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Finals Week, Part IV: Bracketology
December 17, 2004 12:14 pm ET by Kyle Whelliston
paddle.jpgAnd here it is, the last day of Mid-Majority Finals Week! I've got to say that making up questions was nowhere near as difficult as finding wacky pictures to accompany the posts. I was given a reprieve today by a reader who had issues with the severity of the math portion, and who was kind enough to send along a piece of vaguely disturbing clip art. It's good for everyone involved that there's no physics quiz, because any force/velocity calculation involving this young rapscallion would have to include Steve Lavin's hair gel.

So here's the deal... you have until Saturday at 6:00 PM EST to send in your answer sheets to finalsweek@midmajority.com. Winners will be notified and all answers will be posted sometime on Sunday. Remember, the timestamp on the e-mail containing your answers for questions 31-40 (the ones below) will be used when breaking ties - the earlier one wins. Granted, we're not fighting over very valuable merchandise here, but there's pride and bragging rights involved here.

All the questions so far can be found on this page; full rules and the prize list can be found along with the first post. I hope you've had fun with these questions during this light week of basketball, it's certainly been a lot of fun putting this together - especially this fourth installment.

Today's Test: BRACKETOLOGY

31. One of the most fantastic Tournament games of this century had to have been Gonzaga's double-overtime 96-95 near-miss against Arizona in the 2003 second round. What were their respective seeds?

32. Loyola Marymount's Hank Gathers collapsed and died just days before the first round of the 1990 Tournament, and if you weren't crying back then when you saw Bo Kimble taking free throws left-handed in his memory then there was something seriously wrong with you. LMU dropped 149 points on a stunned Big Ten school in the second round that year. Who was it?

33. Jimmy Valvano wouldn't have charged onto the court looking for someone to hug after the 1983 title game if N.C. State hadn't survived their first-round trial-by-fire. And it certainly looked as if they were going to lose - in overtime, they were down by six points with 24 seconds left, with the other team shooting free throws. Who was that team?

34. Meow... I mean, "roar!" I am a mighty feline mascot for a university that has pulled the 14-seed over 3-seed first round upset not once, but twice during the past decade. What school do I cheer for?

35. The 1986 Tournament saw an improbable run by a MAC team that their coach described simply as "off-Broadway guys." Who were they, and name one of the two teams they beat on the way to the Sweet 16.

36. In the 1969 national semifinals, a small school nearly ended the UCLA dynasty with full-court pressure and a hot-shooting guard named Willie McCarter. What school was it, and what was the final score of that game?

37. In 1989, Siena qualified for the Tournament as a 14-seed but almost had to stay home becuse of a campus measles epidemic. Fans wore T-shirts that read, "Siena Saints 98.6, Measles 0," and cheered their team to a first round upset. Who'd they beat?

38. During that same 1989 Tournament, Princeton nearly became the first 16-seed to beat a 1-seed, losing 50-49. Who was that 1-seed, and who was the player who fouled Kit Mueller on the final Princeton shot? (and yes, it was a foul!!!)

39. The 1985 Tournament (which Villanova, of course, won) was also the first one that featured 64 teams. Some said that the diluted field would result in crappy basketball, but a lot of those people had to close the hatches on their pie-holes once they saw 1-seed Michigan pushed to the limit by a scrappy 16th-seeded eastern school nobody had ever heard of. What school?

40. [ESSAY QUESTION] What's your favorite Tournament memory, and why?

(And to answer a common query about question 20, "drive" in no way means "put your car on a ferry and cross the Pacific Ocean." Just thought I'd clear that up.)