M.M.O.H.

March Madness Over Here.


I) Challenge:  Print bracket properly on A4 paper.
Did you know? All countries in the world use A4 as the standard letter format (8.3 X 11.7 inches) except the USA and Canada who still use the US letter format  (8.5 x 11 inches).  
Alice's solution: on computer: open bracket, take screen shot, import image into Pages, zoom out a bit but not too much.  Print.
Gerty & Eric's solution: copy Alice's.


II) Challenge: Whom to root for?
Did you know? 

• Harvard is going to the NCAA for the first time since 1946. 
• Its 26-4 record is the best in program history.
• As a 12th seed, the Crimson will face 5th seed Vanderbilt  in Albuquerque, N.M., Thursday at 2:40 MST, 4:40 p.m. EST (that's 8:40PM GMT).   
• If you have 30 minutes read this excellent account of the rise of Harvard basketball.  Don't forget the comments. 
• Crimson junior hoopster Kyle Casey 4 years ago passed up Vandy and Stanford to play for Harvard.    
• Harvard's Lavietes Pavilion may be the only one with bleachers that is has a team in this year's NCAAs.

At the Crimson & White scrimmage Oct 2011

The football team was there too.

Gerty's solution: Fill out more than one bracket.
Alice's solution: Flip a coin when can't decide.
Eric's solution: Go with favored teams unless have a gut feeling about an upset.  Also, he always picks Duke to go all the way.  He has been correct 4 out of the past 20 years. 
Another solution: Fill out the bracket based on Alumni salaries...

...or, in honor of Occupy Wall Street, the debt to credential ratio (total $ borrowed/ total undergrad degrees awarded)

Or you could first ask what your bracket says about you, THEN fill it out...


III) Challenge:  Watching the games!
Did you know? This is harder than you might think...

• Last year all the games were free to watch on line.   This year its $3.99 for a pass. 
• The NCAA site says "watch every game here" but when we try, we get "not available in your region."  The fine print says 
• Can I watch the games streamed live outside of the US? The NCAA® March Madness® service is accessible by US viewers who are current subscribers to a partner TV service provider and have this network as part of their channel package. The games cannot be viewed outside of the US.
• Googling "watch march madness outside usa" gets us to the ESPN player.  We have already bought a months' pass for £17.99 which is said to include the NCAA tourney.  On ESPN?  Weird. 
• This week Carl and Fred are hiking and trial running in Brevard NC with 3 track team mates.   Glorious spring weather for training at altitude; still, they will be back in Durham for the Harvard tip on Thursday afternoon.  

Ward Family Solution:  stay tuned...

Go Duke!
Go Harvard!

Sweet 16wards.