Second Round Results

Me
24/32
(Richmond, Morehead St., VCU, Florida St., Michigan, Cincy, UCLA, Temple)

Mom
19/32
(Kansas, Illinois, Richmond, Morehead St., VCU, Purdue, Washington, Marquette, Kentucky, Michigan, Arizona, Cincy, Temple)

Sis
15/32
(UConn, Texas, Michigan, Duke, Kansas St., Gonzaga, BYU, Kansas, Illinois, Richmond, Morehead St., VCU, Florida St., G. Mason, Kentucky, Marquette, UNC)

Dad
22/32
(G. Mason, Marquette, Washington, Illinois, Richmond, Morehead St., VCU, Florida St., Gonzaga)

Preview: March 18, 2011 (ET)

13 Oakland vs 4 Texas (CBS @12:15pm)
Me, Mom, Dad: Texas
Sis: Oakland

9 Tennessee vs 8 Michigan (truTV @12:40pm)
Me, Mom, Sis: Tennessee
Dad: Michigan

15 Akron vs 2 Notre Dame (TBS @1:40pm)
Me, Mom, Sis, Dad: Notre Dame

9 Villanova vs 8 George Mason (TNT @2:10pm)
Me, Mom: George Mason
Sis, Dad: Villanova

12 Memphis vs 5 Arizona (CBS @2:45pm)
Me, Sis, Dad: Arizona
Mom: Memphis

16 Hampton vs 1 Duke (truTV @3:10pm)
Me, Mom, Dad: Duke
Sis: Hampton

10 Florida St vs 7 Texas A&M (TBS @4:10pm)
Me, Sis, Dad: Texas A&M
Mom: Florida St

16 UT-San Antonio vs 1 Ohio St (TNT @4:40pm)
Me, Mom, Sis, Dad: Ohio State

16 Boston U vs 1 Kansas (TBS @6:50pm)
Me, Dad: Kansas
Mom, Sis: Boston U

15 Long Island vs 2 North Carolina (CBS @7:15pm)
Me, Mom, Dad: UNC
Sis: LIU-Brook

14 St. Peter's vs 3 Purdue (TNT @7:20pm)
Me, Sis, Dad: Purdue
Mom: St. Peter's

11 Marquette vs 6 Xavier (truTV @7:27pm)
Me: Marquette
Mom, Sis, Dad: Xavier

9 Illinois vs 8 UNLV (TBS @9:20pm)
Me: Illinois
Mom, Sis, Dad: UNLV

10 Georgia vs 7 Washington (CBS @9:45pm)
Me, Sis: Washington
Mom, Dad: Georgia

11 VCU vs 5 Georgetown (TNT @9:50pm)
Me, Mom, Sis, Dad: Georgetown

14 Indiana St. vs Syracuse (truTV 9:57pm)
Me, Mom, Sis, Dad: Syracuse

Preview: March 17, 2011 (ET)

12 Clemson vs 5 West Virginia (12:15 PM ET, CBS)
Me, Mom, Sis: WV
Dad: Clemson

9 Old Dominion vs 8 Butler (12:40 PM ET, truTV)
Me, Mom, Sis, Dad: Butler

13 Morehead St. vs 4 Louisville (1:40 PM ET, TBS)
Me, Mom, Sis, Dad: Louisville

10 Penn St. vs 7 Temple (2:10 PM ET, TNT)
Me, Mom: Penn St.
Sis, Dad: Temple

13 Princeton vs 4 Kentucky (2:45 PM ET, CBS)
Me, Dad: Kentucky
Mom, Sis: Princeton

16 UNC-Asheville vs 1 Pittsburgh (3:10 PM ET, truTV)
Me, Mom, Sis, Dad: Pittsburgh

12 Richmond vs 5 Vanderbilt (4:10 PM ET, TBS)
Me, Mom, Sis, Dad: Vanderbilt

15 N Colorado vs 2 San Diego St (4:40 PM ET, TNT)
Me, Mom, Sis, Dad: SDSU

15 UC Santa Barbara vs 2 Florida (6:50 PM ET, TBS)
Me, Mom, Sis, Dad: Florida

14 Wofford vs 3 BYU (7:15 PM ET, CBS)
Me, Mom, Dad: BYU
Sis: Wofford

14 Bucknell vs 3 Connecticut (7:20 PM ET, TNT)
Me, Mom, Dad: Connecticut
Sis: Bucknell

13 Belmont vs 4 Wisconsin (7:27 PM ET, truTV)
Me, Mom, Sis, Dad: Wisconsin

10 Michigan St vs 7 UCLA (9:20 PM ET, TBS)
Me: Michigan St
Mom, Sis, Dad: UCLA

11 Gonzaga vs 6 St. John's (9:45 PM ET, CBS)
Me, Mom: Gonzaga
Sis, Dad: St. John's

11 Missouri vs 6 Cincinnati (9:50 PM ET, TNT)
Me, Mom: Missouri
Sis, Dad: Cincy

12 Utah St vs Kansas St (9:57 PM ET, truTV)
Me, Mom, Dad: Kansas St
Sis: Utah St

Dad's Bracket

click to expand

My dad is also Chinese, and I inherited his zeal for basketball. Over time though, the student has outgrown the master, and while he's quite up to date with what's happening in the NBA, I definitely know a lot more when it comes to the NCAA. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if he's been checking scores on his iPad, or if there's been some osmosis when he reads sports websites or the sports page of our local paper (which sometimes has NCAA news on slow days).

Unlike my sister and my mother, my dad actually asked for the seeds of each teams. As a result, he went chalk a lot, and so it'll be interesting to see if that approach will work.

Sister's Bracket

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This is my younger sister's bracket. She's about four years younger than me, and was born in LA. She's a notorious homer, embracing Kobe Bryant and the Lakers as manifestations of her hometown's basketball superiority (while I, having been born in San Francisco, shuttle back and forth between the Kings and the Warriors, with occasional Celtics boosting). That explains why she has UCLA winning it all.

Her other choices were determined by how nice the names sounded, according to her. Had UCLA and Wofford not been in the same bracket, she probably would have put the latter in the Final Game as well.

Mom's Bracket

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This is my mom's bracket. Mom is a Chinese woman who has 0 background knowledge of sports and so she chose wins, basically by how prestigious a school sounds (thus, Princeton making it to the Final game).

In picking this bracket, I just called out match-ups and let her pick, without letting her know the seeds (it would have took me like five minutes to explain the seed concept). The exercise took longer than she expected and hilariously, she was like "Are we done yet?" just as we were beginning the third round.

Adrian's Bracket

click to expand

Call me the control group. I'm Adrian and this is my bracket.

I actually follow college hoops reasonably well, despite living in the Philippines. I follow the leagues on ESPN.com, I watch games when I can on the American sports channel here, and I'm an avid Duke fan, which will no doubt garner me lots of hatred from the interwebz. I had one bracket last season where I picked them to win it all and it was a total hoot when they did. So this year, I'm picking them again.

Admittedly, I didn't have as much time to really research the bracket compared to last season, when I was actually doing write-ups for a local website of the tourney, but I felt pretty comfortable with what I've got and so here it is.

Introduction

The inspiration behind this was the Tony Kornheiser Show and "rolling with Phil's mom."

The TK radio show often lets guests fill out March Madness brackets on air, and before the 2006 tournament, the show thought it would be a hoot if they let then-producer Phil Ceppaglia's mother fill out a bracket as well, in spite of her overwhelming ignorance about men's basketball.

Phil's mom picked George Mason to go the distance, and guess what, the midmajor that could made it all the way to the Final Four. The effect? TK Show fans saying, "I roll with Phil's mom."

Now, having an American housewife pick basketball games? Ok, plenty of opportunity to get some sort of information osmosis going on. Maybe she reads the sports page of her local paper. Maybe she watches her son flick onto ESPN. Maybe she hears neighbors talk about things. So, what if we pull it further away and sort of see what happens when we get people not in the US to pick the March Madness tournament?

Enter myself and my family, Chinese-Filipinos living in Manila, picking games.