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Get inside March Madness with SI.com's Luke Winn in the Tourney Blog, a daily journal of college basketball commentary, on-site reporting and reader-driven discussions.
3/26/2007 02:13:00 PM

Blog Pool Update: Tuba Slips, Unknown Takes Lead

UCLA
The Prince of Westwood (left) will be kicking it with his fellow Bruins in the ATL.
Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images
NEW YORK -- The Blog Pool finally got a sponsor this week: Crayola Anti-Dust Chalk. Forty-six of our 638 bracketeers picked the entire Final Four correctly ... while I only got half, and am tied for 224th place. I'm only a little bitter. Can you tell?

Wunderlich
Florida tubist David Wunderlich, currently in second place, is writing a symphonic ode to Jo Noah that's called "Keep Hatin'."
AP
David Wunderlich, the Florida tubist who was our runaway leader after the first weekend, has fallen into second place and is currently cursing Jonathan Wallace for soiling his Final Four. Wunderlich still has the most correct picks (53) of anyone in the pool, and had a perfect Midwest Region. His bracket, "Lee For Three," could not have been more appropriately named, given Humphrey's shooting heroics in St. Louis, where Wunderlich was on the sidelines in the Gators pep band. He kindly sent us a snapshot of him on duty, with the disclaimer that "it's not really that great of a picture," and while both he and his tuba were left off of the band's Final Four travel list, we hear there's a movement afoot to get him to Atlanta. Which would be nice, because if Florida beats Ohio State in the title game, he's taking home the big prize. (Whatever that is.)

Your new leader, meanwhile, is a fellow named Eric Bakewell, who nailed the Final Four and will be crowned champ if the Gators beat Georgetown on Monday night. Bakewell has yet to give his team a good name (it's just "Team Bakewell") or send us an e-mail (two strikes, Eric!), but we'll forgive him for now because his picks have been so absurdly good: he only missed two Sweet 16 teams and one in the Elite Eight.

The power of Google allows the Blog to at least guess who Bakewell might be: I found an L.A. lawyer of the same name who graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown law, and did his undergrad at Vandy. Our bracket-Bakewell has the Hoyas in his title game, and picked the Commodores to go to the Sweet 16. Coincidence? I think not. Eric, send us a note and confirm or correct your identity. (But don't bill the Blog for your time.)

A few other pool contenders have been kind enough to check in (the Blog urges anyone with a shot at winning to send an e-mail): R.J. Kidd, the owner of our current third-place team, "Misery Loves Company," would have taken the overall lead had Memphis upset Ohio State on Saturday. Kidd, a deaf second-year student at Rochester Institute of Technology, named his bracket that way because he expected it to tank ... and then it turned out to be the greatest forecasting work he's ever done. Bryan Brooks, who was in the hunt after the first weekend, wrote in to lament the death of his "Pink Squirrels" bracket after Texas lost. Tom Mabry's "Bracket Challenge" team suffered the same fate; he said he has adopted Georgetown has his new fave, because they share an offense with the local boys at Air Force.

As for myself, I went and joined a college hockey pool. I figured I'd have better luck making picks on a bracket that I knew nothing about. My cousin Dave, a diehard fan who's running the thing, took me to the one hockey game I saw all year -- Wisconsin vs. Michigan at the Kohl Center -- but it was mainly a drinking event rather than an educational one. The Badgers didn't make the NCAA's 16-team field, and while the Wolverines did, I remember very little about them. Somehow, with the Frozen Four set, I'm tied with Dave for first and can win the meager pot if underdog Maine takes the title. The Black Bears were a three-seed, but as I kid I witnessed them winning the '93 national championship in Milwaukee, and on that basis figured they could do it again. That, folks, is how you pick 'em.

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