UCLA may have been beaten by Florida in real life, but at least they take the title in the virtual tournament (virtual is all that matters to gamers anyway).

Using the recently released Xbox 360's version of College Hoops 2K6, four top qualifying ballplayers (in virtual reality of course) were flown in Indianapolis to take part in Pontiac Virtual NCAA Final Four tournament. The Final Four gamers were chosen after a grueling elimination phase that saw scores of online players vie for the trophy.

PVNF 4 has initially predicted that UCLA will lord over other colleges that's why it ranked the Bruins as the team to beat in their tourney; turns out they were right -- in their own world at least -- as Jeremy Griswold, carrying the UCLA crew bagged the crown. For those who are wondering, the trophy is real.

25-year-old and Canton-native Griswold got to enjoy dunking over his counterparts via big screen TV that were used in the action. Other qualifyers (that were eventually losers) are Marcus Ray, age 20 from Glenwood; Colin Darfour, age 23, a teacher from Las Vegas, NV; and Chris Jefferson, age 19, a student from Mechanicsville, VA.

Before the real NCAA Final Four's championship match, PVNF 4's accuracy rating on predicting eventual tournament winners is 70%. Unfortunately, they may have to do some recalculatiing after seeing the Florida Gators dump their predicted bets, UCLA. I guess that's why they call that "predicition".

[Via Xbox360.Ign]