The all-propane NCAA bracket had a rough weekend. (Click it to make it huge.)
(If you’re new to the All-Propane NCAA Bracket, read the original post here. Though the premise was simple: For any given match-up, pick the team that comes from the state that consumes more retail propane.)
So let’s start with the good news: Boy, does our East region look good!! There was a misstep or three in the opening rounds, but propane bracketology nailed the four teams that went on to the round of sixteen. And that included a pair of upset wins by the 11-seed Marquette, which slipped by Syracuse yesterday.
Now let’s look at the rest: The all-propane bracket was otherwise destroyed this weekend. The state of Michigan — that great propane-guzzler of the North — disappointed, as the Wolverines lost a heart-breaker to Duke and the Spartans didn’t even make it past the first round. That should effectively send us to the bottom of just about any office pool.
The takeaway: It wasn’t the all-propane bracket’s year at the big dance. Typically, the bracket will skew towards teams from California and North Carolina (not a bad proposition, since the Tarheel State is a hotbed of solid college basketball). But for propane bracketology to have a chance, the Michigan teams have got to come in strong. A solid showing by the Big Ten teams of the Midwest would help score some points, too. And heaven forbid Georgetown (or any DC teams) ever makes a run; our nation’s capital consumed precisely two barrels of residential propane in 2009, according to federal data.