Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The Final Four Verbiage!

...and then there were four, as the 2011 tournament winds down to its final few games.  Upsets abounded in the regional finals, all of which were highly competitive among L&TM5K voters but decided but near unanimity among Vexillophiliacs.  The only #1 seed still standing is Maryland, which knocked down the District of Columbia 17-10; Maryland will take on #5 seed Tennessee, which upset #2 Puerto Rico by the same score.

In both the North and West, #1 seeds fell to #2, with New Mexico besting Alaska 18-8 and Ohio topping Wyoming 17-9.  Tennessee is the only fly still flying, however, which was playing on opening day; New Mexico, Ohio, and Maryland all entered the tournament with a bye-week.

4 comments:

Chuckdaddy said...

I am surprised by the overall lack of upsets and am consequently impressed by your seeding. I would have pretty much ordered then randomly, with my only sure thing being Maryland last. Shows what i know. You have an eye for flags my friend!

pfly said...

Yes, the seeding made it fun in unexpected ways. I was surprised by how the early rounds were more fun, what with people having to choose between dueling bad flags and coming up with all kinds of odd reasons for picking which was least bad. I had never looked at state seals so closely.

Michael5000 said...

Well, the subtext to the whole exercise -- aside from "brackets are fun" of course -- is that almost all of the U.S. flags blow. It makes 'em pretty easy to seed.

Aviatrix said...

I think the byes in the first round gave Michael's picks a huge advantage, both giving them the advantage of novelty when they joined in the fray, and singling them out as worthy of special attention.