"Non-expert" wins Pool o' Experts [PERMALINK]
Kansas wasn't the only one that rallied to win in the NCAA Tournament. Yoni Cohen of the blog YoCoHoops.com recovered from a shaky first round to win the fifth annual Pool o' Experts.
Cohen -- erroneously called a former Pool o' Experts champion in an earlier column -- had declared himself "not much of an 'expert' these days" upon turning in his bracket because over the last year he'd focused his attention on political work rather than writing about hoops for Fox Sports.
But he was one of only two experts, or at least two panelists, to have Kansas winning -- yours truly was the other -- and he was the only one who correctly identified Kansas and Memphis as the Championship Game contestants.
Cohen would have finished in a first-place tie with the NCAA Selection Committee had Memphis won Monday. The committee, which did a unanimously praised job of seeding this year, finished second, its best showing. This column also turned in its best finish, third, thanks mostly to the lucky guess of Kansas. The Jayhawks were the only team I correctly picked for the Final Four.
You, the masses, the only two-time champion in Pool o' Experts history, took a beating in the semifinals and fell to sixth.
And I'm not able to go to my usual gambit of making fun of all the experts for not doing significantly better than a little kid with a coin. Unfortunately, my son, Buster, the coin-flippinest 5-year-old west of the Alamo, was betrayed by his quarter this year and ended up about as far back as you'd expect a 5-year-old to end up.
Cohen's prize is dinner at my house, home cooking or actual house neither implied nor guaranteed. Here are the final standings:
| Expert | Points | ||
| 1. Yoni Cohen, YoCoHoops.com | 1,260 | ||
| 2. NCAA Selection Committee | 1,100 | ||
| 3. King Kaufman, Salon | 1,010 | ||
| 4. Jonah Keri, ESPN/N.Y. Sun | 1,000 | ||
| 5.Grant Wahl, Sports Illustrated | 990 | ||
| 6. CBS SportsLine users | 980 | ||
| 7. Stewart Mandel, Sports Illustrated | 950 | ||
| 8. Tony Kornheiser, Washington Post | 940 | ||
| 9. Seth Davis, CBS/S.I. | 900 | ||
| 10. Luke Winn, Sports Illustrated | 860 | ||
| 11. Gregg Doyel, CBS SportsLine | 800 | ||
| 12. Barack Obama, D-Ill. | 780 | ||
| 13. Michael Wilbon, Washington Post | 720 | ||
| 14. John McCain, R-Ariz. | 710 | ||
| 15. Buster, Coinflip 4 Kids | 390 | ||
Here is a list of the annual winners:
2003 Tony Mejia, CBS SportsLine
2004 Tim Brando, Sporting News/CBS
2005 CBS SportsLine users
2006 Stewart Mandel, Sports Illustrated
2007 CBS SportsLine users
2008 Yoni Cohen, YoCoHoops.com
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About the writer
King Kaufman is a senior writer for Salon. You can e-mail him at king at salon dot com or visit his Facebook page.
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