This post is coming a day late, perhaps, but I’m guessing that my failure to post yesterday is a function of my lingering malaise on account of Duke’s early flame out from the tournament. But I can postpone the announcement no further. Connecticut might have won the championship game, but the real winner of this year’s NCAA Tournament was none other than Amy Vainieri, a bright, enterprising young woman who has the distinction of being the sister of the man with the most spectacularly well-organized refrigerator in Baltimore.

Yes, Amy is the winner of the Idiots’Books Bracket Challenge, narrowly edging out Terps fan Stella Kestell for the prize that Jim Calhoun and the Connecticut Husky players wish they could have instead of their stinking championship rings: a full-year’s subscription to Idiots’Books. Note to Amy: you may instead elect to claim as your prize the collection of fuzzy blue stuff that accumulated in the bottom of our vegetable crisper over the past few months; I saved it in case you happened to be interested. If you want it, let me know, and I’ll have the HAZMAT team bring it over to your place.)

Thank you who all to participated in this year’s Challenge, almost all of whom displayed a far superior picking prowess than did I. Of the three people I managed to beat, one is a baby and the other didn’t make her picks. I think this qualifies me officially as next-to-last, a mantle I wear almost every day that Robbi is in the barn.

Speaking of which, Robbi’s week on the far coast expires today. She’ll be returning in the wee hours tonight, and the family will be reunited tomorrow when I return from my business trip to Pennsylvania. I’m sure she’ll have photos and stories to share. So stay tuned. And take heart to know that the start of the college basketball season is a mere seven months away.

Go Duke.