Iowa State basketball coach TJ Otzelberger goes on a "rant" thanking Iowa State fans for their support and sharing his reflections about the team on the plane ride back from a win at UCF. (Ben Hutchens/The Quad-City Times)
In 2017, Yahoo! Sports had been hosting a bracket for 19 years, and over that time had seen any number of perfect runs come to abrupt and surprising ends. In 2014, an Illinois man made it to 36 before busting on a major upset (#11 Dayton taking down #1 Syracuse by a field goal). By 2017, 36 entrants’ brackets survived round one, a number swiftly cut down when #8 Wisconsin beat #1 Villanova—cut down to exactly one. Known only as “Dario’s Delinquents,” this lone outlier stretched his streak to 39 games. While Yahoo would admit that with anywhere from 60 million to 100 million registered brackets, there was a chance someone somewhere had done better—it was recognizing “Dario” as the top streak-maker that year. Of course, it had to end—and end it did when Iowa State fell to Purdue in the Sweet 16, followed immediately by the final coffin nail of Michigan’s upset of #2 Louisville.
In 2017, Yahoo! Sports had been hosting a bracket for 19 years, and over that time had seen any number of perfect runs come to abrupt and surprising ends. In 2014, an Illinois man made it to 36 before busting on a major upset (#11 Dayton taking down #1 Syracuse by a field goal). By 2017, 36 entrants’ brackets survived round one, a number swiftly cut down when #8 Wisconsin beat #1 Villanova—cut down to exactly one. Known only as “Dario’s Delinquents,” this lone outlier stretched his streak to 39 games. While Yahoo would admit that with anywhere from 60 million to 100 million registered brackets, there was a chance someone somewhere had done better—it was recognizing “Dario” as the top streak-maker that year. Of course, it had to end—and end it did when Iowa State fell to Purdue in the Sweet 16, followed immediately by the final coffin nail of Michigan’s upset of #2 Louisville.
