the JBorhood’s weekly schedule, but never fear! The JBorhood will resume normal working order next week Friday. In order to tide you over until then, I’m going to post a number of short articles to keep you up to date during the interim. I know it seems like an eternity now, but we’ll get through this together. Hold on for one more day!

JBorhood Quick Hit #1: Cleveland Browns defensive back Kenny Wright arrested for marijuana possession

You’ve never heard of Kenny Wright.

I’ve never heard of Kenny Wright.

So, why do we care?

Well, Kenny was arrested after a half-mile foot chase that began in the Police parking lot. For Kenny’s sake, I’ll kindly gloss over the fact that starting an altercation in a police parking lot while in possession of two ounces of marijuana is never a good idea, however, I can’t pass up the opportunity to reiterate that he was captured after a half mile foot chase. Seriously, you’re an NFL defensive back and you can’t even run away from the cops for more then a half mile? That’s sad. Forget the embarrassment to their franchise; the Browns should cut him for performance reasons. (Either that or sign the cop who caught him to a one year deal.)

Good luck in The Jimmy, everyone!