And the Winner is.......

Carla Parsons! Yes, my wife successfully defeated all 52 challengers to win the inaugural Six Degrees of MVNUSID bracket contest. While it is no shock to me that she won since she has now beaten me in 11 of the past 18 years, it has been very funny to watch all of my other friends and so-called experts (numerous sports information directors and other sports PR people, a sportswriter from a major newspaper, and a TV anchor) fall by the wayside to her picks this year as well.

Carla finished with a total of 1,230 points as she correctly picked Duke to win the 2010 national championship. She has been a fan of the Blue Devils for a long time now, and that loyalty paid off for her in this year's contest. One final look at her bracket (below) shows why she was able to finish in the top 3.4% of ESPN's contest as she finished 21,043rd out of 4.8 million brackets that were posted this year.


I also want to give a special shoutout to Mike Schaffer and Toby Boyce, who finished second and third with 1,120 points and 1,060 points respectively as they also both correctly picked Duke to cut down the nets in Indianapolis.

Well, if you are like me, you really enjoyed this year's tournament. From the exciting first round that included a bunch of upsets to Butler's near-miss at the buzzer in a classic national championship game between a David and a Goliath, I am hard-pressed to remember a tournament that I enjoyed more from start to finish. I also think that a large part of that enjoyment came through interacting with all of you through social media and the bracket contest, which again fits with the premise of this blog that we are all connected. It's sad to think that next year's event may get watered down with the expansion to a 96-team format, but I'm going to chose to remember this year for what it was and not fret over another bad decision by the NCAA just yet.

Thanks again for participating. I'm sorry that I don't have video of Carla's happy dance when she locked up her win, but I may be able to sneak a picture of her enjoying her winning dinner tonight before we go to the Daughtry concert in Columbus.