There was a real concern here at headquarters that we might not have any upsets on our way to the Sweet Sixteen. The reality of a one through four seed advancing to the Sweet Sixteen in every region was something that struck horror into the minds of those of us who love the unpredictability of EQE March Madness. In fact our crack research team checked and only once has a single region seen the top four seeds advance to the third round of the tournament. Today saw some close ones, namely Nebraska fending off a tight challenge from Vanderbilt plus maybe the most entertaining game since naked Twister, where the twelve seed, High Point, made the fourth seeded Arkansas sweat. But there ended up being one game that stood above them all, one that brought joy and relief to all who love true March Madness………..ummm, except for a certain minority of our tournament entrants.

Just when it looked like we were headed toward the most boring Sweet Sixteen ever, a most unlikely game took place.  That, of course would the game that saw Texas, a team that had to get into the tournament by winning a play-in game, take down the third seeded Gonzaga, throwing the tournament into total disarray. Only eight of our entries had Texas advancing to the Sweet Sixteen, so those entries went a leg up on all of the others.  All others had to put the dreaded red X in their bracket where they predicted victory for the Bulldogs. 

A setback for most, but a minor one in reality.  However there was severe damage done to a few brackets, namely those that had Gonzaga advancing to the Final Four, of which there were eight.  Of those, three actually had the Bulldogs winning it all, including…………deep breath here…………Pope’s Picks.

Another Regrettable Showing for Pope’s Picks

Yes, the tournament’s historically most tormented and hapless entry has once again provided irrefutable proof that Catholics were just simply not meant to play basketball at any level beyond the local CYO. That the Zags were undone by a player whose name is actually Pope is an irony that nobody, not even God himself could have envisioned, but that is exactly what took place as Texas’ Jordan Pope was instrumental in leading the Longhorns to victory. Perhaps rather than focusing on teams leaning toward a certain faith, the Pope might consider favoring teams with actual Popes on their team in his next entry? Just a suggestion.

As for our current tournament leaders, we are back to a five way tie for first place in current points, with Shizcity 4 leading the way in both current and possible points.  Before anyone gets too excited, though, the difference between first and 26th place in possible points is just five points, and with Round Two games worth three points each, things could change very quickly.  Throw in another upset like today’s and then we’re looking at some real fun.

Just one entry, The Bald Eagle, managed to pick all eight games for today correctly, but that pick is mired in 74th place overall, so there must have been some truly awful picks in the first round games.  We’ll cross our fingers and hope that things begin to shake out a little more with tomorrow’s Round Two games.

As for the race for the Brandy Award, shockingly Pope’s Picks is not currently leading the way. Instead that honor goes to Patricio 22 whose entry somehow correctly picked only one game correctly today, resulting in a solid last place showing with just 37 points. The Pope actually hit on four matchups today, resulting in a tie for 105th place overall at what would appear to be a dominant 58 points. But when sorting by possible picks Pope’s Picks has a commanding leg up on all other brackets, courtesy of having seen three of his Final Four picks get eliminated along with two more of his Elite Eight selections. The tension is palpable as the remaining three Elite Eight picks still have to clear their way in games tomorrow. The possibility of having every pick wiped out by the time we get to Round 3 is real – and unpredented. To everyone’s relief, though, Brandy’s score of 30 has already been handily exceeded, even should the unthinkable take place. Of course we’ll let you know what transpires as we update things tomorrow.

We’re shaking things up a little in tonight’s update and starting off with the battle for the Brandy Award, because it holds much more of an intriguing interest at the moment. A couple reasons for that. First the far and away two worst possible outcomes come from the same person, Patricio and Patricio 22. The maximum possible score for Patricio is 138, primarily because half of Patricio’s chosen Elite Eight entries are already gone. And that’s with virtually no upsets! Shockingly though, that’s not the worst present performance. That instead belongs to Zoe Bracket, in which a full half of the Round 1 entries were incorrect picks. Granted, that’s not as bad as we’ve seen in previous Brandy Award contests, but when the upsets are lacking as much as they are again this year you have to have gone pretty far out on a limb to bat .500. All due credit to Zoe for employing a unique strategy.

Looming in the race, though, for the Brandy Award is an old familiar name which we’ve come to love for it’s steady display of ineptitude. Of course that would be Pope’s Picks, the undisputed annual bracket of shame that presents us with the most ill advised choices by favoring the Catholic schools, a dubious strategy that has brought about the worst finish in three of the last four years.

As you may recall we have a new pope this year as Pope Francis fell ill just days after last year’s Final Four concluded. Not widely reported is the fact that the Pope’s streak of embarrassing failures was a huge factor in his passing as he fell into a deep depression, ultimately leading to his demise. This set off widespread panic among the Cardinals seeking to identify a worthy replacement. Key in their consideration was one who understood sports, one who could restore glory to the previously sanctified namesake educational institutions. And that is chiefly why the job ultimately went to an American. The new pontiff, Pope Leo, brought hope and optimism, as finally the church had a leader who could restore some respect among the few remaining Catholic sports fans. But it appears that those hopes have been dashed as Pope’s Picks is once again strongly in the running for the Brandy Award. Oh, it’s not a certainty, and it might take some doing to overcome the determined effort put forward by not one, but two Patricio’s, but there is the fear that the Cardinals may have erred. We’ll get a better feel for the odds after a few more games play out, but for now all the Pope can do is pray………..wait, isn’t that pretty much what he does anyway?

OK, on to the leaders. Under the Current Points sort we have a four-way tie between entries that managed to pick 28 of the 32 contests correctly. Mighty impressive. However using the Possible Score sort, two of those four fall out of the top standings, leaving two at the top regardless of the sort. Leading the way after all of the first round games is oxNARDdog and Shizcity 2. The second half of the first round did not bring us much in the way of hoped for upsets, unless you want to count the eight vs. nine matchups where the lower seeds went four for four. Otherwise it was pretty mundane as far as surprises go on Day 2. We’ll cross our fingers and hope for a little more excitement in Round 2 and we hope you’ll stay updated on your brackets as we can honestly claim that everyone still has a chance to finish at the top right now. Of course that’s exclusive of many likelihoods and you know when a statement is preceded by “mathematically speaking,” there are going to be some complications. Hang in there, though, and we’ll keep you updated on things both good and horrible as the tournament forges on.

The second half of day one brought us a few upsets along with a few scares for some of the higher seeded teams. The biggest upset of the day, as far as our brackets are concerned at least, was the win by the eleventh seeded VCU over the sixth seeded North Carolina, overcoming a 19 point deficit to take the win in an overtime thriller. To their credit 51 of our participants actually picked this correctly, but the loss by UNC was a bracket buster for a good number of entries, especially the two that had the Tarheels going all the way to the final game.  More on those picks shortly.

So as we conclude the first day of tournament action we have a four way tie for first place (Current Points sort), each entry having picked 14 of 16 matchups correctly. Given the number of upsets that took place on day one this is some impressive picking. Behind these four we have 20 entries all tied for fifth place, each of which missed on only three games, which in itself is just about as impressive. Overall, though it is way too early to get too excited regardless of the standings, so don’t go planning on paying off the mortgage quite yet if you happen to be one of the leaders.

At the other end of the standings, even the laggards managed to make some reasonable picks, the worst performance being just seven correct results, this accomplished by two of our participants. Surprisingly, though, when sorting by possible points, rather than current points, those two picks zoom all the way up to a tie for 110th place. The UNC loss struck a massive blow to those two entries that had UNC in the final game, HillyGoodBracket and TRR2, but even worse than that is Patricio 22, who has already seen two Elite Eight picks fall by the wayside.  Oddly enough the HillyGoodBracket entry is one of those tied for fifth place overall when sorted by Current Points, illustrating the fallacy of projecting results at this point.  This underscores the fact that it is much too early to project any kind of a winner or loser at this point. There are still many contests to be lost and we’ll hope for more surprises in tomorrow’s games.

So much for perfect brackets. The two brackets that emerged from the pack with perfect records after the first four games have now fallen back into the clutches of the masses where there is a 16-way tie for first after the first half of the first day. Those 16 correctly picked seven of the first eight games.

Even those brackets that had whiffed completely in the first four games came back strongly with all but one of them going four for four, while the laggard managed to nail three of four. All respect and hope has been restored. Needless to say there were no big upsets after the first four games.

But eight more games remain after a brief respite and following those games we’ll provide another update where hopefully we’ll start to see some separation in the EQE March Madness tournament.

OK, normally we’d wait until the first half of the first day games are complete before chiming in, but after the first four games the results, and the trends at this point, are so remarkable that we felt compelled to provide some words of comfort.

Are you feeling despair already because you’ve whiffed on half of your picks so far? Well, fear not, because you have plenty of company. In fact, 93 of us are batting .500 or less after just four games. Only 18 entries picked the old reliable 12 seed over a 5, which was fulfilled with High Point’s upset win over Wisconsin. The other “upset” was the TCU, a 9 seed, over the Ohio State, seeded the 8. Even though that’s essentially an even matchup, just 38 entries correctly predicted the win for the Horned Frogs.

More fun facts for your too, as just two entries have picked the first four games correctly while four have whiffed on all four games so far.

Now things stand to change even more dramatically, and you’ll want to check in after the first eight games are complete because Sienna is holding a handy and consistent lead over the overall number one seed, Duke. If that upset should take place our tournament could well be over by the time we reach the Sweet Sixteen!

EQE March Madness has begun with 118 entries, an impressive showing for a contest that has endured now for 38 years. As usual updates will be posted here along with our observations, projections and occasional comments about Charles Barkley and his ability to pick the wrong team in his projections.

You should also feel free to peruse the site, particularly the “Status Reports” in the menu above which will provide you with all of the information that you might require regarding your entries, standings, and bracket results. For example at this point you’ll see that among our entries, half of them have selected either Arizona or Duke to win it all, meaning that you could possibly have picked the winner, but could end up finishing somewhere around 35th place. How’s that for encouragement?

You can also use this link to view your bracket results as the site will automatically mark your winners and losers. Or if you prefer to go old school and print a paper copy of your bracket, click on the “Create/View Entry” link and you can download a pdf to show your friends, neighbors and fellow March Madness partygoers.

We’ll be back often with updates as the tournament progresses. Best of luck to all!

The Registration Page is NOW LIVE (after some hiccups). Deadline is 9am Pacific Time, 12 Noon Eastern Time, March 19, 2026.

Email hoopsmaster@eqemarchmadness.com if you need this year’s entry password.

https://hoopness.com/pool/player/Hoopsmadness

Congratulations to our 2025 Champion, which is the somehow aptly named “Conference of Champions,” one of thirteen entries that had Florida prevailing over Houston. Out of those 13, only four managed to finish in the money, which demonstrates the importance of getting those early round picks right. We can now reveal that long time participant, Samson Ng, who many of our Seattle area participants know as “The Collector,” is this year’s big winner, with a final score of 216, just two points shy of the all time record of 218. As a point of reference the maximum possible score is 247, and having picked seven of the eight possible Elite Eight teams correctly, then nailing every succeeding outcome Samson demonstrated an accuracy that Charles Barkley can only dream of.

Not far behind and nailing down second place is our very own pool co-administrator, Kent David and his Everlovin’ Adelaide entry. Kent scored 213 points, just one Sweet Sixteen pick away from matching Samson’s impressive feat. Third place, with a total score of 211 is Gordon Bjorkman III, whose entry was cleverly labeled Gordon Bjorkman III. Fourth and fifth place were decided by a tiebreaker as both “dfs” (who led all players briefly in the early rounds) and AnakinVance both totaled 206 points, the entries coming from David Smith and John Lautz, respectively. Mr. Smith ended up in fourth having predicted a total sum of 140 points, while John shot high at 150.

Congratulations to all of those finishing in the money and thanks to all who participated in one of the year’s hi light events. Hopefully we’ll see you all again next year when we enjoy another three weeks of March Madness!

After 56 tournament contests, it’s come down to two entries in the 2025 version of EQE March Madness that have the chance to lay claim to being the Champion. By Monday evening either Conference of Champions, a tearful and anachronistic salute to a group of institutions torn apart by the temptation and lure of money, or Harry the Horse, which we can only guess is a tearful and anachronistic salute to the crooked, but lovable gambler portrayed in the classic film, Guys and Dolls, also torn apart by the temptation and lure of money, will walk away with first place winnings.

Should Florida prevail over Houston, Conference of Champions, an entry belonging to a semi-administrative representative of our little pool, will be our 2025 champ. However, should Houston prevail over Florida, Harry the Horse, an entry belonging to one of the administrators of our little pool, will……….hey, wait a minute – you mean no matter what happens on Monday the winnings go to pool administrative personnel???

OK, time out here. An investigation is being launched to get to the bottom of this obviously rigged contest. We’ve called in our special investigative team , Drebin & Clouseau, who promise to get right to work on this matter and have it settled by……….well, let’s just wait until Monday to figure that out. Best of luck to all legitimate entries poised to finish second through fifth. To see if your is among the lucky remaining eight possible winners, click on the Status Reports menu selector above and choose Final Four in the dropdown selector box…….or simply click here.

27 Entries Still Alive

And just like that, we’re down to the Final Four, with the semi-finals consisting of the number one seed from each respective region. Now 18 or our entries went with all of the number one seeds making their Final Four, yet only six of those have a chance of winning it all, which underscores the importance of making accurate picks in the earlier rounds. There are even some scenarios in which entries that did NOT pick all of the one seeds can finish on top. Huh? Yep, it’s a fact. Further proof of early round importance.

Overall, 27 entries remain alive for some kind of prize. Our leader for the last several rounds suffered terminal damage when Final Four picks Michigan State and Tennessee suffered defeat, but the entry labeled dfs currently sits atop the standings with Duking it Out right behind, Eyebrian3 in third and then a whole bunch of fourth place entries all tied. In reality, though the standings at this point have little meaning other than bragging rights for the next six days, because everything comes down to the eight possible scenarios, all of which are spelled out in the “Final Four” report, which you can select above by clicking on the “Status Reports” menu, then selecting “Final Four” in the dropdown box. Here you’ll be able to determine who you need to root for this coming Saturday in addition to your best possible finish.

In the meantime expect to hear from your local collection agent this week if you haven’t already, and please arrange to make your donation promptly so that our winners can be rewarded for their insight and accuracy.

Halfway to the Final Four and little has changed among the leaders, as both number one seeds notched a win in the first half of Elite Eight competition. Mark McKeown Bracket continues to lead, followed by dfs, and then we have a three-way tie for third between Duking it Out, Tyrone Shoelaces and Striper Chasing. Whether you go by the Current Points sort or the Possible Points sort, the standing among the top six remain unchanged. And as a matter of interest, each one of these, with the exception of the leader, have some combination of Florida and Duke in the Championship game. So tomorrow’s games, involving top seeds Auburn and Houston taking on Michigan State and Tennessee, respectively, will play a big part in sorting out the logjam at the top.

More than half of our entries have been eliminated from winning any kind of prize at this point and further, only 19 entries have a chance to win it all. The current Status Report now includes a Best Finish column, or due to space limitations, “Best Fnsh,” which we are guessing stands for “finish,” rather than the Federation for Nova Scotia Heritage. If you can’t figure out where your entry currently sits in the standings (or if you’re wondering about any possible ties to native Nova Scotians) please drop us a line at headquarters and we’ll be happy to pass along what we know.

The Elite Eight has pretty much come down to the elitest eight teams in the tournament. With apologies to St. Johns, it seems that the top eight teams that remain in contention are pretty much the top teams in the country. And while there’s a certain logic there, it can be argued that it’s made for an incredibly boring season of March “Madness.” With little in the way of upsets, buzzer beaters and Cinderella teams, the tournament might be more accurately labeled March Dullness.

But that should not detract from the stellar play of seven of our entries that nailed all eight of the Sweet Sixteen matchups. Now before you seven go gloating, realize that anyone who simply picked the higher seeds, lacking any knowledge of the game (not that anyone would make use of such random tactics – or refuse to advance any SEC schools, or even use Catholic Institutions as a basis for making picks) would be solidly in the top five at this point too.

Not surprisingly our consistent leader, Mark McKeown Bracket, continues to hold strong leads in both the Current Points sort and the Possible Points sort. Sneaking up into contention is Gordon Bjorkman III, who is tied for second place with the “dfs” entry in both sorts. Seems that the key to success is to not only simply pick favorites, but also to use your real name for your entry.

As for the race for the Brandy Award, the title has officially been claimed. Not surprisingly, Pope’s Picks has locked down the worst performance of this season, going back-to-back with truly horrible picking. We’re not suggesting that God hates college basketball necessarily, but this kind of consistency does bring to mind the possibility that he’s suggesting that institutions of a certain faith might want to refrain from competing is such pagan activities.

With half of the Sweet Sixteen having concluded, little has changed at the top of the standings. Extending the lead for the third consecutive summary, the Mark McKeown Bracket, one of many to nail four of four matchups, has widened the lead to four points over Provolone Cheese in the Current Points sort. In the Possible Points sort, the Mark McKeown Bracket has an even more formidable lead with 231 possible points (the next closest being 223 points) and all Elite Eight entries still alive. But the leader, and in fact all but two of the top 13, had to sweat out an overtime game that Texas Tech came close to giving away to Arkansas. Had Arkansas been able to pull off the upset, the standings would be looking very, very different going into the second half of the Sweet Sixteen. Maybe tomorrow will bring us some shakeups and get us out of this rut of favorites advancing. What fun is that?

Oh, wait, we do have some fun – at the other end of the standings, that is. Just when we thought that Pope’s Picks had the Brandy Award wrapped up for a second consecutive year, a new contender has leapt into contention. And in spectacular style, having whiffed on every single Sweet Sixteen game so far is MrMortgage, the only entry that ended up with a goose egg in column number 4 of the Standings page. With just two Elite Eight picks still alive, MrMortgage ranks just behind Pope’s Picks in the Possible Points sort and is making a strong case for hitting rock bottom.

Ah, but in the Current Points sort, we have yet another contender, current last place overall, the entry labeled “No SEC,” which predictably has not a single SEC team advancing to the Sweet Sixteen (this despite the fact that 14 teams and three of the top four ranked teams come from the SEC).  A questionable strategy, to say the least, ranking right up there with betting on Seth Davis making an accurate game prediction. 

At this point we can only conclude that the race for the Brandy Award is currently much more intriguing than the race among the leaders. 

As we close out the first two rounds of March Madness and prepare for next week’s Sweet Sixteen, just one double digit seed, Arkansas, remains in contention. Other than a couple of 6 seeds and a 5 seed, the remaining teams are all 1 through 4 seeds. Dare we say……..boring??????

After the plethora of upsets and surprises that we experienced during the previous two years, we expected a little more…..errr, you know……madness. Shoot, if you had simply picked the higher seeded team to win each matchup, you’d be among those in the lead right now. Hopefully we’ll see some shakeups over the next two rounds to lend a little fun to our little tournament here.

As for current performances, three entries got though Round 2 having picked 14 of the 16 games correctly, one of those being yesterday’s leader, Mark McKeown Bracket, which leads in both the Current Points sort and the Possible Points sort. Four entries got 13 of the 16 games right, and then there’s everybody else.

And also with the conclusion of the first two rounds we see the emergence of the dreaded asterisk. For those unfamiliar with the dreaded asterisk, let us put it this way – your payment is pretty much overdue. Yes, those unfortunate souls who see an asterisk next to their entry have no hope of finishing in the money. Chief among those is current last place entry, Pope’s Picks, winner of last year’s Brandy Award and seemingly a pretty good bet to wrap up another free entry as seven of the bracket’s Elite Eight picks have been eliminated. We have a few other contenders, namely a number of picks that went sideways with just six correct picks in Round 2, but it’s going to be a challenge to move the Pontiff off of the perch.

The first day of Round 2 saw one huge upset (documented below) and a couple of mild ones. Most entries managed to bat .500 or better, but four somehow got it right on seven of the eight games played today. Two of them, Mark McKeown Bracket and Tucker4, now sit tied at the top of the current points standings. An impressive accomplishment, but let’s get through the rest of Round 2 before we start trying to predict any sort of success possibilities. After all, we haven’t even seen any of those pesky asterisks that identify gloom and doom for pool participants – though tomorrow could yield a different story.

Of course we can’t go without recognizing the futility at the other end of the standings. Prominent among those is the stunning accomplishment of RaleighGoodBracket today, the only bracket that somehow selected just one correct pick out of the eight games played. Makes you wonder what RaleighNotSoGoodBracket’s results might be if there was such an entry. Ordinarily such a lack of accuracy would vault a bracket result like this far into the lead for the Brandy Award. But Pope’s Picks, now with six of eight Elite Eight selections already gone, is overshadowing all other terrible entries, selfishly hogging the spotlight. That said, the Pope did manage to get three picks right today. Encouraging, but it’s only warding off the inevitable – the bracket pool version of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

We had to wait until the second round but we finally got our first big bracket buster as the tenth seeded Arkansas Razorbacks ended the tournament hopes of the number two seed, St. John’s. Bad news for our six entries that had St. Johns winning it all, the most notable being our new standard for inept bracket play, Pope’s Picks. Given the frail health of the pontiff these days, this blow has given rise to even more concern among his followers. We’ll hope for the best, but consider this the first major claim on the Brandy Award and possibly the first ever back-to-back finish at the bottom of the rankings.

As for those who were wise enough to stay away from the Big East, the St. Johns pick will likely have only a minimal effect relative to the rest of the competition as a mere nine entries had Arkansas advancing past the second round. Furthermore only two entries picked the first two games of the second round correctly, one of those being our new leader, Moochies. Contrast that with the 56 entries that missed on both of the first two games, which tells us that nothing is even close to being decided yet.

The hopes for a massive double digit upset over a top seed died with the completion of the round of 64. With the exception of number 11 Drake over number 6 Missouri, and a couple of the somewhat predictable 12 over 5 upsets, there were not that many surprises, resulting in a plethora of high scoring brackets grouped together at the top. Tyrone Shoelaces’ picks, with three losses on day two, were rather mundane in comparison to the perfect run of yesterday, but his bracket leads all entries at this point with all but three results having been picked correctly. Behind Tyrone is a six-way tie for second, just one game back, and behind that group is a seven-way tie just one game back of that group. Suffice it to say that there is really no true favorite at all at this point.

The battle for the Brandy Award is almost as closely contended as the battle being waged at the top, with picks being uncommonly accurate, the “worst” record being 18 of 32 winners. The two leaders, sorted by possible points remain unchanged from yesterday, but a new name……….well, let’s say familiar name to be more accurate, has joined the contest. That would be none other than our old friend, Pope’s Picks. If that entry sounds familiar, it was Pope’s Picks that snared last year’s Brandy award.

Pope and Basketball – Bad Pairing?

The Pope has a reputation for favoring the Catholic schools, a strategy that ranks right up there with relying on Charles Barkley for bracket advice. Sadly, the Pope’s hopes suffered a couple of tough blows as three of his Elite Eight picks, one of them also a Final Four pick, failed to make it past the first round, making some question his commitment to, or more importantly, his knowledge of basketball. While some claim that this is proof of God’s disdain for Catholic schools participating in hedonistic events such as the NCAA tournament others are encouraged that schools portraying sainthood have survived and seem poised to forge onward in the tournament. Meanwhile, the only entry that has BYU going all the way, subtley carrying the name of “Polygamy Picks” looks on in amusement.

The hopes for a perfect record, as well as Tyrone Shoelaces’ dreams of riches, have been dashed with two incorrect picks in the early games of Day 2. On the positive side, though, Tyrone still stands atop the “Possible Points” standings and is tied for first with “Show Me The Money” in the “Current Score” standings.

The Brandy Award all time official low score has already been exceeded – and we haven’t even gotten through three quarters of the first round yet.  The worst bracket has successfully picked 13 of 24 games played so far.  A quick check by our official statistician, Numlock Salmon, shows that never before have our participants failed to fail at such a rate.  Somehow that qualifies as a disappointment.

There still hasn’t been much in the way of big upsets other than the somewhat expected “twelve seed beats five seed” result that remains intact through two matchups to date. Let’s hope for a little more excitement in the second half of the Day 2 games.