NASA computer picks Villanova to win championship

According to an article on the Serious Sports News Network, a supercomputer constructed by NASA predicted in November that Villanova would win the national championship:

Barry, as the supercomputer is affectionately known around NASA headquarters, was constructed in late 2007 with the sole purpose of determining the outcome of the 2008 tournament. While the exact cost of Barry remains classified, estimates of the machine’s price tag range between two and three billion dollars.

“We were pretty nervous back in November when we flipped Barry on for the first time and saw ‘VILLANOV’ on Barry’s old-timey, all caps, eight-letter-maximum LED readout,” said Dr. Michael D. Griffin, chief of America’s space agency.

In case you couldn't tell, the above article is satire, but it's good to see Villanova get some press as a Cinderella.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, fiction turned into reality this week when Villanova fulfilled to the letter the exact "best-case scenario" proposed by ESPN's Pat Forde, the best writer in all of college basketball:

Best Case: Last at-large team in the Dance justifies its inclusion by stunning Clemson, then takes advantage of upset in the bracket to face No. 13 seed Siena in the second round. Suddenly Nova has won two games and has advanced to the Sweet 16, and everybody remembers why they loved Jay Wright so much when his team won 30 games in 2006.

Those eerily-prophetic words were published on March 19, and, strangely, the only thing to correct in the entire statement is that Villanova won 28 games in 2006, not 30.

Finally, an excellent straight piece about Villanova's surprise visit to the Sweet 16 runs today in Sports Illustrated, and is worth a read.

You may also check out the automatically generated news feeds at the top of this site. It's a big week for Villanova in the media.