mardi gras

this weekend is the good ol' mardi gras tournament. this tournament is a lot of fun, and if your team has never attended, i highly recommend it. if your team isnt expecting to win games, or if you are expecting to win them extremely hung over, trips down to bourbon street highlight both friday and saturday night for most teams. top that with the great free food and drink, and the kick ass competition, and you have one hell of a tournament. yay for mardi gras.

this year the strength of attending teams is as high as ever, but the seeding is erratic at best. first, notre dame-x is not the overall 1 seed. notre dame is a good team, and they have had great showings at ccc and qctu, and if they were bringing their actual team, i could understand arguments to seed them above wisconsin. but since they are bringing an x team, there is no way wisconsin should be anything other than the 1 seed. on top of that, texas a 3 seed in their pool? minnesota a 5? i think the seedings are going to lead to interesting results. on top of that, the 1 seed in each power pool plays four straight games. yikes. no advantage whatsoever to be a 1 seed, except maybe leaving the fields early to hit up the night life. according to score reporter, the 3 seed gets two games, a bye, and then the 1 seed. i see each 3 seed beating the 1 seed in power pools.

im not sure what the format is going to be, looks possible that winner of pool A gets a bye to quarters, and the other top five play prequarters. the last nine teams have play in games on saturday to get to prequarters sunday? best guess i have right now.

so what do i see in my crystal ball for this weekend? not much. these predictions should be taken with a grain of salt. or multiple grains.

POOL A
i believe texas is underseeded here. illinois lost a lot from last year, and their results from vegas indicate they are still coming together. of course wisconsins results from vegas would indicate they are poop this year, and i dont believe that for a second. so call me a hypocrite. fair enough. i dont know what to make of notre dame-x. they are going to be real short on numbers, but there sure is a lot of quality in those short numbers. i think they may get overlooked with their x status and surprise. ucf and georgia tech are both decent programs and i see both teams getting at least one win against the top 3 each. by that math, this pool will be a mess. i will go with texas and notre dame-x tying for 1st at 3-1, with texas taking the top spot with a 4th round win over the exhausted x squad.

POOL B
i cant understand why people are so quick to get off the hodag train. i see a huge face crush going down in this pool. the only hiccup i see is in round 4, after the hodags come off a tough battle with minnesota in round 3, to face a rested florida state. the more i think about it the more idiotic it sounds, i know i wrote above that 3 seeds would beat the 1s, but not in this pool. no way wisconsin loses to florida state. right? texas st is solid, i see them battling with minnesota for the 2 spot in this pool. my coin flip says texas st. its a smart coin. so wisconsin will roll 4-0 and texas st will finish the day 3-1.

POOL C
i see this pool being a battle between michigan and unt, and with the bye before the matchup, i give the nod to unt. i dont anticipate any other team to give either magnum or north texas a real scare. dartmouth will be solid this year, but this is their first tournament outside, i see them winning a couple, finishing 3rd. that means unt 4-0 and michigan 3-1.

as for sunday, who the hell knows about prequarters, but the teams in quarters could possibly be

notre dame-x
texas
wisconsin
texas st
michigan
unt
central florida
north park/luther (whoever wins their pool)

i dont want to put the time into thinking about what the matchups may be for quarters, so the teams i like best and would like to see in semis are

notre dame-x
texas
wisconsin
michigan

this is where i get off the x bandwagon, the remaining teams are too good and too deep for a short rostered squad to prevail. ill take wisconsin over texas in the final.

maybe i like my notre dame boys too much, maybe i like the great lakes too much. probably true cause i know them best. guilty as charged. no matter what happens, the tournament should be exciting and i look forward to following the results from my cold ass home in indiana.