Ncaapizool's Weblog

Well that’s it

ncaapizool — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 03:39:47 +0000

Sorry this took so long. I’d published this right after the games on Sat, but they changed this blog site, and now I have to confirm everything before publication. Damn it. Here’s Sat’s post:

Chris Hogan wins. Nobody picked Kansas to win the tournament and Chris picked Memphis to win, so either way, he’s the winner. Exciting times. And he won having picked fucking Kansas State to make the final. But really we all win, don’t we? Win, win, win. Surprisingly no one other than Chris picked Memphis to take it all, so the pool is officially over. What’s with that, anyway? Were UCLA and N.C. that good during the regular season? Because UCLA was ripe for an upsetting all tournament from what I saw and N.C. deserved to lose just by virtue of being North Carolina. Anyways, it’s all a crap shoot, but the Hogan clan rues the day. Oh, and let’s have a round of applause for Jamie and Monteith, the biggest losers of all.

Here are the scores with underdog points:

Here’s what it would look like without:

Hooo Ha!

ncaapizool — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:40:36 +0000

Despite all the underdog madness of the opening rounds, for the first time in NCAA history, four number one seeded teams will compete in the final four. As I noted in the other posts, that is interesting for our pool because the pool leaders have benefited from underdog points, but now find themselves missing a team (or teams) from the final four. More conservative betters (khaki trousers anyone?) who found themselves well behind are now making a charge to the finish line.

The top half of the overall pool rankings are nearly the same–but the margins have changed. Check out the pool rankings without underdog points to really get a feel for what’s happening in the table below this one.

Overall pool rankings:

Pool rankings minus underdog points:

What Now?

ncaapizool — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 05:46:13 +0000

Your three pool leaders have now all picked teams to make the final that are eliminated. I’m beyond trying to figure who’s going to win under what scenario, but if you’d like to give it a try, you can find every one’s original picks here.

Here are the pool scores as of tonight:

Pool Rankings, end of Round Three

ncaapizool — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 04:19:55 +0000

I hope all you cats are watching Davidson. Damn. Probably not going to be able to do it against Kansas, but dudes like Curry are why this tournament is so great to watch.

Anyway, here are the pool rankings for those of you still in the running:

Here’s what things would look like without underdog points:

Musings

ncaapizool — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 21:30:48 +0000

It’s going to be damn interesting to see how this plays out. Grant, Chris and Kirsten are way ahead, but both Grant and Chris picked teams to go to the final that are already eliminated. How much will that hurt them, with a 20 point lead? Kirsten is definitly in a position to hammer us all by a hefty margin, but what happens if Xavier loses? (She picked them to make the final.) If Texas makes the final, can Pete recover? Will Russel and Rob rebound if that happens? Is Tim Hogan still alive?

I think it’s pretty safe to say that the the rest of us are toast and there’s a good chance I’ll be the worst of the worst. That is surprisingly more disheartening than I thought it would be.

Pool Rankings, first half of Round Three, March 27

ncaapizool — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:49:29 +0000

Tennessee loses, finally ridding the pool of some of its bottom feeding riff-raff, namely, me. Here are the pools scores including tonight’s games.

Teams Left

ncaapizool — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:25:52 +0000

I thought it might be telling to calculate how many teams each of us has left, but now that I’ve done it, I’m not so sure. For example, Chris and Grant have the most teams left, but two of their picks to make the final were eliminated in the second round. For what it’s worth, these are the stats:

Grant has 12 teams left.     East:4 Midwest:2 South:3 West:3
Chris has 12.                         East:2 Midwest:2 South:4 West:4(!!!)
Russel has 11.                         East:4 Midwest:2 South:3 West:2
Kirsten has 11.                     East:2 Midwest:2 South:3 West:4 (!!!)
Monteith has 11.                 East:4 Midwest:2 South:3 West:2
Dave has 11.                         East:4 Midwest:2 South:3 West:2
Jamie has 11.                         East:4 Midwest:2 South:3 West:2
Pete has 11.                         East:4 Midwest:2 South:3 West:2
Ryan has 11.                         East:3 Midwest:2 South:4 West:2
Rob has 10.                         East:4 Midwest:2 South:3 West:1
Clark has 10.                         East:4 Midwest:1 South:3 West:2
Brad has 10.                       East:4 Midwest:1 South:3 West:2
Tim has 9.                             East:3 Midwest:2 South:2 West:2
Erik has 9.                             East:3 Midwest:2 South:3 West:1

Pool Rankings, End of Round Two, March 23rd

ncaapizool — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:53:45 +0000

Georgetown losing to Davidson hurt many and helped none (at least in terms of additional points). Grant will take that loss hardest, because he chose Georgetown to make the finals. As far as I can tell from our brackets, yesterdays West Virginia win will be the last underdog win that any of us can score underdog points on, because nobody chose West Virginia, Davidson, Western Kentucky or Vilannova to make it past the third round. As you will see, Kirsten and Chris have benefited the most from underdog wins–picking 5 and 4 underdog wins respectively. This has driven them to the top of the standings. Can it last? Hard to say, although it seems unlikely for Chris. Kirsten made a bold pick, choosing Xavier to make the finals. If that happens, we’re all dead men walking.

It’ll be interesting to see how the underdog points end up affecting the overall standings, because so many of us have similar picks (ie. number one seeds to make the finals). Time will tell. Here are today’s overall standings:

Here is what things would look like without underdog points:

Second Round Scores, March 23rd

ncaapizool — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 00:33:51 +0000

Just for the record…

ncaapizool — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 16:31:02 +0000

…I did receive Brad Powell’s picks ahead of the first round games, so he’s not the shady MFer some of you might take him for. Of course he did send me his picks with the file labeled “Copy”, instead of something that might actually give me some clue about said file’s contents. I therefore misplaced it on my hard drive. Apparently the titles “Brad’s Picks” or “Powell’s NCAA bracket” were all taken, so he decided to go with the only remaining alternative, “Copy”.