UPDATE, 6:30 p.m. – I received five more submissions. I've included them in the list.

***

I've asked Malta Supervisor Paul Sausville a lot of tough questions over the past few months, so I figured asking him to fill out a NCAA tournament bracket would be comparatively easy.

Turns out, it may have been the toughest question I'll ever ask him.

Let me preface this a little bit. Remember when I asked the Saratoga Springs City Council members to give me their Super Bowl predictions? That wound up being a pretty popular post. Supervisors had some time to kill between their agenda meeting and the community forum, so I figured I'd hand them each a blank bracket and see what happened.

When I asked Sausville if he'd do one, he legitimately had no idea what I was talking about. I asked him if he had ever done a bracket before. He honestly said he hadn't. I find that unbelievable.

I have no idea how old Sausville is — he left it out of the candidate questionnaire we sent him when he ran for re-election last November and when I called and asked him about it, he said it was irrelevant — but in all his years he'd never filled out one bracket? Not even for curiosity's sake?

Props to him for being a good sport about it, though, and filling one out on the spot. Five other supervisors did the same, others said they'd fax theirs in Thursday morning.

I'm going to go ahead and post the ones that I have here and let you guys analyze them. I'll update them as I receive them. Keep in mind, there's no cash involved here. It's simply for bragging rights.

The supervisors will get one point for a correct pick in the first round and those values with double through the championship, which is worth 24 points.

Click the supervisor's name to see his or her full bracket.

Alan Grattidge, Charlton
Final Four: Duke, Missouri, Syracuse, North Carolina
National Champion: Syracuse def. North Carolina*

Phil Barrett, Clifton Park
Final Four: Duke, Michigan State, Florida State, North Carolina
National Champion: Duke def. North Carolina

Anita Daly, Clifton Park
Final Four: Kentucky Michigan State, Syracuse, North Carolina
National Champion: Kentucky def. Syracuse

Mary Ann Johnson, Day
Final Four: Kentucky, Missouri, Syracuse, North Carolina
National Champion: Kentucky def. Syracuse

Jean Raymond, Edinburg
Final Four: Duke, Florida, Texas, Alabama
National Champion: Texas def. Alabama**

Paul Sausville, Malta
Final Four: Kentucky, Missouri, Syracuse, Kansas
National Champion: Kentucky def. Syracuse

Tom Wood, Saratoga
Final Four: Duke, ???, Syracuse, Ohio***
National Champion: Duke def. Syracuse

Matthew Veitch, Saratoga Springs
Final Four: Connecticut, Marquette, Syracuse, Purdue
National Champion: Syracuse def. Connecticut

Jack Lawler, Waterford
Final Four: Connecticut, Louisville, Wisconsin, Kansas
National Champion: Connecticut def. Kansas****

Art Johnson, Wilton
Final Four: Kentucky, Marquette, Ohio State, North Carolina
National Champion: North Carolina def. Kentucky

Spencer Hellwig, County Administrator
Final Four: Kentucky, Missouri, Florida State, Kansas
National Champion: Kentucky def. Kansas

And, as a benchmark, my selections:
Final Four: Kentucky, Marquette, Ohio State, Kansas
National Champion: Kansas def. Kentucky

My immediate supervisor, Betsy DeMars, is a Kansas State grad, so she's probably not going to like that too much. Oh, well. Rock chalk Jayhawk.

*Grattidge's championship match-up is actually impossible, since those two teams would meet in the Final Four. Now, watch him win the whole thing.
** Same deal.
*** Wood, inexplicably, had Louisville and Florida in an Elite Eight match-up, but didn't pick the winner of the game.
**** As a Connecticut native, I admire Lawler's choice, but I think it's a terrible selection. Lawler, though thinks the Huskies have a legitimate chance now that Syracuse's Fab Melo is out. I don't see them getting past the second round.

Until next time,
MC