Hovering near the top of our leaderboard throughout the 2005 NCAA Basketball Tournament, Roger Mortensen found himself at the very top of the leaderboard following Monday night's championship game.Although Roger's bracket predicted that Illinois would defeat North Carolina Monday night, the Tar Heels' victory wasn't enough to allow anyone to leapfrog ahead of him. As a result, Roger laid claim to the $650 first place prize. Congratulations Roger!!
Interestingly, Roger submitted two brackets into our pool. To put it mildly, Roger's other bracket didn't do quite as well. In fact, it finished in a tie for 305th place - just a few hundred spots out of the money.
All told, Roger's "good" bracket scored 89 points in this year's pool - the exact same number of points that Eric Thom's entry "EET's Easter Lilly" also scored. Although Eric's bracket led for much of the tourney, Roger's correct prediction that Illinois and North Carolina would face off for the title in St. Louis allowed him to win the tiebreaker. In all the years that I've been running this pool, this is the first time that a tiebreaker was used to decide our overall champion.
For those of you wondering, Roger and Eric both work at Continental Properties. Considering the fact that no one from Continental has finished in the money the past two years, the performances of Eric and Roger are unprecedented. There will be shouts of joy ringing from the hallowed halls of Continental's Menomonee Falls office.
Despite losing the tiebreaker, Eric still wins $325 for finishing 2nd. Considering the fact that his bracket was a "homer" bracket (Eric had predicted that the Badgers would win the national title), Eric feels pretty good about the 2nd place showing - I'm sure! In fact, I'm confident that the money will be used as the starting point for his daughter's college fund. As most of you can probably guess, Eric's young daughter is named Lilly.
Sitting alone in third place was Ricky McClure - who finished with 86 points and won $245. Fourth place went to CapCon2 (82 points). I'll leave him unnamed, but the owner of CapCon2 is an Extendicare employee. If you notice someone's pockets lined with an extra $185 this week, you'll know that he's the owner of CapCon2's bracket.
Rounding out our Top Six were Rae Salamanca and Chuck Mertz. Each of them scored 81 points - but Rae's correct prediction of the Final Two teams allowed him to take the fifth place prize of $130. For finishing 6th, Chuck claimed $80.
Our "hard luck" bracket belonged to Carrie St. John. Although she scored the same number of points as Rae and Chuck, she had predicted that Illinois would claim the title. Chuck and Rae both earned six points for North Carolina's win. As a result, they each hold the tiebreaker edge over Carrie - relegating her to 7th place - one spot out of the money. Had Illinois won the title, Carrie would have finished 5th. Sorry, Carrie!
Per usual, the opening two rounds were littered with surprises. Bucknell's victory over Kansas proved to be the tournament's biggest first round surprise, but UWM's run to the Sweet Sixteen propelled them into the national spotlight. Coupled with the Wisconsin Badgers' two wins, it proved to be a nice opening weekend for our local teams.
Who would have thought that UWM could shock Alabama and Boston College in back-to-back games? Actually, 35 of our brackets had UWM advancing to the Sweet Sixteen, so maybe it wasn't that big a surprise. Interestingly, none of those brackets, however, predicted that UWM would advance into the Elite Eight - which proved to be true after the Panthers fell to Illinois. Considering the fact that Illinois finished the season as the #1 team in the entire country, the Panthers loss wasn't much of a surprise.
All told, there were 15 official "homers" in our pool - as that's the exact number of brackets that correctly predicted Wisconsin and UWM's simultaneous runs into the Sweet Sixteen.
As mentioned earlier, #14 Bucknell's victory over #3 Kansas on the opening Friday of the tournament proved to be the tournament's biggest upset. In fact, only only bracket in our entire pool (Adam Bohren #2) predicted the upset. Adam's bracket was littered with "interesting" picks, however, and he finished in a tie for 314th place - despite the amazing Bucknell prediction.
After Bucknell, the next biggest shock occurred when #13 Vermont topped #4 Syracuse (also on Friday). Nine people in our pool predicted that upset.
Other brackets of note included Wade (our defending champion), who finished in 193rd place. Our pool's organizers (Steve - 71st place, Rob - 233rd place, & Bruce - 138th place) will hafta wait until next year to win any money. In addition, none of last year's Top 6 players were able to duplicate the accomplishment this year.
The 323 brackets that were submitted into this year's pool were a new record - topping last year's count by 61. Thanks to everyone who played!
Of the 323 brackets, Illinois was the overwhelming choice to win the title. In fact, 115 of our brackets (35.6%) had predicted that the Fightin' Illini would cut down the nets in St. Louis.
Here's the complete list of teams picked to win the title in our pool. Exactly 21% of our brackets correctly predicted North Carolina's championship.
Illinois - 115
North Carolina - 68
Duke - 33
Oklahoma State - 26
Wake Forest - 22
Connecticut - 15
Kentucky - 9
Arizona - 9
Louisville - 7
Kansas - 5
Syracuse - 4
Gonzaga - 3
Washington - 2
Wisconsin - 2
Oklahoma - 1
Boston College - 1
Cincinnati - 1
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