Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 29 Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing (RCR), leads a power-packed field of athletes, political personalities and media in The Washington Post’s Online March Madness Celebrity Pick standings after the first two rounds of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Brendan Gaughan, who drives the No. 10 MaxxForce Diesel Ford in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and played college basketball for the Hoyas of Georgetown University, is currently in fourth position to give NASCAR a big presence atop the standings.
Also participating from NASCAR is Elliott Sadler, driver of the No. 19 Stanley Tools/Best Buy Dodge, and Jeff Burton, Harvick’s teammate at RCR and driver of the No. 31 AT&T Mobility Chevrolet, who are in 16th and 21st place, respectively.
Others in the field include pro tennis player Serena Williams, Washington Wizards all-star forward Antawn Jamison, political commentator Tucker Carlson, political strategist James Carville, DC blogger Dan Steinberg and Washington Post columnist and co-host of ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption, Michael Wilbon, who is currently in third place.
“I am pretty excited to be leading the Washington Post celebrity NCAA tournament pick challenge,” said Harvick. “Having last weekend off gave me a chance to watch a lot of basketball and keep up with my bracket. If North Carolina can win this deal, I will be sitting pretty. However, I can’t believe my teammate Jeff Burton, is among those bringing up the rear. He must have picked Duke to win.”
In fact, Burton, a devout Duke fan, played with his head rather than his heart in picking Kansas, not Duke, to have that one shining moment, but lost Pittsburgh, his other finals team, in their loss to Michigan State. He also has North Carolina and UCLA in the final four in San Antonio.
Although Harvick is in good position for the time being, Sadler should not be overlooked as he is the only driver to have all his final four picks still intact (North Carolina, UCLA, Texas and Kansas – with North Carolina as his national champion overtaking UCLA in the final game). Harvick picked Memphis to bow to North Carolina in the final game and also picked UCLA in the final four, but saw one of his final four teams eliminated.
Although Gaughan got off to a fast start, his hopes of besting the field were dealt a fatal blow when his alma mater, Georgetown (also Harvick’s lone final four pick to be ousted), who he picked to win the national championship, was eliminated by cinderella Davidson this past weekend. Said Gaughan (Hoyas basketball member from 1993 – ’97), “The good news is that I’m sitting in fourth right now. The bad news is that there’s only one way for me to go now – down. My Georgetown Hoyas got beat by a very strong Davidson team. I’ve said from the get-go of these brackets that’s there’s one team that I was worried about through the tournament. I didn’t think that Kansas would be a problem for us, but I felt that if Davidson got by Gonzaga, that that was going to be tough game from for us. The boys from Davidson – which I now live five minutes from that campus – I’m very proud of what they’ve done. Dell Curry did a great job of teaching his boy how to step us when he needs to. Go Davidson.”
“You will most likely see me in a lot of Davidson garb this weekend at Martinsville because everyone at Circle Bar Racing wants to make sure they get their dig in.”
To view the overall standings heading into Thursday’s Sweet 16 action and track the celebrity picks until the end of the tournament, go to: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/ncaa/madness/standings/celebs/
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