The Investigative Journalists of Leb's Ramblings have been hard at work over the past week to bring you the story of PsychoZ50, this year's NSC March Madness Champion. After going undercover in Nashville, Tennessee, we have discovered that a boy of not yet 10 years old came out of nowhere to upset nearly 150 North Star campers, staff and alumni. And the tale of how he did it **when largely embellished** is even more remarkable than the accomplishment itself.
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| Click here to see Zach's winning bracket |
J-1 camper Zach G. had this planned all along. Last summer was his first at North Star, and on the first night's candlelight ceremony he announced his goals.
"I want to learn to waterski," Zach said. "And I want to have a lot of fun. But most importantly, I intend to win NSC March Madness!"
While everyone was wondering about a different madness, Zach was hard at work. He had prearranged to have the world's tallest counselor as his own, hoping that he had a penchant for basketball predictions. The only problem was that he was from Australia.
"Sure I like basketball," said counselor Richard Roberts. "I'm 7'6" how could I not? But when Zach tried to contract me out as his basketball Nostradamus, I knew I was in trouble."
What Richard lacked in basketball knowledge, he made up for in intelligence. Richard, who presently works for Boeing, set out to develop an algorithm that could predict the NCAA tournament champion.
Richard counseled Zach to enroll in the basketball program, where he could covertly attempt to steal all of the knowledge of basketball from John Sheehan. After learning of such metrics as True Shooting Percentage, PER, and assist-to-turnover ratios, Zach realized he was on to something.
"After reading Richard's books on aerospace engineering and plugging in some of the basketball statistics, I knew I was on to something," Zach said. "Sure most campers don't want to spend their summers reading The Physics of Flight, but my eyes were on the prize."
As he started filling out his bracket, he realized there was a problem. His secret formula required that he would have to pick his beloved UNC to lose. Though he was heartbroken when they lost, he knew he must push forward.
The most important factor in his calculations surprisingly had nothing to do with basketball, but the state that the team came from.
"I knew the championship game was going to be a team from Connecticut against a team from Indiana, but who in the world thought it could be Butler!"
Even with his errant forecast of Purdue playing in the Championship, Zach finished in the 99.8% percentile of all of the brackets completed on ESPN.com. He finished in first place 30 points ahead of 1st runner up Lisa Lissner and 50 points ahead of 2011 CIT Max E.
"We're going to have our eyes on this kid for years to come," Max said. "Unless he leaves early for the pros, Zach G may win this thing every year."
Congratulations Zach - the 2011 NSC March Madness Champion!
