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Airon26 wins the 2014 CougCenter Bracket Challenge

For his effort, he gets a free t-shirt!

By Jeff Nusser
Jamie Squire
One of the tees in the CougCenter store from which the eligible winner can choose.

The 2014 NCAA tournament went in the books on Monday night with Connecticut winning the title, but the CougCenter Bracket Challenge was over on Saturday, as nobody in the contest picked either UConn or Kentucky to even make the championship game.

That meant airon26 still was able to take home the title on the strength of having picked Florida, Wisconsin and Kentucky correctly to the Final Four; he was the only person to correctly pick three of the four. He edged out EZCREW, who was ultimately done in by his unfortunate pick of Wichita State over Kentucky.

That means airon26 is the winner of the free shirt from Gameday Depot. He'll also be immortalized in the CougCenter contest hall of fame.

Here's how the top 10 looked:

Rank Bracket 1 2 3 4 Semis Finals Points Possible Pts
1 airon26 50 30 25 24 - Wisconsin 129 129
2 EZCREW 48 36 25 16 - Louisville 125 125
3 pf_flyer 52 33 30 8 - Michigan St. 123 123
4 Cougs by 20 50 36 20 8 - Florida 114 114
5 Air Raid Vossense 52 24 20 16 - Michigan St. 112 112
6 Alex Brink Space Pajamas 50 33 20 8 - Louisville 111 111
7 Blue Zag 52 33 25 - - Michigan 110 110
8 Ooooh kill em bracket 46 27 20 16 - Louisville 109 109
9 Ryan's RAD Bracket 46 30 25 8 - Louisville 109 109
10 Wazzucoug21 Bracket 50 33 25 - - Kansas 108 108
11 McDermott is the Yellow King 50 30 20 8 - Arizona 108 108

The full results will be posted at the bottom, but In case you are wondering the highest finishing author was Kyle Sherwood, who finished tied for 13th with 105 points. Yours truly turned in his annually pathetic performance with 89 points, but that wasn't the worst author bracket: Brian Anderson's coin flip bracket finished dead last with 62 points.

Speaking of authors, Craig Powers was the runaway winner in our author draft; he racked up an absurd 68 points thanks mostly to picking up UConn at the end of the fourth round. The Huskies earned him 24 points, which was only two points less than Sherwood earned with his entire team and was more than Craig racked up in the 2013 competition. Craig also benefited hugely from Dayton, which earned him 15 points. Those two teams combined to score more points than everyone but Mark.

Our guest player, the Spokesman-Review's Jacob Thorpe, comported himself well, finishing third thanks to a savvy pick of Kentucky sixth overall.

Interestingly, only two of our final 20 picks earned any points: Mercer (Craig, of course) and Stanford (Mark). Pretty good showing by us in that respect.

Full results of the author draft:

And finally, here are the full results of the bracket challenge. Thanks everyone for playing!

Rank Bracket 1 2 3 4 Semis Finals Points Possible Pts
1 airon26 50 30 25 24 - Wisconsin 129 129
2 EZCREW 48 36 25 16 - Louisville 125 125
3 pf_flyer 52 33 30 8 - Michigan St. 123 123
4 Cougs by 20 50 36 20 8 - Florida 114 114
5 Air Raid Vossense 52 24 20 16 - Michigan St. 112 112
6 Alex Brink Space Pajamas 50 33 20 8 - Louisville 111 111
7 Blue Zag 52 33 25 - - Michigan 110 110
8 Ooooh kill em bracket 46 27 20 16 - Louisville 109 109
9 Ryan's RAD Bracket 46 30 25 8 - Louisville 109 109
10 Wazzucoug21 Bracket 50 33 25 - - Kansas 108 108
11 McDermott is the Yellow King 50 30 20 8 - Arizona 108 108
12 num204 44 30 25 8 - Arizona 107 107
13 Mister Jinx 50 27 20 8 - Florida 105 105
14 BigWood 52 30 15 8 - Florida 105 105
15 Boneless Coug Fan 50 24 15 16 - Louisville 105 105
16 Coug_engr 50 27 20 8 - Florida 105 105
17 The Boner has gone Limp 44 27 25 8 - Florida 104 104
18 AGRcoug 44 27 25 8 - Arizona 104 104
19 Ken Bone Memorial Bracket 50 30 15 8 - Louisville 103 103
20 @ATXCoug 48 27 20 8 - Arizona 103 103
21 WazzuRyan 42 33 20 8 - Iowa St. 103 103
22 CarolinaCoug 44 30 20 8 - Louisville 102 102
23 HitKing69 44 30 20 8 - Michigan St. 102 102
24 PrimmTime11 46 33 15 8 - Arizona 102 102
25 Andrew's Amazing Bracket 52 27 15 8 - Florida 102 102
26 Chris Kleene's Swag Bracket 42 27 25 8 - Michigan St. 102 102
27 timaj100 46 24 15 16 - Florida 101 101
28 LeaveItToWeaver 52 30 10 8 - Virginia 100 100
29 WYWSALO's Ordianary Bracket 48 21 15 16 - Villanova 100 100
30 Shellin 48 33 10 8 - Florida 99 99
31 Cougs are playing golf now 46 33 20 - - Arizona 99 99
32 Craig Powers 44 27 20 8 - Arizona 99 99
33 K Deuce's Swell Bracket 46 30 15 8 - Florida 99 99
34 Ryan Eames still hates Florida 44 27 20 8 - Florida 99 99
35 CougCenter 48 27 15 8 - Michigan St. 98 98
36 Keith's Marvelous Bracket 48 27 15 8 - Florida 98 98
37 Mark Sandritter 42 27 20 8 - Arizona 97 97
38 nick mcd 50 24 15 8 - Arizona 97 97
39 Eramm 52 27 10 8 - Arizona 97 97
40 dflynnwsu 42 27 20 8 - Michigan St. 97 97
41 Hollweirdcoug 46 33 10 8 - Louisville 97 97
42 spokanecougar 44 30 15 8 - Florida 97 97
43 Neil's Nifty Bracket 48 24 25 - - Arizona 97 97
44 Coug999 42 27 20 8 - Michigan St. 97 97
45 Colin White 44 24 20 8 - Arizona 96 96
46 Olypen Coug 38 30 20 8 - Wichita St. 96 96
47 Mike from VUhoops 46 27 15 8 - Louisville 96 96
48 johnnycougar 52 21 15 8 - Duke 96 96
49 shsmith 46 27 15 8 - Michigan St. 96 96
50 wsucougs19 winning 50 30 15 - - Louisville 95 95
51 Ray's Wonderful Bracket 48 24 15 8 - Virginia 95 95
52 Zabelator's Bracket 46 21 20 8 - Kansas 95 95
53 C4Cougs 52 24 10 8 - Virginia 94 94
54 Where's Wazzu? 52 27 15 - - Arizona 94 94
55 wsu4life 44 27 15 8 - Michigan St. 94 94
56 Cougar troll 46 30 10 8 - Florida 94 94
57 Breaking Bone 48 27 10 8 - Virginia 93 93
58 Crimson Fired 46 27 20 - - Arizona 93 93
59 Ty's Top-Notch Bracket 48 24 20 - - Arizona 92 92
60 GIDDY UP 50 24 10 8 - Florida 92 92
61 jjfekls bourbon-soaked bracket 42 27 15 8 - Michigan 92 92
62 WSUScottie 42 27 15 8 - Florida 92 92
63 Jeff Collier 44 27 20 - - Syracuse 91 91
64 ChrisGTE 44 24 15 8 - Florida 91 91
65 ersmith.wsu 42 27 20 - - Virginia 89 89
66 *Jeff Nusser 44 27 10 8 - Arizona 89 89
67 Tuck's Spectacular Bracket 40 21 20 8 - Florida 89 89
68 msgp501st's Super Sweet Picks 44 27 10 8 - Florida 89 89
69 My Fantastical Bracket 44 21 15 8 - Michigan St. 88 88
70 brlogan 50 27 10 - - Arizona 87 87
71 nfriskee 44 33 10 - - Louisville 87 87
72 PZizzle 50 24 10 - - Louisville 84 84
73 TradeKOBEToTheSONICS 44 24 15 - - Arizona 83 83
74 sdcoug09 44 24 15 - - Arizona 83 83
75 scottc's Impressive Bracket 38 21 15 8 - Virginia 82 82
76 Rowsmasterflex 48 27 5 - - Wichita St. 80 80
77 Adam D's Awesome Bracket 44 21 10 - - Virginia 75 75
78 BA 32 12 10 8 - Michigan St. 62 62

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