Technical Tidbits 3/20

Three Georgia Tech professors -- Joel Sokol, Paul Kvam, and George Nemhauser -- recently used their special NCAA Tournament prediction system to forecast this season's Final Four. The trio projected that Kentucky will win the title, followed closely by fellow Final Four members Arizona, Villanova, and Gonzaga. This seems like a perfectly reasonable Final Four to me (I sure wish I had chosen Gonzaga right about now), and it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. The tournament continues tomorrow starting at noon.

Demarco Cox's NCAA basketball career may be over, but could his NFL career be just getting started? The former Tech center was signed yesterday by the Indianapolis Colts to play offensive line in what was a shocking move by just short of everyone. With Demarco being closely related to Eagles defensive end Fletcher Cox (how did I miss that?), the football pedigree is certainly there, as is the size -- Cox stands at 6'-8" and north of 290 pounds. As was pointed out in the comments yesterday, no one is quite sure how Cox was able to do this without entering the draft -- it must be some obscure rule that I can't find right now. At any rate, best of luck to Demarco with his football career!

The No. 21 Georgia Tech baseball team will take on No. 18 UNC this weekend in what will be the third ACC series of the season. Tech is fortunate to be playing the Heels at home this season simply because UNC is such a talented and resilient team -- there isn't a game out there that they can't win. If the Jackets can manage to win the series, it would do wonders for Tech's national perception which has been damaged in recent years. Getting wins over lower ranking ACC opponents like Notre Dame and Duke is great, but beating a well-established powerhouse like UNC would be even better.

I'll leave you today with the wonderful story of Georgia State, which somehow managed to pull an upset of No. 3 seed Baylor in their NCAA Tournament debut yesterday. While the game itself was awesome -- it ended on a game-winning three pointer by R.J. Hunter -- my favorite part was that head coach Ron Hunter led his team from a rolling stool on the sidelines. Hunter tore his Achilles tendon while celebrating GSU's win over fellow GSU (Georgia Southern) in their conference championship and had to make the hilarious decision to coach from a stool. Oh, and he fell off the stool at the end. Ron Hunter for president?

What are your bold NCAA Tournament predictions for today?

Have a great weekend!