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Kentucky Injury Makes NCAA Basketball Championship a True Toss-Up

I have a longstanding grievance with the term “toss-up.” It implies an outcome that resembles the toss of a fair coin, one whose prospects are about 50-50. But in political contexts, the term is sometimes applied far too liberally. Any reasonably competitive race is a “toss-up.” On the eve of the 2012 presidential election, for example, […]

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Kentucky Injury Makes NCAA Basketball Championship a True Toss-Up

I have a longstanding grievance with the term “toss-up.” It implies an outcome that resembles the toss of a fair coin, one whose prospects are about 50-50. But in political contexts, the term is sometimes applied far too liberally. Any reasonably competitive race is a “toss-up.” On the eve of the 2012 presidential election, for example, […]

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The Historic Rarity of a Double Bracket-Busting NCAA Championship Game

Connecticut and Kentucky entered the NCAA tournament as No. 7 and No. 8 seeds. Participants in the ESPN Tournament Challenge weren’t wild about the Wildcats or the Huskies. Just 2.1 percent of them picked Kentucky to make it to the finals and just 0.4 percent had Connecticut. Tomorrow, these two teams will compete for the national […]

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The Historic Rarity of a Double Bracket-Busting NCAA Championship Game

Connecticut and Kentucky entered the NCAA tournament as No. 7 and No. 8 seeds. Participants in the ESPN Tournament Challenge weren’t wild about the Wildcats or the Huskies. Just 2.1 percent of them picked Kentucky to make it to the finals and just 0.4 percent had Connecticut. Tomorrow, these two teams will compete for the national […]

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President Obama’s Brackets: Apolitical, Cautious And Full of Chalk

Every year since his first presidential campaign, Barack Obama has shared his NCAA men’s college basketball tournament bracket with the public, and, for the last five years, predictions for the women’s tournament, too. As he’s chosen teams, many of them from swing states, he’s resisted the urge to play politics with his picks. Obama’s main […]

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