• Name: *|MMERGE5|*
• Candybar: *|MMERGE6|*
• Score: *|MMERGE9|* (leader is at *|MMERGE11|*)
• How many chimps are at or above your score: *|MMERGE8|*
• Rank: *|MMERGE10|*/850
• Your Bracket: Click here

Don't Count Your Dukes Before They've Flopped

In case you are not watching basketball and are just in it for the candy (which is fine and encouraged!), you did miss one of the more iconic finishes you're going to see when UConn intercepted an errant (and unnecessary!) Duke pass with just a few seconds left, hitting a 3-pointer to take the lead after trailing for most of the game and the entire second half. Here it is from every angle imaginable.

Highlights (these are all links to the exact point I'm talking about): 0:40 Coach Dan Hurley knocks foreheads with the ref in...celebration? (inexplicable if it weren't Dan Hurley who is kind of a psycho).

1:54 Close-up of Dan Hurley's mother losing it in the crowd (if you are offended by lip-reading, avert your eyes).

3:03 UConn fans in a mix of glee and jaws fully agape.

And let's not forget the absolute shock of Bill Raftery and Grant Hill on the TV Call.

And just for fun, here is a long compilation of crazy March Madness finishes over the years.

UCOW™ Update: You Said This Was About Candy; Please Get Back to the Candy; You Promised

When we get down to the Final Four there are only 12 remaining permutations of how the bracket can play out, so the pool of Candy Seekers still with a pulse is reduced to just a few.

And here they are, the remaining people still alive:

Trish, you've been playing for almost the entire run of JQMCBP, could this be your year?

Dr. Burton, if you win that will mark back-to-back JQMCBP wins for your household (2025 being the year of Blue Howler, their cat).

And to the rest of you listed above, I hope you're glued to the set over next weekend dreaming of free candy.

But...no one is really paying that much attention, right?

Wrong.

I give you Sean "1999 JQMCBP Champion" Whelan* asking where this email was on Monday.

* Sean says "F" a few times below. For the kids reading this, "F" stands for "fudge".

That should appease Sean, letting him know I haven't forgotten about him. Right?

Wrong.

Again for emphasis➡️ UCOW™! ⬅️

μCow, the Official Moo-Cow of UCOW™

Mascots, Remembered in Brief

To the tune of Yakety Sax:

Herky

Pete (ROFL)

Smokey the Bluetick Coonhound

le Diable Bleu

Whose champion bit it?

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but it never sucks worse than when the team you picked to win it all loses it all. It's even worse when I publish it for all to read!

200! of us lost our champion, heavily weighted to Duke soiling their proverbial devil pants.

As is tradition, even when the list is inhumanly long, I print it for all to point and laugh at.

So long suckers!

Boo Rah Rah

I asked you if your alma mater was in the tournament. Why? So I could make fun of you when they lose!

33 more lost their alma maters, with the biggest group from University of Iowa. Quite a run there, Hawkeyes!

Candy Bar of the Day

Where I give out fake awards for my favorite candy selections

The "Do You Like Luxury Award" goes to, yes this is how they entered, Mr. Fondue Do Do Do All Night Long, and his selection of Dubai Angel Hair Pomegranate Pink Cotton Pistachio Cream. The Dubai Chocolate thing has been "a thing" now for a while, thanks to TikTok and I don't know the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund or something. It's chocolate stuffed with pistachio-tahini cream. I've had it! It's...fine! Several other Candy Seekers™ selected Dubai Chocolate for their prize. But Mr. Fondue Do Do Do All Night Long was the only entrepreneurial soul to select the Dubai Angel Hair Pomegranate Pink Cotton Pistachio Cream bar, which is what you eat when you have more money than sense.

Enough with the crap, who's ahead?

Top 10 Humans

Ryan "Cookies and Cream Hershey" Schraa is on top, but with Houston as their champ, all 👀 on Ashley E. "Reese's" Hammerbacher as we roll into the weeken. Hammerbacher's success hinges on Illinois wins.

Top 10 Chimps

Carissa jumps in the lead with 62 points amongst the Chimp Army, but a lot of the chimp competition is below the fold. If you look at the RtT™ chimp scores (and who wouldn't), there are a bunch of RtT™'s in the high 80s. If any of those get their last few picks right, quite a lot more people are going to have Darwin™ scores above 0.

cheers,
the Meister

Linky links:

• The Leaderboard for checking out who is ahead
• What's Your J?™ will tell you how risky your picks were
• SSS™ Want to see who picked brackets similar to yours? You do??? srsly why.
• Prognosticationland™ for looking at some brackets
• Hall of Shame™ will tell you who is out of the race for candy completely
• UCOW™ will tell you EVEN BETTER who is out of the race for candy completely