The Steinke Tournament Challenge

I'm still a little excited about the upcoming NCAA Tournament, so this year I decided to fill out my bracket before the pointless play-in games (I'm sorry, first-round games) start. In the past I've played in pools with friends and co-workers, but this year I'm playing in a much more cutthroat pool. I'm playing with Augie and Mrs. Augie's Mom (Gretchen to those of you who know her name). We filled out our brackets tonight. Let's take a closer look:

DAD'S GRID

The highlight of my bracket is obvious: Michigan beats Michigan State in the championship. The odds of this actually happening are almost nil, but how many chances will I have to pit my in-state rivals against each other in a game that could actually happen? The other highlight: No 1 seeds in my final four. It's been a season full of new No. 1s in the AP Top 20, so I'm expecting some upsets in the tournament, too. It's probably the first time I've picked a final four with no 1 seeds.

MRS. AUGIE'S MOM'S GRID

Mrs. Augie's Mom filled out a pretty predictable bracket. Top seeds advance to the final four in two of the four regions. Marquette was a shocker out of the East region, though. The winner of this year's Steinke Tournament Challenge will likely be decided by the South region. I have Kansas losing in the round of 32, and Mrs. Augie's Mom has them winning the tournament. I could make up some ground if Marquette loses early in the East region. Overall, there are enough differences to make our tournament exciting, which leads me to Augie's picks.

AUGIE'S GRID

Augie is going to do some major damage this year ... if there are a lot of upsets. A 16 seed has never won a game, but Augie thinks all of the 16 seeds are going to win this year. It is definitely the highlight of his bracket. Highlight No. 2: Augie has my alma mater winning the tournament. I'm not sure if he's looking for brownie points or just brownies, but it's a bold choice for sure. I helped Augie write his answers down, but he did all the picking. He chose his winners by picking one of two numbers or one of two letters. I gave him the first letters of the schools' names, the number of loses/wins they had or their seeds, and he picked a winner. His choices were very random, but we'll see if his method works.

Your input

Who do you think will win? Fill out the poll on the right-hand side of the page. Come back from time to time to see who is leading. I'll post updates after each day (or maybe each round) using a common tournament point scoring system: 64 possible points per round (i.e. two points per win in the round of 64, four points per win in round of 32, etc).

In related news

My crossword pages from Sunday's Focus pages were mentioned by on of my favorite media bloggers: Charles Apple. I didn't design the pages, but I thought Crystal Myers deserved some credit for making my story and puzzle look great.