recruiting board update

If they gave out an award to the animal that least gave a shit about anything except grass, the llama would be the runaway champion.

UVA scored its first commitment today, as was somewhat expected, so today is the recruiting board update that I'd otherwise have dropped on Monday.  The commitment?  The classy-named Brendan Marshall, quarterback from Good Counsel.  Two of the big three quarterbacks from the state decided to leave the state, so Marshall is a little bit of a consolation prize; that said, he comes from a powerhouse program that's in the middle of a mini-golden age, and of course he's a pretty-OK quarterback in his own right.  Marshall had an offer from Cal and was probably gonna get one from Boston College; all the schools that were interested in him are of the academic upper crust.  Some people considered it hugely important to get one of the big three instate quarterbacks (Burns, Hackenberg, or Hodges) but the truth is Good Counsel may as well be instate; it's just as important as any school that happens to be within the Commonwealth's borders.

Marshall is a three-star, as compared to the Virginia four-stars, but is there a major need for maximum stars?  No, not with two quarterbacks showing up this year and now one in 2013. 

Here are the formal updates to the board:

-- Moved QB Brendan Marshall from blue to orange.

-- Moved WR Andre Levrone from green to blue.  Levrone is from Good Counsel as well; getting his quarterback is worth a one-level bump.

-- Moved ATH Michael Parker from yellow to blue.  Rivals' Mike Farrell tweeted some interesting stuff about him.  We shall see.  Parker seems like the type that you take and unfuck his grades later, if they need it.

-- Moved LB Micah Kiser from yellow to green.  Don't ask me why exactly, but I have good feelings about Kiser and NJ LB Buddy Brown, and I bet UVA picks up at least one or the other.

-- Moved QB Bucky Hodges and DE Naim Mustafaa from yellow to red.  Mustafaa will probably stay in the deep south.  Hodges, well, we just got a quarterback and with space in the class the way it is, I'll venture to say we don't get two.  I've been out on that limb before and seen it break right under my feet, so Hodges stays on the board, but you have to figure the door is closed here now.

-- Removed TE Adam Breneman from green.  Penn State commit.

-- Removed QB Ryan Burns (Stanford) and QB Christian Hackenberg (Penn State) from yellow.  Suspect the loss of two of the three VA quarterbacks helped convince the staff to crank up the dial on Marshall some.

-- Added LB Alex Anzalone to yellow.  Because why not.

The early 17th-century Peruvian saint, San Juan Macias, is always depicted with a basket.  This is his basket.

A request there was to see the inner workings of my tournament bracket. OK then.  First you should know that I didn't exactly spend a bazillion hours on it.  I find that there is zero correlation between time spent filling it out and success.  So there are no special secrets to share.  I'm not going to post the whole thing and you probably don't care what I think of the 8/9 matchup in the West or whatever, but here are the major incidentals:

-- The champion is Kentucky over Kansas.  Kind of distasteful, but I simply take solace in the likelihood that, UK being coached by John Calipari, the banner will be in the same dusty storage room where Michigan keeps its Fab Five banners by 2016.

-- The Final Four is Kentucky (over Baylor), Missouri (over Michigan State), Florida State (over Syracuse and yes this was chosen before Fab Melo's ineligibility was announced), and Kansas (over North Carolina.)

-- The 5/12 upsets, of which you must always pick at least one, are Cal/USF over Temple and Harvard over Vanderbilt.  Only two other upsets exist: NC State over San Diego State and Texas over Cincy.  It is not a very ballsy bracket and has no double-digit seeds in the Sweet 16.  Obviously what I've done is given St. Bonaventure the go-ahead for a Cinderella run.

-- UVA beats Florida but loses to Mizzou.

-- There is also a homer bracket.  You must always have a homer bracket if your team is in.  In this case, UVA advances to the Elite Eight (by beating Florida, Mizzou, and Murray State) where we are eliminated by Michigan State.  This bracket also has Michigan in the Final Four and the mighty Detroit Titans knocking off Kansas thanks to about a thousand points from Ray McCallum and a thousand more from three-point specialist Jason Calliste.  Gotta hit your threes if you're gonna pull off the upset.  In reality UDM doesn't play near enough defense to stop Kansas and is a little too enamored with the alley-oop and I expect them to lose 95-75 or so.  I love Eli Holman's confidence in talking about the matchup with Thomas Robinson, but, uh....well, hopefully he's right for the sake of my homer bracket.