While 2 games are still in contention tonight, 2 games are in and one pool administrator is self medicating following a stressful Purdue victory. With “favored” Purdue having eked out a victory and Iowa scoring a tight upset victory over Nebraska our pool is beginning to show some signs of clarity. Reviewing the Possibilities report (assuming all remaining outcomes are equally probable – hint – they aren’t) there 6 entries each representing greater than 5% of the remaining possible pool outcomes at the top of the heap. The top of this top class is “Duncan Idaho’s Ghola”. You can google “Ghola” yourself if you’d like but the process of creating one sounds somewhere near as stressful as what happened to Purdue fans tonight. At the other end of the “still with a faint prayer” end of the first place finishers at press time is “knockworst” owning a single chance out of all possible outcomes.
At the other end of the spectrum there are 27 entries with no chance of winning the pool, 26 who are also out of the running for the Brandy Award. As previously reported, Zoe Bracket, with a current score of (counts fingers and toes a few times) 47 and a possible score of (grabs box of toothpicks) 47… errrr… I guess that there’ no more fun to be had at that end of the pool. Zoe B- start making your plans for next year!! 47 is a admirably poor final score, but not so bad as to make the hall of fame…
HOLD THE PHONE. While blathering the final two games of the evening have completed with Illinois and Arizona advancing. With those games completed there are still 27 entries with no hope for finishing in the money, but at the top of the possibilities Duncan Idaho’s Ghola now stands a (equally weighted) 12.8% chance of winning the pool, with a 27% chance of finishing in the money. First place in the current standings? Epic Pipe Wrench with 106 current points, but also having picked eliminated Florida to win it all. Only 1.2% of the remaining possible tournament outcomes keeps one of the more epic entries at the top of the heap.
More excitement to come as the Sweet Sixteen dwindles to eight…