Down Goes Virginia!

This afternoon, for a 2nd consecutive year, the #7 Michigan State Spartans have surprised the #2 Virginia Cavaliers in the NCAA Tournament, which really brings upheaval to the East Regional.  Coupled with #1 Villanova's loss yesterday, the top two seeds in this regional have been eliminated from the tournament.

Only 263 of our 1,015 brackets (26%) can still boast that the team they thought would come out of the East Region is still alive.  To be honest, that's a higher percentage than I otherwise would have predicted, but it still shows that 74% of the brackets in our pool have no chance of nailing all of their Final Four teams.

So, if you feel like your bracket is busted because of the East Regional, you're not alone.

Day #3 Recap: Down Goes Villanova

Day #3 of the NCAA Tournament was highlighted by the fall of our first #1 seed:  Villanova.  The Wildcats fell to #8 NC State and, in the process, a lot of our brackets were ruined.

Only 42 of our brackets (4.14%) correctly predicted that NC State would reach the Sweet 16.  Conversely, 392 of our brackets (38.6%) had Villanova in the Final Four and 193 of those brackets thought they'd be playing in the championship game.

As Day #3 comes to a close, the brackets of Dan Walker #3 and Ashley Jordan sit atop our leaderboard with 40 points.  Dan's bracket, in particular, was one of the 42 brackets that correctly predicted NC State in the Sweet 16.

Highlighted by Dan, only two brackets in our pool were able to correctly predict 7 of Saturday's 8 games.  Our average bracket barely got 4 of the 8 games.

Today's games are highlighted by Wisconsin's game against Oregon.  Go Badgers!

Stagnant Standings

I'm heading offsite to watch tonight's games.  As a result, I won't be able to update the standings this evening.  

Enjoy the games!  The standings will be updated early tomorrow morning.

1st Sweet 16 Team? UCLA!!

With a convincing win over UAB this afternoon, UCLA became the first member of this year's Sweet 16.  A team questioned for even making the field, the Bruins escaped the first round on Thursday via a questionable goal-tending call.  Today, however, the Bruins cruised past the UAB Blazers, ultimately winning by 17 points.

It's an understatement to say that #11 UCLA's inclusion in this year's Sweet 16 is a surprise.  In fact, only 36 of our 1,015 brackets (3.55%) correctly predicted that the Bruins would win both of their games this weekend.  One of those brackets belongs to Chris Veley, who has vaulted into 1st place in our pool with 30 points.

There are 7 more games to play today.  We'll see if Chris can hold on to the lead.

ESPN Bracket Challenge:

For what it's worth, here is a snippet concerning ESPN's bracket challenge.  This pool is a bit bigger than our own pool:

Out of more than 11.57 million brackets entered in ESPN's Tournament Challenge, one bracket emerged from the round of 64 of the NCAA tournament with a perfect 32-0 record. This is the first time there was a perfect first round in ESPN's Tournament Challenge since at least 2010 (we're still trying to find out exactly the last time it happened, but it's been a number of years).

There were six perfect brackets heading into the final game of the night between the Dayton Flyers and Providence Friars. The No. 11-seeded Flyers' upset win reduced the perfect field to one.

It's notable that there were any perfect brackets left after the first round given that there were just 273 perfect brackets after Thursday's games, thanks in part to two 14-over-3 upsets. However, the better seed went 15-1 on Friday, losing only in the last game, thus keeping a fair share of brackets alive.

In the end, just five lower seeds won in the round of 64, and No. 10 seed Ohio State was actually picked by the majority of brackets to win. Thus, the all-chalk bracket is 27-5, good for the 98.7 percentile.

And lest you think that your bracket is busted, the teams picked in the most brackets to win it all that are already eliminated were Iowa State (at 1.6 percent) and Baylor (0.4 percent). That's how many favorites are still alive.

Notes on the lone upset of the night (Dayton over Providence)

• 28.1 percent of brackets picked 11-seed Dayton over 6-seed Providence, the lowest number among the 11-seeds. Just 6.9 percent of brackets have the Flyers reaching the Sweet 16.
• 93,687 brackets (0.8 percent) picked all five of the double-digit seeds to win in the round of 64.
• Dayton's win ended a streak of 23 straight games in which the better seed prevailed.

Day #2 Recap: Chalk Talk

Highlighted by Wisconsin's easy win over Coastal Carolina, Day #2 of this year's NCAA Tourney was a day of "chalk," as the higher seeded team won 15 of the 16 games on today's schedule.  As a result, many of our brackets had a good day.

It was looking like it was going to be a perfect 16-for-16 for the higher seeded teams until #11 Dayton (aka "Play in Game #3") surprised #6 Providence in the last game of the day.  If Providence had won that game, it would have been the first time in NCAA tournament history that all 16 of the higher seeded teams would have claimed victory in a single day's action.

Thursday's average bracket scored 10.4 points.  Today, our average bracket scored a robust 12.8 points.  As a result, our pool's average bracket has scored 23.2 points thus far in the tournament.

As Day #2 comes to a close, the bracket of Rina Steinke sits alone at the top of our standings with 29 points.  Despite the day of "chalk," Rina was 1 of only 4 brackets that scored a perfect 16 points today.  Congratulations, Rina!

The rest of the weekend's games are worth 2 points apiece, so there's lots of chances to make up ground.  For now, however, Rina Steinke can brag that her bracket is better than 1,013 other brackets in this pool.

Day #1 Recap: #14 Surprises!

Day #1 of the 2015 NCAA Tournament has come to a close and, for many brackets in our pool, this afternoon's action proved to be a disaster.  Within an hour of each other, Iowa State and Baylor, who were both seeded #3 in their respective regions, lost to #14 seeds UAB and Georgia State.  It was the first time since 1995 that a pair of #14 seeds won their opening round games.  It may also be the first time that a significant number of our brackets were thrown into a garbage can prior to dinner on the opening day of the tournament.

UAB's victory over Iowa State was particularly damaging to many of us.  Exactly 161 of our brackets (15.9%) had predicted that the Cyclones would advance to the Final Four.  Four of our brackets had predicted that they'd win the national championship.  Needless to say, Iowa State didn't come close to meeting those expectations.

Meanwhile, more than 75% of our brackets had predicted that Baylor would reach the Sweet 16.  Unfortunately - for those brackets - the Bears won't be playing into the weekend. I still can't believe that Georgia State scored the last 13 points of that game to pull out the 1-point win.  What a comeback!  It was a bad day for the Big Twelve conference.

With that being said, it was a very exciting day of basketball.  All told, there were five games decided by a single point which - apparently - had never happened in a single day in NCAA Tournament history.  How's that for a "tourney tidbit" to share around the water cooler Friday morning?  In fact, we only need one more 1-point game in this year's tournament to tie the all-time record for single point games in an entire tournament.

In the event you felt that all these close games were going against you, you might take some comfort in knowing that you weren't alone.  Exactly 153 of our brackets were on the wrong side of all five of the 1-point games.  Conversely, no bracket in our pool correctly predicted the winner of all five of those games.

Despite the two major upsets, there were numerous brackets in our pool that had a good day.  In fact, when the dust had settled on Day #1, exactly four brackets in our pool had correctly predicted the winner of 14 of today's 16 games.  That's pretty darn good!  Those four brackets sit at the top of our current standings.

Our pool's average bracket has scored 10.4 points thus far.  So, if you're sitting on a bracket that scored 11 or more points today, you're better than average.  Nice work!

Even if your bracket looks a little ugly right now, there's plenty of time to turn it around.  We've got 16 more games on tap for tomorrow and the top of our leaderboard will surely change.  For those of us that live in Wisconsin, the day will be highlighted by the Badgers' opening round game against Coastal Carolina.  I can only hope that the game is on TBS so that I can hear them continue to shamelessly hype Kenny Smith's new upcoming reality show.

See ya tomorrow!!

No One is Perfect:

Courtesy of Xavier's victory over  Mississippi (aka "Play in Game #2"), we no longer have any perfect brackets in our pool.

That didn't take long, did it?

Projected Champions:

Of the 1,015 brackets in our pool, exactly 440 of them (43.4%) have predicted that the Kentucky Wildcats will claim this year's national championship.  Considering the fact that Kentucky hasn't lost a game this season, it's probably not a surprise to learn that they are our pool's prohibitive favorite team to cut down the nets in Indianapolis in a few weeks.

Not surprisingly (since most of us reside in the state of Wisconsin), the Wisconsin Badgers were picked as champions by 298 of our brackets (29.4%).  That makes them the 2nd most popular pick of our pool.

Here is the full list of predicted champions in our pool:

A New Record!

We've got 1,015 brackets in this year's pool.  That beats last year's record turnout by 65 brackets.  Thanks to everyone who helps make this an awesome pool!

An updated payout schedule has been posted on the right side of this page.  Per usual, first place will win $1,000.  That's not bad for a $5 investment, ehh?

The link to the live standings (at the top of this page) now works.  An early kudos goes to "Dave Ullenberg #7", who owns the only perfect bracket in our pool after six games.

How he nailed all these upsets is beyond me.  Of the 1,015 brackets in our pool, only 67 brackets correctly predicted Georgia State's win over Baylor.  At the same time, only 18 brackets thought that UAB would upset Iowa State.

All told, only 5 brackets in our pool correctly predicted that #3 Iowa State and #3 Baylor would both fall in the 1st round.  If you own one of those brackets, congratulations!  It's the first time since 1995 that two #14 seeds have advanced past the opening round.

The Games Have Started!

We are working hard to gather and organize all the brackets that we've received this week.  I predict that we'll have over 1,000 brackets once all the smoke clears.

Please be patient while we work on posting our initial updates.  We should have some information posted on the website before this evening's games begin.

In the interim, enjoy all the tournament action!

Time to fill your brackets!

The clock is ticking!  The 68 teams comprising this year's field have been announced and it's time to start filling your brackets. Can you feel the excitement?

As has been the case for the past several years, Bruce Sackmann, Rob Schlicht, and myself (Steve Schroeder) will be collecting everyone's brackets and associated entry fees. Last year, 950 people entered the pool. With a modest entry fee of $5, I won't be surprised if we surpass last year's record turnout. If you find yourself reading this website, you're welcome to join!

If you don't receive an email invitation, the right side of this page provides a link that will allow you to fill out a bracket. This link will take you directly to an excel file that has been specifically created for this pool. WE'D REALLY LIKE YOU TO USE THIS FILE!! As you can imagine, it takes quite a bit of effort to handle nearly 1,000 different brackets. By completing the excel spreadsheet and e-mailing it to Bruce, Rob, or myself, you will make our lives a lot less complicated and you'll allow us to keep things better organized. By using the excel sheet, you'll also allow us to start reporting results during the opening afternoon of games.

Ultimately, your completed bracket (in excel) will feed into a "master" file that will allow us to quickly report updated standings throughout the course of the tournament. If you have any questions regarding the excel file, simply shoot one of us an e-mail message and we'll be happy to help you. I've personally spent a lot of time trying to make the excel sheet as simple as possible, so I hope that most of you use the excel spreadsheet.

Of course, we understand that some of you don't use excel. With that in mind, it is completely acceptable if you manually fill out a bracket and submit a paper copy of your picks. You may simply cut out a bracket from the newspaper (or find one on the internet) and use that form. If you use this method, we'd appreciate seeing your bracket submitted earlier in the week, as it will take us a few minutes to manually enter your bracket into the database and we really get bogged down with brackets at the last minute.

Per usual, you are allowed to submit as many entries as you like - provided you pay $5 for each entry. The scoring system is quite simple. One point will be awarded for each correct prediction in the 1st round, two points for each correct prediction in the 2nd round, three points in the 3rd round, etc. etc., until six points are awarded for properly predicting the national champion.

Depending on the exact number of entries we receive, no less than the top ten finishers in this year's pool will win money. First place will receive exactly $1,000 and we'll distribute the rest of the prize pool to - at a minimum - the next 9 best scores. Exact payouts will be posted once all entries have been received. Last year, we paid out the top 12 spots.  In the event of a tie, total points scored in the latest round (6th) will break the tie. If each participant has the same number of points in that round, then the total points scored in the 5th round will be used. If that doesn't break the tie, then we'll look at 4th round points (and so on - until the tie is broken). Using this tiebreaker system, there is no need to project the total points in the title game (a common tiebreaker in other pools)!

ALL BRACKETS AND ENTRY FEES ARE DUE BY 11:00AM ON THURSDAY, MARCH 19th! DON'T BE CAUGHT NAPPING AND MISS THE DEADLINE!!

Throughout the tournament, this site will track and report the standings of our pool. At a minimum, I will update the standings on a nightly basis and, for that reason, I recommend bookmarking this page and checking in regularly as the tournament progresses to see where you stand. In all probability, I will update the standings (live) during tournament action, so we can all see where we stand at any particular moment. If nothing else, this will allow people to check the results of the pool without having to wait for Monday morning updates.

As an advanced warning, I live in Wisconsin and grew up in Milwaukee. So, if you don't appreciate my comments about the Wisconsin Badgers - too bad! You've probably already noticed their logo on the right side of this website. That's the price you'll pay for joining this contest!

So . . . good luck to everyone who chooses to join this pool.

May the best man - or woman - win!!

2014 Recap: Bryan Wood Wins!

Courtesy of a 60-54 win over Kentucky, the 7th seeded Huskies of UCONN have shocked the basketball world and claimed the 2014 NCAA basketball title.  At odds of 66-to-1 when the tournament began, Shabazz Napier and his UCONN teammates made a lot of money for those fortunate to bet on a team that finished third in the American Conference this season.  It is the first time that a team seeded at #7 has won the tournament.

One person that claimed big bucks from the UCONN championship is Bryan Wood.  His bracket proved to be the only one in our entire pool that predicted a national title for the Huskies.  As a result, Bryan claims our top prize of $1,000.  Congratulations, Bryan!  Bryan's bracket scored 82 points.

Bryan never led our pool until the final horn sounded in last night's game.  Here is where the winning bracket stood after each round of our pool:

1st Round -> 100th place

2nd Round -> 140th place

3rd Round -> 6th place

4th Round -> 3rd place

5th Round -> 2nd place

6th Round -> 1st place

With a final score of 79 points, the bracket of Keith Resop finished in 2nd place and claimed a prize of $750.  Keith would have won our pool if Kentucky had won the championship, but $750 is a rather nice consolation prize nevertheless.

The bracket of Matthew Courchane 3 scored 73 points and claims our 3rd place prize of $570.

Fourth place in our pool was a dead heat, with the brackets of Michelle Williams Solis and Tom Swiderski #1 each scoring 71 points.  Each bracket scored the exact same number of points in each round, so they will split the 4th and 5th place money - which comes to $450 apiece.

As a reminder, per our rules:

"In the event of a tie, total points scored in the latest round (6th) will break the tie.  If each participant has the same number of points in that round, then the total points scored in the 5th round will be used.  If that doesn't break the tie, then we'll look at 4th round points (and so on) - until the tie is broken."

Here is the full breakdown of the 12 brackets that claimed a cash prize in this year's pool.  We will contact everyone shortly to arrange payment:

1st Place - Bryan Wood 2 ($1,000)
2nd Place - Keith Resop ($750)
3rd Place - Matthew Courchane 3 ($570)
4th Place (tie) - Michele Williams Solis ($450)
4th Place (tie) - Tom Swiderski #1 ($450)
6th Place - John Germano #1 ($360)
7th Place - Michael Scaffidi 2 ($310)
8th Place - Dan Schneider #2 ($260)
9th Place - Michael Steinke #4 ($210)
10th Place - Kyle Moore #1 ($160)
11th Place - Nancy Fabing ($130)
12th Place - Joel Smukowski Bracket #1 ($100)

My annual "hard luck" award goes to the bracket of Daniel Jorjani, who owned 1 of only 2 brackets in our pool that picked Kentucky to win the championship.  If the Wildcats had won Monday night, Daniel would have finished 3rd in our pool and won $570.  Instead, UCONN's victory meant that Daniel finished in 20th place - 8 spots from the money.  Sorry, Daniel.

I hope everyone enjoyed this year's pool and if nothing crazy happens over the next 12 months, we should be back again next year.  I hope you all play again!

Tourney Expands to 4,096 Teams:

2013 Recap: Way to go, Joe!!

The Louisville Cardinals claimed the 2013 NCAA championship this evening with a hard fought victory over Michigan.  At the same time, the bracket of Joseph Giuliani finds itself at the top of our final standings with 85 points.  As a result, Joseph claims our $1,000 top prize.  Congratulations, Joseph!

The bracket of Bryan Caprioli #1 also scored 85 points but lost a tiebreaker to Joseph.  Joseph's bracket scored more points (18 to 15) in the third round.  Despite losing the tight tiebreaker, Bryan still claims a nice 2nd place prize of $750.

Both Joseph and Bryan correctly predicted Louisville's win over Michigan in the championship game.  Only 6 of our 884 brackets made that prediction, and many of those brackets litter our leaderboard.

The brackets of Andres Ortiz and Preston Love finished in a 3rd place tie with 81 points.  Amazingly, each of these brackets scored the exact same number of points in every round of this year's tournament, so they will split the 3rd and 4th place prize.  As a result, they will each take home a $500 prize.

Highlighted by two brackets from Michael Steinke, here is the list of our remaining winners:

5. Michael Steinke #10 - $400

6. Chris Bialozynski - $320

7. Eric Kempka - $250

8. Michael Steinke #1 - $200

9. Alan Runde #2 - $140

9 (tie). Krackman 2 - $140

11. Shelli's Shooting Stars - $120

12. Cheri Taylor - $100

My annual "hard luck" award goes to the brackets of Brice Beck #1, Matt Daly #2, and Mike Lewanowich.  Each of these brackets finished in a 4-way tie with Cheri Taylor for 12th place.  However, Cheri won the tiebreaker over each of these brackets and claimed the final $100 prize.  You came close, guys, but the lady took home the last of our pool's loot.

It's been another great tournament!  We will be notifying all our winners to coordinate payments. 

I hope that everyone returns next year!!