The Agony Of Defeat

Oh, the agony. Victory was so close at hand that I made the mistake of dreaming about what I was going to do with the $230 I was about to win from all of the "donations" to my NCAA Tourney office pool. After being the only person out of 67 entries who correctly predicted the Final Four, I was number 1. When I failed to pick Florida over UCLA, I still sat in second place, thinking that I was assured some sort of prize since the top three finishers would be rewarded. Then yesterday, I started looking over the standings a little more closely, and I realized that there were actually TWO people on the list who had picked the Gators to win who would pass me if Ohio State lost!

So last night I was way more interested in the game than I would have been otherwise, but the Buckeyes totally let me down. They couldn't defend Florida behind the arch, and the Gators were on fire, hitting 10 of 18 threes in the game. If OSU had tried pounding it inside more instead of trying to match three-pointers (of which they hit only 4 of 23), I think they would have had a chance. Instead, they lost by 9 points and cost me $230 dollars. My coworker who was in 11th place before the final game got 160 points for the win and came back to beat me by 20 points, leaving me with a fourth place finish. In this case, I think I would rather have been in the middle of the pack instead of so close the thrill of victory, only to be slapped with the agony of defeat. :(

In my non-work and non-money pool, our friends Amber and Jake (who happen to be married to each other) finished in the top two spots, respectively. Congratulations, Jamber!! Clearly, there are lots of basketball brains in their household to go along with all of the PhD brains we already knew about! :)