Guru Extra: While the Guru Slept- The Great Bracket Leak Chaos

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA – Though many might  have thought so, this has not been as usual a week this time of the year, being impacted by the leak of the women’s bracket on Monday and the dual exit of friends and longtime mbb coaches in Philly – Fran Dunphy at Temple and Phil Martelli at Saint Joseph’s.

But in this day of transparency and finally sort of catching up asc the NCAA gets under way, and having now finally written the Dunphy/Martelli blog and posting, the Guru thought you might be entertained since many of you assume at times he is a front for a guy behind a curtain a-la Wizard of Oz.

First let’s go back to last weekend and move forward.

The 50-Hour Saturday

The Guru finished the week staying in Delaware for the CAA since it was not expensive and cheap enough rather than running back and forth on short turnarounds.

Meanwhile, an aside, a month ago the port in the Guru’s iPad went bad and while might be fixable, three attempted visits to the A-store resulted in being told it would be a three hours waits. 

Well, no time in March Madness so everything has been done on Guru’s phone, writing, etc., which destroyed normal way of doing things with the phone as a second screen serving as hard copy for info while writing on iPad.

Finally was able to work on the PC not used in a year and got it back to the living with the proper connects to MS Office, though Guru can’t find his mouse in the house and hasn’t had a chance to replace it but will in next 24 hours.

Update the mouse has been purchased.

So at 10 a.m., arose for the 1 p.m. Drexel final and had a thought – might be able to make it in time for the 830 tip at Yale with Penn and Princeton. 

However, transit connections weren’t workable so, fine, not to worry, we’ll get to USciences’ 730 game in semis (campus near Palestra) for the D2 East Regional.

Of course, Towson upset Drexel and with it happening,  overall Tigers SID and Guru friend and summertime WNBA scribe Rob Knox went into an immediate lather but with his skills, the Towson has benefitted before facing, gulp, UConn.

But Rob did manage to get Guru to the rail line and early in the first quarter, the Guru arrived at USciences.

Afterwards, the Guru got a lift to the nearby rail station, figuring he could write over there, but then realized to go home and get up in the morning to head to Yale, meant dealing with the crazies who would be coming aboard in North Jersey to get to Gotham for St. Patty’s Day.

So the Guru decided, didn’t have to use a lot of points, jump Amtrak, get some shuteye on train, only problem was arrived too early at 530 am in New Haven to get to next point.

So a 20-minute google in the station revealed a nearby all-night diner that was decent and the Guru burned a few hours eating his real Saturday meal and then headed to Yale, but still needing another hour, managed to find a smoothie shop open down the street from the arena.

And then to the  game, with Penn’s ensuing loss, there was not going to be any Selection Night parties in Philly so for the Guru in thinking ahead while still in the moment was going to be at Princeton or Rutgers.

But still had to get back from New Haven and hadn’t checked if anybody drove but since ace honcho friend Doug Feinberg had already calculated a Metro North back to NY (for him) the Guru went that way since cheaper than Amtrak and agot a quick connect on the subway at Grand Central over to Penn Station and then iit was southbound on Jersey Transit to Trenton, connect to SEPTA into Philly and was back in town at 1 a.m.

Since the Guru was wide awake and mentally stable it was off to an all-night diner in the neighborhood since hechadn’t written any of the games, so it would be now or never and finally wrote the roundup you all read.

Then arrived home at 7 am and hit the sack back in synch for how would handle Monday night.

In a conversation with Princeton SID Warren Croxton,  mentioned likely coming up to Jadwin, and he was going to check and let me know what the deal was there. 

Rutgers, though a good story, wasn’t worth backtracking and can handle the remote.

Preparing For Normalcy

OK, to let you all in inside wbb, this is what has been tradition from a long time ago back when it was still selection Sunday, Guru was part of a select group dealing with the NCAA to get the bracket when ready so we could be intelligent on the conference call and the promise made, any leakers on our side would be banished.

Furthermore, with the world being different, lack of technology and other things, there had been many committee/media sharings during the season with what they thought – we had to figure their consensus since many were individual conversations – and they us, so we knew differences. 

This, long before the days of the mock bracket exercises.

When we moved to Monday, the NCAA was told it was even more imperative to get the bracket as early as possible or it was not going to appear in most Tuesday papers because the graphics departments wouldn’t have time to make their deadlines.

In the very early days of the NCAA before the secrecy of waiting till TV to learn, individual schools in the field would get phone calls, who they were playing, where, and then all them would call each other with each piece of the jigsaw to figure the bracket.

As far as the Monday drill for the Guru,  once getting the bracket, the quick looks – local, who’s in, who’s not in, what are the first weekend sites, what’s cheapest to get to (in post-Inquirer years), and so by the time the show came, the Guru was very organized, knew the storylines, by then also had looked at the national perspective, and just had to wait for the reaction quotes.

The one benefit a site got from the Guru’s presence, as soon as the embargo was lifted, a quick bracket printout was possible.

OK, that was on the Guru’s radar before going to sleep, with the idea, if coherent to be careful, he would work on the final update to theAP poll database for the season and generate notes for SIDs with significant poll histories.

Later of course there were going to be four local teams in the WNIT to factor in this weekend’s equation.

While the Guru Slept

And so the Guru rejoined the earth at 1 p.m., decided to lay off the update, and just do normal Monday affairs of state.

 At 250 Rutgers checked in to see if the Guru was coming, he gave the news nada but said don’t worry will deal from afar.

At 3 p.m., the Guru then drifted off back to sleep, an after effect of the just completed marathon.

At 5:15 p.m. his eyes opened, still time to get to Jadwin, until, the first thing he saw on his phone was an email from Warren, ok guys, the bracket was leaked early, the show is going early, so the plan is off.

Whoa.

 Ok, then where’s the NCAA email?

 Then in today’s world as we all do when we learn late of a major news story, the Guru was trying to back pedal the time it broke, so he can get on a coherent timeline moving forward.

3:10 p.m. Are you kidding me?

Total Chaos

So now all the Guru could see was Blake’s scribble.

 It was like a bronc out of control.

 The Guru was trying to get his immediate stuff answered, where’s Rutgers – oh a 7, not an 8 or 9, ok they dodged the UConn projections, wait a minute, UConn a 2, ok, still the same game at Elite Eight in Albany. 

Where’s Princeton going?

 And remember as hectold you above, all this is being discerned on Guru’s phone.

Then there were the hordes of people who had sent messages while the Guru was out cold.

And the tweet and facebook reactions.

 Also had to figure what was going on , on what days to see on Team Guru if Erin is available for anything, forget to mention on the other post, she also had sideline work with the local Philly Wings lacrosse team.

Then we have some new people in the mix.

 Already set for Tampa Bay as usual will be our Tennessee photo friend Willbill and coming aboard Saint Joseph’s Avery Marz. 

We have no idea at this hour, since haven’t heard for a while, about photo talent Melissa since she started a new job, believe it or not, with a neighborhood newspaper consortium, the presenting sponsor last November, whose people she met while in the buffet line at the Guru’s Philly Sports Hall of Fame induction. 

As the Guru looked at the reaction to the leak, that was the story to be told, not who was the culprit (of course for someone but not me), but how to handle it. Parties cancelled. Teams practicing when leaked. People on the west coast in chemistry class when their phones started going nuts.

The best was said by rising star Syracuse SID Olivia Corio in a note:

 “And I realized every single person has a unique experience learning who was in the tournament today as opposed to most years when we all find out together sitting in front of a TV of sorts.”

Meanwhile, as the Guru tried to grapple the plan, which then included Villanova and Penn hosting WNIT games same time Friday night, credit to colleague Jonathan Tannenwald for helping to finally get the bronc under control with the Guru also then making the necessary shifts.

On Thursday, socialize with Old Dominion since won’t be at Nova Friday, even stayed at their hotel to finish getting organized and  gettingbthis PC finally in Microsoft and communications synch, go to Penn Friday, then Saturday with phillycollegesports colleague Glenn Papazian and possibly if available Temple senior TV talent  Spencer Tracy, really that’s her name, off to Maryland since Tennessee/UCLA will be the story of the day, Sunday off to UConn if Rutgers still alive, and Monday back to Maryland for the lead-in to Albany from there.

Then we’ll also see who advances and still home for the next WNIT round.

So now we are almost all caught up. Hope you enjoyed the marathon readying experience which before posting was back to being edited on the phone while enjoying pregame eats at Cozara near the Palestra before pregame media feed.

(And that’s the report).