Well, that was a rather surprising ending……..to say the least. Our entries that had Duke matching up against either Arizona or Michigan had to be feeling pretty confident about their chances to move on in our tournament, thus profiting greatly from the massive winnings that EQE March Madness offers. But there’s an ancient idiom stemming from college basketball superfan, Aesop, who in his fable “The Milkmaid and Her Pail,” brought us the story of the milk-maid who had planned to take the milk she has just obtained from her cows, which would eventually lead to buying eggs to hatch chickens, which would lead to a chicken ranch that would make her fabulously wealthy. Her dreams of riches were dashed in an instant when the milk pail slipped off of her head as she frolicked around while imagining her fabulous future as a wealthy tycoon, dashing her dreams, thus bringing us the phrase that we all know now about counting chickens before they hatch. (Betcha didn’t know that background, huh?). Well Cameron Boozer, along with his fellow Dukies, their fans, and most important of all, our entrants who had lined up Duke for a Final Four spot, were left much like Aesop’s milk maid, hardly able to process the most unlikely outcome of a game that Duke dominated for all but the final 0.3 seconds. The shocking loss, along with the not so shocking Michigan rout of Tennessee, took our possible first place finishers down to just six possible entries with just twelve more having any possibility of coming away with a payday.
The odds on favorite with three possible combinations to come away winning it all is Epic Fried Chicken. Right on the heels with two possible winning combinations each is Big Ten and Shizcity 1 plus three more that need things to go exactly the right way. All possible outcomes are listed below with the five winners in order. In almost every scenario the tie breaker comes into play. Most interesting is a potential five-way tie for fifth place should Illinois and Michigan end up matching up in the Championship game. Oddly the entry labeled “Big Ten” comes away winning it all if Arizona and Illinois go at it in the final game, but is out of the money should the two Big Ten teams end up facing off.
