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HAWTHORN WOODS, Ill. — A sixth-grade boy from suburban Chicago completed a near-perfect bracket predicting the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, finishing in a tie for first in ESPN’s massive annual contest.
Sam Holtz said ESPN officials told him that is he ineligible to claim the top prize — a $20,000 gift card and a trip to the Maui Invitational basketball tournament — because he’s 12 years old. ESPN requires participants to be at least 18.
“I’m irritated,” Holtz told the Daily Herald. “Yes, I’m still proud of my accomplishment, but I’m not happy with the decision.”
Finishing with the best bracket does not equal an automatic claim to the prize. ESPN awards the prize through a random draw of the brackets that were among the top 1 percent in the contest — about 115,700 this year. Kevin Ota, a spokesman for ESPN Digital Media, said the network is putting together some kind of prize for Holtz.
“We plan to have fun with this,” Ota said Tuesday. “The great thing is that this kid beat all these experts out there.”
The tournament includes 67 games and Holtz missed only six. He was perfect picking games played in the Sweet 16, Elite Eight and Final Four. Out of 11.5 million who entered a bracket on ESPN’s website, Sam finished tied for first with 1,830 points after Duke beat Wisconsin 68-63 in Monday’s championship game. He entered 10 brackets in the contest.
“There is no secret,” said Holtz, who attends Lake Zurich Middle School North. “There was some luck, and I studied ESPN.com. I just picked the teams that I felt had the best players.”
NCAA title game draws most TV viewers in 18 years
NEW YORK — Even without an undefeated team, the NCAA title game drew its largest TV audience in 18 years.
Duke’s 68-63 comeback win over Wisconsin on Monday night on CBS averaged 28.3 million viewers, the most since 1997, when Arizona upset defending champion Kentucky in overtime, CBS and Turner Sports said Tuesday. That’s up 33 percent from the 21.3 million for Connecticut’s victory over Kentucky last year.
Wisconsin had defeated the previously unbeaten Wildcats in the semifinals, dashing what could have been a record audience for a potential Kentucky-Duke final. The interest for the matchup between the Badgers and Blue Devils still proved high, riding the momentum of a tournament that drew strong ratings all the way through.
VCU hires former Smart assistant Wade as coach
RICHMOND, Va. — VCU has hired former Rams assistant Will Wade to replace Shaka Smart as its basketball coach.
The 32-year-old Wade was the first assistant Smart hired six years ago. He spent the past two seasons as the head coach at Chattanooga, going 40-25.
VCU athletic director Ed McLaughlin said last week, after Smart left for Texas, that he wanted a coach who would continue the fast-paced, pressuring style the Rams used with great success under Smart. He got that in Wade, who oversaw the press when he was with the Rams.
At Chattanooga, Wade’s teams played the same style, but with the moniker “chaos” instead of VCU’s “havoc.”
Alabama set to introduce Johnson as basketball coach
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — New Alabama coach Avery Johnson wants to make the Crimson Tide “the leader of the college basketball world.”
Johnson will be introduced at a news conference on Wednesday, a day after arriving in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He said in a statement that coaching in the college ranks was “a lifelong dream.”
A person with knowledge of the negotiations says Johnson is receiving a six-year contract worth about $2.8 million annually plus incentives. The person spoke to The Associated Press Tuesday on condition of anonymity because Alabama hasn’t released the contract details.