2013 NCAA Basketball Conference Tournament Pool Final Results

Congratulations to Amanda for winning the pool by 2 points, the addition of bonus points helped her to victory!



Amanda hit on 3 of her 7 bonus points while no one else hit on more then 1 bonus point.  In addition, Amanda's accuracy was still tied for the best at 45.2%

Jenn finished in second place and was strong throughout the entire tournament, while John finished in 3rd, last of the money spots.

Joel had a rough past 3 days and ended up in 4th, which while no money is paid out, he still gets a free entry for next year.

 

 

Jenn/John - Let me know how to get you your money (Send a Check, In person, etc.)

 

Full Final Standings

 

Click Here for Master Picks and Standings (When you access the spreadsheet, if it gives you the option to "Edit Copy" or "Cancel" you will want to choose "Cancel") 

 

 

Thank you for playing everyone!!  No long Blog tonight, but for anyone that wants to be in the bracket pool, below is the information.

 

This message is from Rick Donegan who is challenging you to play Tournament Challenge on ESPN.com.

Get in on the excitement of this year's NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Compete against other fans as you fill out a bracket and earn points for every correct pick! Come out on top and you could win a $10,000 Best Buy gift card. Get a group together and earn plenty of bragging rights among your friends by winning it all. Best of all, it's free to play and win.

Get in the action now:
http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/en/group?groupID=3564&ex_cid=tcmen-invite-email

On mobile:
http://games.espn.go.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/en/m/group?groupID=3564&ex_cid=tcmen-invite-email

Group: Storm My Court
Password: vegas

 



Selection Sunday Update

Good Luck to Amanda and Joel Today - They Will Be Battling it Out for 1st Place!



Amanda took sole possession of 1st place late last night by correctly picking Oregon (Bonus Pick) and U.C. Irvine Anteaters lost. 

Amanda controls her own fate today with Miami and St. Louis still alive, but Joel can pass her with VCU and Florida wins, assuming Miami doesn't win.  If all 3 of those teams win it will come down to the B1G tie breaker.

Jenn is eliminated from 1st place contention after holding the top spot for almost an entire week, but a 2nd - 4th place is still available for her.  Christina is also eliminated from 1st place after a late surge over the past few days, but a 2nd - 4th place is still available for her as well.

John can jump into the top 4 as well, but everyone else is essentially eliminated from a top 4 spot, unless I am missing a scenario with a B1G tiebreaker.

Click Here for Master Picks and Standings (When you access the spreadsheet, if it gives you the option to "Edit Copy" or "Cancel" you will want to choose "Cancel")



Selection Sunday is the best day during all of "March Madness" because it kicks off the NCAA Tournament and so many great games are ahead of us.

We need to work in selection show prop bets as part of this pool:

• Number of teams shown in a Buffalo Wild Wings or Bar/Grill (3.5)
• Number of teams shown in the coaches basement/house (2.5)
• Number of teams shown in the gym with the cheerleaders present (5.5)
• Number of pissed off coaches interviewed about not being selected (1.5)
• Number of Brad Stevens or Shaka Smart references (15.5)



One Day Left of Conference Championship Games

With one day left until championship week is over and the Selection Show begins, below are the current standings.  I plan on sending out an update tomorrow morning which will include all the games that are ending later tonight.

Jenn, Joel, Christina, and Amanda look to be the ones that will battle this out tomorrow, with John and Erica having an outside chance of sneaking into the top 4.

Click Here for Master Picks and Standings (When you access the spreadsheet, if it gives you the option to "Edit Copy" or "Cancel" you will want to choose "Cancel")

Today's Highlights:

• In the first game of the day, Albany won the American East conference, propelling Amanda into the race for 1st



• Northwestern State defeated Stephen F. Austin and the reason why is the creepy coach of SF Austin!



• Other teams that punched tickets to the dance today are:  Memphis, Southern, North Carolina A&T, Kansas, New Mexico, Akron, Louisville, and Montana
• Ohio State and Wisconsin will play in the B1G Championship game tomorrow, most of us picked Indiana, Michigan, or Michigan State
• St. Louis and VCU will play in the A10 Championship game tomorrow and as a group we are fairly evenly split between these two teams, this will be one of the more important games
• Miami will face North Carolina in the ACC Championship game tomorrow and this is critical for both John and Amanda

For Tina and Zack (You're BOTH correct, so stop fighting):

Carolina blue (occasionally referred to as Tar Heel blue) is the shade of blue used as one of the official school colors of the University of North Carolina. The name is derived from the popular usage of "Carolina" to refer to the university. For clarity in branding and marketing, the University

Licensing Office has defined the color as Pantone 278.^[2]



Championship Saturday Preview

Since we have 13 championship games today I wanted to make sure to send a update before the games started.

We basically have a 9 person race for the top 4 spots, and although only 2 people are eliminated, everyone else has an outside chance to sneak up into the race if we see some upsets today.

Jenn, Joel, Christina, and Tim round out the top 4 spots heading into Saturday, but Rick and John still have 21 Max Points available.

 

 

 

 

Click Here for Master Picks and Standings (When you access the spreadsheet, if it gives you the option to "Edit Copy" or "Cancel" you will want to choose "Cancel")

 

America East

 

(4) Albany will take on (2) Vermont.  Only Amanda has Albany, so a win will give her bonus points and jump her from 9th to 3rd.  Joel would take over 1st place with a Vermont win.

 

 

Big 12

 

(2) Kansas State takes on rival (1) Kansas, this should be a great game to watch.  Everyone except Tim and Erica have Kansas, so a Kansas win will put them in a tough position to finish in the top 4.

 

 

Big East

 

(5) Syracuse will face (2) Louisville in the last real Big East championship game ever, so this will be one to watch.  Tim, Rick, and John, are the only ones not on Louisville, so we are rooting for a Syracuse upset.  If Kansas and Louisville wins, Tim is essentially eliminated and Rick/John will have a tough road if Louisville wins.

 

 

Big Sky

 

Joel and Amanda are on (1) Montana, while everyone else is pulling for (2) Weber State.  Joel and Amanda have some unique picks today compared to everyone else in the top 9, so they have the chance to put the pool away or finish mid pick - no in between.

 

 

Big West

 

(4) UC Irvine who upset Long beach State last night will take on (2) Pacific in this championship match up.  Jenn, Tina, Tim, Rick, and John are all on UC Irvine, who if they win, is a bonus pick and would drop Joel into the middle of the pack.

 

 

Conference USA

 

Everyone has (1) Memphis, this game will not impact our pool outcome, it only impacts overall accuracy results.

 

 

Great West

 

(4) Houston Baptist Church Choir will take on (3) Chicago State-Dan Ryan University.  This is another game we don't care about and won't impact our pool outcome since we all lost with N.J.I.T or Texas Panamerican Panhandle College.

 

 

MAC

 

Everyone,  except Joel, is sitting on (1) Akron vs. (2) Ohio.  This is another example of Joel's unique picks and he can really run away and dominate this pool if 2-3 of this picks hit.

 

 

MEAC

 

(7) North Carolina AT&T will take on the (5) Morgan State Bears in a match up of two really, really, crappy teams that does not impact our pool.  Tim, Rick, Chris, and Andrew will be the only ones paying attention to this game only to determine if they will cover a double digit spread when they have to play Louisville next week during the Big Dance.

 

 

Mountain West

 

(3) UNLV takes on (1) New Mexico and both teams are playing very well right now.  Only John and Erica are rolling with New Mexico, while the rest of us are on UNLV.  If John or Erica want a shot to finish in the top 4 this is a critical game for them.  Amanda had Colorado State so no outcome is good for her on the this one, well, she probably wants New Mexico since that won't result in bonus points for people.

 

 

Pac 12

 

(3) Oregon and (1) UCLA match up in this championship game.  The top 5 people in the pool do not have any of these teams so this is a chance for John, Young, and/or Amanda to catch up.

 

 

Southland

 

This is a critical match up for our pool since we have so many people with unique picks.  (2) Northwestern State takes on (1) Stephen F. Austin, and although no bonus picks are up for grabs, this will provide some separation or catch-up for people.

 

 

SWAC

 

This is another conference championship that does not impact the pool as we all have (1) Southern against (4) Prairie View A&M.  This is only good to help out with our overall accuracy %

 

 

WAC

 

This is the 4th conference that has no impact to our pool as all of us have lost our champion!

 

 

 

 



42 Games in 15 Hours Today

Over the next 3 days I will be getting back to making this update longer and more informational, just as it was a week ago.  We are also just under 48 hours until the Selection Show on Sunday!

For some reason, Tim and I decided that championship week would be the perfect week to be busy at work with project roll outs, conducting workshops, taking on major accounts, and flying in colleagues for meetings!  Next year we will plan better.

If Sam Houston State (Bearkats with a "k") loses tonight, it will be a long weekend for Tina, and if UCLA beats up on Arizona then Joel will be on suicide watch.

Ron is officially the 1st one to 20 losses, but still not in last place, that honor goes to Rabitoy.  I am shocked Jack and BI are at the bottom, but they still have over 20 Max Points as a potential so they are not yet out.  Now Chris, I did expect to be somewhere towards the bottom, he still thinks Gerry McNamara plays for Syracuse

B1G

• ILL was unable to continue its tournament run when they ran into Indiana today and lost by double digits, and by double digits I mean 20 points
• This group has many ILL fans which is the only reason I even cover this topic (At least you got your Shamrock-shaped donut Jenn)

• In a fairly significant upset in terms of our pool, Wisconsin knocked out Michigan, this really impacted people towards the top of the standings
• Courtesy of Jenn, we have a picture of what it feels like to be a sad Michigan fan today
• I also need to add that Jenn is more of a fan than any of us...she is actually GOING to these games (Although bailing on March Madness in Vegas may make me revoke this statement)

 

ACC

• Boston College gave Miami a great game today, but in the last minute Miami pulled away and won by 10;  This keeps Young, Amanda, Andrew, and Rachel alive
• Duke goes down to the Maryland Turtles!!  I hate Duke so much, I am glad they lost, even though I picked them

SEC

• Florida easily cruised by LSU this afternoon, the only person really rooting against Florida at this point is Jenn
• Alabama advanced to the next round, Rachel is the lone crimson fan within the pool

Big East

• Syracuse and Georgetown had an awesome overtime game, with Syracuse coming in on top with a win
• Chris is probably wetting his pants with excitement right now



All Other Conferences with Pool Impacts

• In the A10 St. Louis advanced to the Semi-finals, VCU/STL is the match up that impacts our pool
• Butler keeps moving along in the A10 tournament, and we have some Butler upset picks in our pool
• In a CRAZY upset in a garbage conference, The Houston Baptist Church beat N.J.I.T with a buzzer beater to move on to the Great West Championship
• I am SO glad this conference is gone after this year
• Only a few people are left alive in this conference with The Texas Panhandle of America College
• Akron, VCU, Kansas, and Memphis have all advanced to the championship game
• They made a run at the end of the year, made it to the Bubble, and now Kentucky's bubble has been burst by Vandy, major impacts to the mid section of the pool

Today, as yesterday, brought us 0 opportunities to earn points due to no conference finals today, but we again saw many losses across the board that had major impacts to the standings.  I'll keep saying it, the link below is updated several times each day, so just because a new Blog entry isn't posted doesn't mean the link won't be updated.

Click Here for Master Picks and Standings (When you access the spreadsheet, if it gives you the option to "Edit Copy" or "Cancel" you will want to choose "Cancel")

 

 

14 Conference Championships on Saturday, 3/16!

 

 

 

Major Conferences Underway and Payment Reminder

All major conferences are now underway with their tournaments and today has not brought a change in the standings, but everyone is quickly accumulating losses. 

Jenn has temporarily taken control of 1st place as Joel is bleeding bonus teams tonight.



 

After today we have 3 days left, if you have not paid please try to send your payment by Sunday so I can quickly pay out the winners.  No one is Mathematically eliminated yet!



Updated Standings and I Update This Link Multiple Times Each Night

Click Here for Master Picks and Standings (When you access the spreadsheet, if it gives you the option to "Edit Copy" or "Cancel" you will want to choose "Cancel")


We did not have any new conference champions today and we will not have any conference champions tomorrow, but below are today's highlights.

• Georgetown steamrolled Cincinnati to start off the action at 10:00 AM today
• The Richmond Spiders committed 3 technical fouls in the last 10 seconds to seal a loss against Charlotte
• Butler is still dancing and is one of my favorite teams to watch each year as they typically sneak in to the tournament and end up making a decent run
• Denver lost to Texas South - HUGE upset in the WAC and for our pool
• The Great West tipped off today and no one anywhere cares except the 18 of us
• Nebraska upset Purdue!!!!
• Tina Donegan's Sam Houston State is continuing their improbably run towards a Southland Conference Championship by knocking off Oral Roberts!
• And one of the greatest games today was ILL knocking off Minnesota with a buzzer beater



Cliche Milestone Post and Standings Update

Tonight's Blog will be kept short as I was cleaning up a flooded basement while watching the games.

This Blog, although intended for just our group participating in the pool, has gone over 600 views!  For most Blogs this is not a lot, but for only being up since 2/28, and targeted for a small and specific group, 600 is pretty high, and we still have 6 days to go.  Yes, my views of the Blog are excluded, and last year we reached 594 total views.

I have received at least 20 random e-mails from people asking if they can participate next year, but I would prefer to keep the money between people we know.  Tim and I need to start planning how we can transform this Blog into cash.  Maybe we hold a separate pool for anyone to join and give away prizes, this will help drive traffic to the Blog and we can become the next TeamRankings.com!

Moving on to the actual action from tonight, we welcome the following teams to the Big Dance. Ticket has been punched.

• LIU Brooklyn
• Only 2 out of 18 people selected LIU Brooklyn to win!
• South Dakota State
• Nate Wolters clowned on most of us
• Valparaiso
• This was expected as 55.5% of the pool picked Valpo, while they had a 56.1% chance to win to begin with

The introduction of Bonus Points this year has helped to ensure people are not eliminated at this point, so everyone is not only in the running for money, but in the running for 1st place.

• Rachel and Ron are in this thing because they have so many Bonus Points and Max Points remaining, a couple of upsets and they will shoot to the top 3rd of the standings
• Joel and Jenn have went on a hot streak the past few days and are winning at over a 50% rate, which is incredible
• Tim, Christina, and John are right there behind them!

Click Here for Master Picks and Standings (When you access the spreadsheet, if it gives you the option to "Edit Copy" or "Cancel" you will want to choose "Cancel")

Wednesday, 3/13, will only brings us 1 championship game, and that is from the Patriot League.  77.7% of us have Bucknell, but it will be a tough game against 2 seed Lafayette.  Amanda and Rachel will be rooting for Lafayette.

Mid/Low Major Upset Fenzy

We are right in the middle of the conference tournaments at this point as all conferences wrapped up the regular season yesterday, and every conference tournament will be underway by tomorrow.  The picture below sums up today's basketball action really well.



Although the Fighting Snails didn't make it, we have 5 new conference champions today going to the NCAA Tournament!  Let's look at today's champions.

 

 

Southern Conference

• Davidson took on the College of Charleston tonight and it wasn't really a game from the moment it tipped off
• Davidson coasted to a easy 10 point lead and now no colleges with the name Charleston are alive for the NCAA tournament
• Davidson was the biggest favorite by us at 77.7% while they were predicted to have a 67% chance of winning the Southern Conference, meaning this conference championship went as expected

Colonial Conference

• James Madison DOMINATED Northeastern from opening tip and although Northeastern cut the deficit to 8 late in the second half, James Madison ended the game with a big run
• Congratulations to Amanda for sticking with James Madison year after year after year after year, they finally brought you not just a win, but a bonus win
• Northeastern was predicted to have a 25% chance of winning, while 44.4% of us backed Delaware

 

Sun Belt Conference

• Big. Red. Amorphous. Blob.  He is back!
• Erica is most likely giving Tim $500 to take to Vegas next week to lay on the WKU Moneyline, even though she still struggles to understand what Big Red even is!
• Congratulations to Ron for being the ONLY person to pick Western Kentucky, he will not go 0-31 and now needs to pay!
• This conference statistically had the biggest upset so far as 88.8% of us picked Middle Tennessee, while they had a 72.8% chance to win

MAAC

• Iona/Manhattan was a great game with Iona pulling away late to win
• Iona celebrated way too early and Manhattan received 2 technical foul shots, but with .1 second left it was too late for Manhattan
• Iona was favored to win this conference with a 28.8% chance, but our picks were pretty evenly divided between all the teams in the conference

 

 

West Coast Conference

 

• As expected, Gonzaga dominated St. Mary's and coasted to a very easy WCC conference championship
• Andrew is so pumped and will be in all his 'Zags gear next week!
• Gonzaga had a 68.7% chance to win this tournament and 83.3% of us backed them
• Put a fork in Teen wolf!

 

Standings Update

Jenn, Tim, and Christina are still leading the pack with a 45.5% accuracy rate.  It is important to understand that bonus points are not factored in the accuracy rate, so they are truly picking almost 50% of the winners to this point!

Amanda, Rick, Joel, and John are RIGHT on their tails, so any let downs by this group of 7 will be costly over the next few days.

Good news is that EVERYONE is on the board with a win, and if Ron pulls off a few more upsets he will be in contention based upon the amount of point opportunities he has left.

Click Here for Master Picks and Standings (When you access the spreadsheet, if it gives you the option to "Edit Copy" or "Cancel" you will want to choose "Cancel")

Tuesday 3/12 Preview







First Championship Weekend Recap

We had 4 championship games this weekend, along with some major upsets of 1 and 2 seeds.  This weekend brought the biggest change in the standings as we finally started to have people accumulating wins (and losses).

This weekend was filled with bad teams making deep runs into conference tournaments, 1 seeds upset early in conference tournaments, and game after game of amazing buzzer beating shots (Belmont, Valparaiso, Albany, Fairfield, Wright State, St. Mary's, Albany, and Davidson).

The spreadsheet is now completely updated with all seeding for each conferences and the Max Bonus points column is accurate.

• Christina and Jenn have come out of the gate strong and dominating the pool, with over a 30% accuracy rate!
• Amanda is in 3rd and is best positioned to take the lead over the next few days with her upset picks (St. Mary's, Albany, and James Madison)
• Excluding Rabitoy and Ron, long term, Tim is best positioned to win the pool as he has Maximum Points remaining



Having said all that, we still have a such a long way to go, and the major conference picks for next Sunday are all so different, this looks as though it will come down to the last day.

Click Here for Master Picks and Standings (When you access the spreadsheet, if it gives you the option to "Edit Copy" or "Cancel" you will want to choose "Cancel")

The following teams have punched a ticket to the 2013 NCAA Tournament



• Atlantic Sun: 
• Florida Gulf Coast University (Upset 1 seed Mercer for their first appearance ever!)
• 50% of our pool chose Florida Gulf Coast, but Mercer was predicted to have a 54.5% chance to win
• Ivy: 
• Harvard (Won Ivy league regular season for the second year in a row)
• No impact to our pool
• Ohio Valley: 
• Belmont (Moved from the Atlantic Sun to the OVC and won the conference in year 1!)
• 55.5% of our pool chose Belmont, which aligned with the bracketology prediction of 70.1%
• Big South: 
• Liberty Flames (They are the second worst team to make the NCAA tournament and they have a 20 loss season)
• Liberty had a .01% chance to win this tournament, Charleston Southern was the highest with a 28% chance to win, and in our pool 55.5% chose Gardner-Webb
• Nobody in the pool picked the correct Big South Champion!
• Missouri Valley: 
• Creighton (Great game against Wichita!)
• 44.4% of the pool picked Creighton and they were predicted to have a 49.7% meaning the MVC went as everyone predicted

Monday will bring us FIVE conference championship games! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red Friday and A Tradition Continues

Today was a blood bath for most of the pool as 8 conferences had 20+ games (or 40+ teams) in play!  Lot's of champions were lost today and you will see much more red on the spreadsheet.  Rabitoy and Ron are leading the pack with 3 losses.

Click Here for Master Picks and Standings (When you access the spreadsheet, if it gives you the option to "Edit Copy" or "Cancel" you will want to choose "Cancel")

In keeping with the annual tradition, Tina asked for her name to be changed to Christina on the standings.

You are probably asking yourself why this matters, well, early on in the pool when everyone is bunched together and tied, the 6th sorting option in the spreadsheet is alphabetical order.  By Tina changing to Christina, she is visually jumping up 2-3 spots in the standings, and although this has no impact to the final results, it makes her feel better.

Next year I recommend she just submits her entry under the name of Aardvark.

Now let's look at the action from the conferences tournaments today.  Because we are seeing increased conference action, I will scale it back in how detailed I go with each conference/game.  I will focus more on exciting games and games that specifically impact our pool, so if you're looking for an update on the results of Furman/Samford from  the opening round of the Southern Conference, you probably won't find it here.

Southern Conference

• The Southern Conference tipped off today beginning with Georgia Southern vs. Wofford
• Georgia Southern, a 9 seed, won by almost 20 points and we do have 1 person with Georgia Southern as their champion, so this will be a team to watch
• I am already breaking my rule and mentioning Furman, but only because they are the Furman Paladins (The paladins, sometimes known as the Twelve Peers, were the foremost warriors of Charlemagne's court, according to the literary cycle known as the Matter of France.  Paladins are also known as holy warriors.)
• That is a intense meaning to your team name, especially considering you just played a team named "Bulldogs"
• UNC Greensboro was down 11 points in the second half and ended up beating Chattanooga by 6!

Missouri Valley Conference (Arch Madness)

• Tina was worried that Drake was going to win when they were within 4 points in the second half, but I calmed her down and let her know Creighton would win by 15
• Creighton 65 - Drake 53, I was close enough
• 44.4% of our pool was happy to see that Creighton came out on top
• Indiana State and Evansville played a great game that came down to 1 free throw to win the game for Indiana State
• Indiana State ended up winning and knocked out Evansville to eliminate Andrew and Rabitoy's MVC Champion

Atlantic Sun Conference

• The Atlantic Sun Conference Champion will be determined tomorrow and either Mercer or Florida Gulf Coast will officially be the first team to get a automatic bid in the 2013 NCAA Tournament!

Horizon League

• Wright State advanced to the next round

Sun Belt Conference

• Western Kentucky and LA-Lafayette advanced to the next round

Ohio Valley Conference

• The Ohio Valley Conference Champion will be determined tomorrow between Belmont and the winner of Murray State/Eastern Kentucky tonight, and they will officially be the second team to get a automatic bid in the 2013 NCAA Tournament!

MAAC

• Sienna advanced to the next round

West Coast Conference

• Loyola Marymount went 1-15 in the regular season and they are now 2-0 in the tournament!
• As of halftime, LMU has the lead over Santa Clara - If LMU hangs on for the win they get to play Gonzaga
• Can you imagine if LMU advances and beats Gonzaga tomorrow?  Andrew would probably go enroll at LMU, or at least make a very large donation to the athletic program
• Since the WCC tournament takes place in Vegas, I leave you with a final picture...