Congratulations to our winner, the entry titled Newman2, who we can now reveal belongs to Kirk Nosho. Kirk went with all of the number one seeds in the Final Four, three of whom would go on to fall long before that while also whiffing on three more of the Elite Eight teams, meaning he correctly picked only two Elite Eight contestants and somehow still won the whole thing! How’s that make you feel about your entry? That unusual feat resulted in the second lowest winning score of our tournament’s 33 year history, 147. No question the many early upsets and Cinderalla’s caused major destruction among all brackets, so why did Kirk’s entry stand out and win it all? Well, while most of us were trying to be cute and pick the St. Peters and Miami’s of the world to make it to the Sweet Sixteen……..oops, that really happened. Anyway, Kirk simply went with the higher seeded teams in most cases and correctly picked a few eleven seeds, Michigan and Iowa State to make it into the Sweet Sixteen. That’s all it took!
Brian Gunter, last year’s champion, proved that was no fluke as his BCG1 entry finished in second. Brian at least had three correct picks once we got to the Elite Eight, one of the few to have Duke in that grouping, yet he finished ten points behind the winner. Go figure.
Third place goes to ZagsNation3, Kristina Gigler, who oddly didn’t have the Zags even making the Final Four while also picking only one team to make the Final Four. Uhh, that would be Kansas, of course. Kristina somehow finished only one point behind Brian too, which officially makes this the weirdest year ever in EQE March Madness.
Fourth and fifth places go to RaleighGoodBracket and Sssandro, respectively, both of who picked Kansas to fall in the final game. See, you didn’t even have to pick the right team to win to come away with a profit in this year’s tournament.
And let’s not forget our Brandy Award winner, Tom Roche, who followed his back-to-back Brandy Awards two decades ago with a third win 21 years later. That’s persistence.
To see the final rankings and where your entries ended up overall, click on the link in the block below.
Thanks for playing along with us again this year. We’re thrilled that we had as many entries as we did and that so many people have stuck around through all of these years. We’ll be here to do it once again next year (God willing) and we hope to see you all back again for another round of the best tournament in sports!
Oh, and to those who have submitted their contributions, many thanks. If you have not been contacted by one of the administrators you should be hearing from someone (or one of our authorized agents) soon. As soon as we get all of the contributions in we’ll distribute the winnings to the diserving recipients. If you have not heard from any of us, please wait a day or two, and if then you feel completely abandoned (and flush with cash), please shoot us an email at hoopsmaster@eqemarchmadness.com and we’ll make sure you have a proper place to deposit your funds.