GREENSBORO, NC--There’s good news and bad news for Wichita State coach Mark Turgeon. The good news is his team, the Shockers, knocked off Number 2 Tennessee on Saturday to make the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1981. The bad news is that his tournament bracket is totally screwed up because he had the Volunteers beating his Shockers and moving on to the next round.

On Monday, Turgeon congratulated his players on their upset but found it hard to hide his disappointment regarding his bracket.

“This is a great day for Wichita State and for everyone in the community,” said Turgeon, whose team will face the George Mason Patriots on Friday. “I’m sure everyone in Wichita is thrilled right now. I have to say, though, that my excitement is tempered by the fact that my tourney bracket is completely destroyed. It cost me 20 bucks to get into that thing, too. I hope the school keeps that in mind during my next contract negotiations.”

Turgeon did pick Wichita State to defeat Seton Hall, but expected them to go no further than that. He also picked Bradley to advance to the Sweet 16 as well as George Mason, which makes the setback all the more painful.

“I made some amazingly accurate predictions with this thing,” said Turgeon, looking over his doomed bracket. “I don’t know anybody else who picked George Mason and Bradley to advance. That’s why this is so frustrating. On the other hand, I did pick George Mason to make it to the elite 8, so I still have a horse in this thing.”

The Wichita State players said they were “saddened” by the failure of their coach’s bracket. However, they chose to look at the bright side and celebrate the fact that they pulled off a shocking upset.

“We feel bad for coach but that’s not going to dim our spirits,” said forward Kyle Wilson, who hit some big shots in the first half Saturday. “The important thing here is that we’re moving on. It’s a big day for our program. If coach was dumb enough to bet against us, that’s his fault. We’ve been proving the naysayers wrong all season and we’ll keep doing it. It’s just a weird feeling when one of the naysayers is your coach.”

Turgeon insisted, however, that his tournament picks would not affect his coaching in this Friday’s game against George Mason.

“I’m a professional and it’s certainly more important to win this game than it is for me to win my bracket,” he said. “It’s just that I feel like, in a way, my players let me down. They weren’t supposed to get this far. Obviously if I knew they had this kind of talent I would’ve changed up my picks a little. But whatever. I’m not going to make a big issue out of it. I’ll just have to try and do whatever I can to stay focused on Friday.”

Wichita State Athletic Director Jim Schaus said he has no problem with his coach playing an NCAA bracket, but did wonder why he would go against his own team, since that would constitute a serious conflict of interest.

“You know they say that something like 40 billion work-hours are lost every March because of these tournament brackets,” said Schaus. “So I guess we’re in the same boat as a lot of businesses. The one thing that bothers me, though, is that coach Turgeon had his own team being eliminated in the second round. Does he not have faith in his guys? Does he not have faith in his own coaching skills? I know I do. That’s why I have the Shockers going all the way in my bracket! One of my brackets, anyway. For the other one I have Connecticut winning it all. That’s the one that I actually paid to get into.”

  Copyright 2006, The Brushback - Do not reprint without permission. This article is satire and is not intended as actual news.

Copyright 2005, The Brushback - Do not reprint without permission. This article is satire and is not intended as actual news.