First, we’d like to thank everyone who participated. We’re going to continue to do more stuff like this as the site progresses, so stick around. Assorted flatware could be in your future.

Second, we’d like to thank Mario Chalmers. His big time player heroics last night buoyed Booth into 4th place (Booth picked Kansas to win it all) and single-handily prevented us from having to spend a day mailing t-shirts. How much of a Booth move is it to write an article about how you wish you could re-pick Memphis to win it, then actually have the team you originally picked win it all? What. An. Asshole.

And lastly, we’d like to congratulate Team Cool & Tough’s own, Toast, for being Chalky Chalkerson. Never before has such a cripplingly weak bracket taken home the grand prize. Enjoy your steak knives. Looks like you’re going to have to scrap those plans of becoming a vegetarian.

Here’s the final top ten if you’re interested (click to enlarge):

Special congrats to Cup-da-Ballz for being the only person we don’t know to beat Booth. Email us your address and we’ll get you that t-shirt pronto. (Proto, you’re going to have to pry your t-shirt from our cold, dead hands.)

There’s going to be a lot of basketball talk today, and — as always — our take on a mainstream topic is, well, a little off center.

On Saturday night, UNC — the favorite to win it all — lost to Kansas. And while the consensus take is that this was a game Kansas chose to win, a game where they officially got the Roy Williams monkey off their back for good, we think there’s another element that played seriously into the equation. That element was the Dr. Gene Hansbrough Karma.

Forget Roy Williams, forget Bill Self, forget Kansas’ fan base, forget that the Jayhawks looked twice as athletic as the Tarheels on Saturday. As far as we’re concerned, that UNC loss was all about the copious amounts of negative karma brought on by Tyler Hansbrough’s dad, Dr. Gene. Your dad can only spend so many of your televised games blubbering in the stands like a raging idiot before it catches up with you.

And, as the Karma gods are prone to do, they waited for the biggest national spot to enforce their will.

Things your dad can do when you’re a high profile athlete: Attend your games, where one article of team apparel, be televised a maximum of two times a game, drink beers in the stands, eat hot dogs, be accompanied by your mom, be accompanied by some hot chick that’s not your mom, applaud conservatively, fist pump on occasion, tell a ref to “go fuck yourself”, and picture cheerleaders naked.

Things your dad CAN’T DO when you’re a high profile athlete: Be televised so often that casual fans not only know him by first name, they swear they’ll fight him if they ever see him in a bar, WEEP INCESSANTLY, cheer harder than any foreign undergrad in the Duke student section, get more air time than your head coach, have play-by-play guys talk about how smart you are because your dad’s an orthopedic surgeon, or WEEP INCESSANTLY IN THE FIRST HALF BECAUSE YOU MADE A THREE POINT PLAY.

All of the above will garner your team a loss in the most critical of situations. The world’s balance will only take so much douchebaggery. Let’s all learn a lesson from this and be sure to see it coming in the future.

It’s just about here, the climax we’ve all been waiting for. Come Tuesday morning someone’s going home with a sweet set of steak knives!

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner and Burnt Toast are battling for first, but things are still wide open going into the Final Four. And depending on how whether Booth goes on a run or shits the bed, he may be spending a significant amount of time hitchhiking around the US, delivering t-shirts. We do not pay for postage.

Here are the standings going into the Final Four. Good luck to all!

(click to enlarge)

If you could redo your brackets right now, who would you take to win it all? The current Vegas odds have UCLA, Memphis, and Kansas at 3 to 1 and UNC at 8 to 5 (that’s less than 2 to 1 for those of you doing caveman math).

In our NextRound pool only two people backed Memphis. If I could redo my brackets today I would take Memphis to cut down the nets.

First, they have Derrick Rose. When it’s all said and done he might be the number one overall pick in the NBA draft. The guy’s numbers don’t do him justice because he’s unselfish to a fault. It’s not like his numbers are exactly bad though; he went for 21 points, 9 assists, and 6 rebounds against Texas. Not to mention he held Longhorns’ superstar point guard DJ Augustine to 4 of 18 shooting, all the while making Augustine look like a second class player.

But the thing that makes Rose so dangerous is that he can get any shot on the floor at any time, regardless of the defense. He’s the most talented player left in the tournament, there is no debate (first person to tell me Hansbrough is the most talented gets donkey punched).

Second, Memphis is the only Final Four team that had to deal with beating the number 2 seed in their bracket. They had hands down the toughest matchup this past weekend and in the process made Texas (who I’m sure a ton of you had going to the Final Four) look like the girls JV squad from your favorite Catholic high school. I respect the hell out of the  Texas basketball program, but Memphis handed them the most impressive no-rubber beat down of the season.

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You know the guy. WE ALL know the guy. That one dude in your pool who picks the most spineless bracket possible every single year. He’s the guy you regularly refer to as “dickless asshole” or “my one gay buddy” whenever you’re casually discussing the NCAA tournament at work or in a bar. He’s the guy all your friends raced to make a sarcastic comment about when you saw he picked a 3 seed to upset a 2 seed in the Sweet Sixteen (for the record, you thought your line about him “also joining a pyramid scheme” was pretty money).

Every single year he’s consistently mocked and belittled for his inability to sack up and at least pretend to show some insight. But not this year. Not today. No, March 31, 2008 will be remembered as…

THE DAY MR. CHALK TELLS YOU TO EAT A DONG!

Four #1s in the Final Four! Count ‘em! Four! Who has the insight now?! Who knows sports now?! Who’s the big fucking lameass now?! Who outside of Mr. Chalk could have envisioned Memphis’ free throw percentage not catching up with them, UCLA’s injury rumors being overstated, Bill Self not turning into Bill Self when the pressure was on, and Tyler Hansbrough’s complete lack of NBA potential never coming into play?

Today’s the day you make peace with the fact that Mr. Chalk will be taking your hard earned money. It may help for you to laugh off the audacity. It may help to commiserate with your friends. Or it may help to tell yourself that Clark Kellogg–someone with limited working knowledge of the sport–was the only person who watches college basketball for a living who picked all #1 seeds in the Final Four.

But whatever way you slice it, it’s officially the year of the lameass. It may be time to start preparing for Lakers and Yankees championships and dudes with beards marrying chicks way out of their league.

[Site Note: We’d like to apologize for the lack of content at the end of last week and our inability to give out superlatives this morning. It’s wedding season, and we’ll be spending the next few weekends traumatizing bridesmaids and pitching the idea of escaping to Tijuana to grooms. Things should be back to normal shortly. Please bear with us. Thanks.]

[Editor’s Note: We intended to run this yesterday before the Sweet Sixteen started. Didn’t work out that way.]

West Virginia. Bob Huggins can shotgun a beer faster than you can. And his team will probably have burned your couch before you’ve finished your twelve ounces as well.

Xavier. Contrary to popular belief, Xavier McDaniel (the X-Man), did not attend Xavier and the school is not named after him.

Western Kentucky. Their mascot Big Red is in no way supposed to have anything to do with menstruation despite what many people assume.

UCLA. Are not paying off officiating crews, just allowing them to have their way with Bruins cheerleaders. It’s a far more cost effective way to get calls.

Washington State. They heard you talking about their “boring” style of play and want you to know you’re the fucking boring one.

North Carolina. Tyler Hansbrough’s eyes have been stuck like that ever since he found out where babies come from. I put my pee-pee where?!

Louisville. Players insist Rick Pitino gives the “Larry Bird is not walking through that door!” speech before every big game. It’s a real motivator.

Tennessee. As a side bet with his assistants, Bruce Pearl has guaranteed he will bang Pat Summit before his tenure at Tennessee is up.

Davidson. If Davidson hadn’t offered Stephen Curry a scholarship his next option was for him to pull a “Ladybugs” and walk onto a D-I women’s team.

Wisconsin. There’s two less white dudes on their team than you think there are.

Stanford. Yeah, everyone knows that Robin Lopez is dating Michelle Wie, but no one realizes that Brooke Lopez is dating Tad Fujikawa.

Villanova. The school is technically Catholic but the majority of the basketball squad practices Scientology.

Kansas. Bill Self was recently voted the second most boring person in Kansas. The guy who was voted first is expected to come out of his coma any day now.

Michigan State. Tom Izzo is such a good tournament coach, because he threatens to bring John L. Smith in as an assistant coach if his team loses a game.

Memphis. They don’t judge you for thinking banging hot chicks is overrated, they don’t want you to judge them for thinking free throws are overrated.

We’re two rounds into NextRound’s 1st Annual Tournament Challenge: Booth v. All, and it’s a wide open competition that will definitely come down to the Final Four. The battle for t-shirts and steak knives has been intense. Here’s a breakdown of the top 20 brackets:

(click to enlarge)

Maske leads by a narrow margin and isn’t sure he wants to win it all seeing that the sweet set of steak knives are already in his possession and that would kind of defeat the purpose of the competition. Just so everyone’s aware of what he’s rooting against, Maske’s Final Four is UCLA, Louisville, Kansas, and Memphis, with UCLA taking down Kansas in the final.

Booth is tied for 7th and could still make a run if Kansas and Tennessee keep advancing. If not, NextRound HQ is preparing for a long day of drinking whiskey and mailing t-shirts in early April. Booth’s full bracket is pictured after the jump. Feel free to mock it mercilessly while poking holes in his remaining teams.

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Stephen Curry is a baby-faced assassin. Would you have ever thought you’d rather be Dell Curry’s kid than Patrick Ewing’s? Keep in mind that choosing to be Dell Curry’s kid also means you’d feel kind of weird when thinking about what a cougar your mom is.

The Tampa Bay Massacre should go down as one of the biggest anomalies in sports history and we haven’t heard anyone mention it since Saturday morning. How the hell did four separate higher seeds get incarnated by the 1976 Bucs on the same day?

Indiana doesn’t deserve to get out of the first round until they figure out an alternative to the baggy t-shirt underneath the jersey. Those dudes look like an out of shape middle school squad.

How disappointed would you be if Bruce Pearl wasn’t around for the sweet sixteen?

Was anyone else’s first reaction to Western Kentucky’s game winning shot over Drake a slight sense of devastation at the realization that Kyle Korver’s little brother would no longer be in the tournament?

Who would have thought Washington State would be arguably the most impressive team (along with North Carolina) through the first two rounds of the tourney? That guy on ESPN’s crew who holds up the Cougars flag in the background of College Gameday must have a debilitating rager right now.

So, is Arkansas’ Steven Hill clever enough to be using his haircut to pay tribute to Luke Wilson’s character in “The Royal Tenenbaums”, which would also indirectly mean he’s paying tribute to Bjorn Borg?

Speaking of white guy hairstyles, the dudes from Davidson all look like they’re about to walk into auditions for “Charles in Charge”.

With names like Brook and Robin, it’s good a thing the Stanford twins are seven feet tall and above average at basketball. We have two male cousins named Gale and Ashley, and let’s just say life’s a little bit different for them.

Is the irony of Bob Huggins (non-graduator of players / accumulator of DUIs) knocking Mike Krzyzewski (molder of men) out of the tournament continuing to blow anyone else’s mind right now?

True or False: Having a beer with Ben Hansbrough seems like it would be a million times more awesome than having a beer with his brother Tyler.

And now on to handing out superlatives for the weekend that was…

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Seeing that we’ve informally dedicated this week to college basketball, why not award PITFF to the NCAA player we enjoy making fun of over any other: Greg Paulus.

Of course, had Duke lost last night we would lay off Paulus today. But they didn’t. Instead they won a game in typical Duke fashion, on a Gerald Henderson lay-in that probably would have been called a charge if someone, like say Greg Paulus, had been defending him. But hey, it’s Duke. You know you’d be disappointed this morning if you didn’t have further opportunity to root against them in the tournament.

We do need to take a moment to throw Henderson a low five for stepping up and putting his team on his shoulders. They’d be spending tonight scamming on Asian chicks in Durham had he not. Paulus–in typical Paulus fashion–also attempted to step up two possessions prior with a move to the basket straight out of the Mugsy Bogues handbook. He missed badly on a shot that the stat keeper seriously considered logging a turnover. In doing so, he only furthered the Greg Paulus legend.

Greg Paulus’s PITFF

Why Paulus Is the Easiest Target in NCAA Hoops:

• Constantly looks like he’s jonesing to blow a snot rocket.

• Traded playing quarterback at Miami, Notre Dame, or USC to play point guard at Duke.

• Makes Shane Battier look like the anti-flopper in comparison.

• Has a serious affinity for hugging other dudes.

• Has the uncanny knack of getting his head as close to opposing player’s dongs as physically possible.

• Has spent his career getting progressively worse, a phenomenon that can only be attributed to the exponentially increasing amount of time he spends daydreaming that he’s reaping the benefits of being the starting quarterback for Miami and not waking up next to one of the three hottest chicks on Duke’s campus.

• And due to the copious amounts of entertaining Greg Paulus multimedia available on the world wide web, we welcome you to the…

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As we outlined on Monday, and Wednesday, and on the sidebar, the 1st Annual NextRound Tournament Challenge: Booth v. All officially begins at first tip today. There’s still a chance to win a NextRound t-shirt for beating Booth and a sweet set of steak knives for winning the whole thing.

You’ve got until noon. Just follow the instructions under “Sports Picks” on the right sidebar. What’s the problem? Don’t think you can beat this dude?