I personally can't believe it, but it is true. Someone has beaten the almighty Blogger. Well not physically. I haven't been beaten physically since high school, and even that was only on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule. And some Thursdays.

No, I'm talking about the Beat the Blogger contest. The results are in, and someone actually filled out a more accurate bracket for the NCAA men's basketball tournament than the one I posted.

So congratulations to Pat Skaleski of Madison. For her uncannily spot-on predictions, she has won an official 2007 NCAA Final Four basketball and a generous Subway Restaurants gift card. And when I say generous, I mean Pat should go for the extra meat and cheese. It'll be covered. At least on the first sandwich.

Actually, most of the entries I received were hurt by the lack of real surprises this year. Many people, including myself, assumed there would be the usual 5/12 upset and most stretched it to include at least one 4/13 upset prediction. And, not surprisingly for a contest that originated in Madison, pretty much everyone had Wisconsin going further than the second round. Not to bring up that sore subject again.

In my defense of being slaughtered by Ms. Skaleski (OK, she only beat me by seven points under my scoring system), I did have Florida pegged as the national champions. And even though I probably would have rooted for Ohio State under most circumstances, it's hard not to love the story of the 2006-2007 Florida Gators. Unless you have close ties to Ohio State.

So again, congrats to Pat Skaleski and thanks to all the readers who entered. We'll try to do it again next year!