It’s looking like 2023 might go down as the year of the double digit teams as top seeds get shredded like Silicon Valley Bank shareholders. So far on Day 3, the only higher seeded team to win was San Diego State, and they’re a five seed! Another number one seed, Kansas, bit the dust and the number 15 Princeton Tigers found their way to the Sweet Sixteen with a win over Missouri. The opportunities for the cameras to feature crying cheerleaders and piccolo players are endless!

Staying the course in this maelstrom of madness, though, is Big Lumber1, still sitting solidly atop the standings in both the Current Points sort and the Possible Points sort. At the other end is a fight for the Brandy Award with no less than nine teams whose Championship teams have both been eliminated. Encouragement may be taken, though, by noting that there are no asterisks yet!!

With some great opportunities up and down the pool.  At the top of the pool “Big Lumber1” is sitting pretty smug, having missed only 5 games (and only Iowa State making BL1’s final 8) in round 1.  However, BL1 DOES have Tennessee winning it all – one of two such entries in our pool.  Tied for 2nd are two entries, one of whose entry name will not be repeated here out of respect to one of our pool masters who’s on temporary hiatus from his post.

In the “sorted by possible score” view of the status report (which pool stalwarts will recall a certain amount of verbiage having been spent over the years by pool staff extolling this view of the status early in the pool), we see the pool so ranked being lead by MF1 (Duke as their pick for winner).  Good luck MF1!!  In 2nd place in this view is the aforementioned BL1, and in 3rd is Junior GMan (Ala).

Where things get really exciting in the early rounds is the competition for the Brandy award.  Here we  see a bunch of entries with their choice for pool winner already having been eliminated.  Lots of red at that end of the pool.  The Brandy Award looks to be highly contested this year.

Enjoy Round 2.  And those of you that have suffered disappointment already, please stay the course and remember that there are plenty of Cal fans out there who have great experience in supporting disappointing sports teams that can help you through these times.

It was all going so well. Big Lumber1 was dominating EQE March Madness in much the same way that Tom Izzo dominates clipboards.

Seemingly able to predict every outcome, be it a favorite or an upset, this entry stood out among the rest and no matter how you sorted the standings, Big Lumber1 was on top. And then……….the University of Pittsburgh happened. The upstart, having gotten into the tournament only on account of winning a play-in game notched the only upset of the early Day 2 games, taking down the sixth seeded Iowa State. And with that, Big Lumber1’s Elite Eight pick was eliminated.

And with that, everyone……..well, many more, suddenly have a chance again in this year’s March Madness tournament. Now don’t get us wrong, Big Lumber1 still leads in total points so far, and still has the most correct picks, but when sorted by Possible Score, a herd of contenders are suddenly in the picture.

Look for more clarity when we provide the next update at the end of Day 2.

Day One certainly featured its share of surprises. However, the second half of the Thursday games did not quite live up to the shock and awe that the first games demonstrated. Although Houston and Tennessee had their fans – and those who picked them in the pool – a bit concerned, each came through in the end and except for Penn State’s not-all-that-shocking win over Texas A & M, all of the higher seeded second half teams won.

At present, as scored by Current Points, three entries, Big Lumber1, Sound Garden, and dfs, lead the way with 28 points, meaning these three missed on only two contests. Ah, but therein lies the fallacy of looking only at the Current Points sort, because when sorting by Possible Score, dfs tumbles down to a tie for 75th in the standings, and Sound Garden drops into a tie for 12th place, but significantly, ol’ Big Lumber1 still claims the number one spot. Before you start resigning yourself to Big Lumber1 taking it all, though, check out those Elite Eight picks, including Miami playing in the Championship and Creighton being part of the Final Four, and you might have a little more faith in your overall picks. Of course we’re not saying those are unlikely picks…….well, OK, yes we really are saying that.

Between the surprises and the not so surprising results, even the worst guesses hit at a 50% success rate, while other than the top eight spots, nobody is picking any better than a 75% win rate. All of which suggests that it is truly anyone’s pool to take at this point. Things will become a bit more clear tomorrow where we look forward to more upsets……

more Barkley………

and more Cheeto’s…..

It looks like it’s going to be another one of those years. With two major upsets in the first two games brackets are getting blown up like Russia’s entire tank force. With the number two seed Arizona going down to Princeton, the hopes for three picks that had the Wildcats winning it all are looking dim indeed. Same for Badger04, who had the fourth seeded Virginia Cavaliers in the Championship game – so much for cavalier picks. But given how things seem to be going so far, there’s hope for even these horrible picks!

Every entry has at least one loss at this point, and only five have fewer than one loss. The Arizona loss did hit pretty much every entry, so from a relative pool competition standpoint, it could be argued that it had little effect on the overall standings. Yeah, try telling that to No Beauty Sleep, Chat EQE, and One More – Under the Wire as they seethe seeing their projected champion head home.

A reminder that you can always see where your picks stand by clicking on the “Status Reports” link above. That takes you directly to our master scorekeeper and you can select from a variety of reports to see how things stand at any given moment in the tournament.

Next update after the second half of the Day 1 games.

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.

With Duke and Villanova going down in the semi-finals the possibilities in our EQE March Madness tournament are now clear.  Either Newman2 or RaleighGoodBracket will take the 2022 Championship, depending on whether North Carolina or Kansas, respectively, win the NCAA Championship game.  Did RaleighGoodBracket pick Carolina to win?  Hardly.  Actually nobody picked Carolina to win.  Nor did anyone pick them to make the Final Four.  In fact, only two entries picked Carolina to even make the Elite Eight and both of them are long gone.  

In short, you pretty much had to have picked Kansas to make it to the Final Four to have any chance at all.  Surprisingly only five entries had them taking the title despite them being a number one seed.  

The unexpected twists in this year’s tournament have presented us with a possible record setting year.  Should the Tarheels somehow with the Championship game we would set an all time record for the lowest winning score.  Now that’s something to be proud of!  It wouldn’t be the first time that nobody picked the winner, but this year was beset with an unusually large number of high seeds falling early.  Which just makes it that much more fun, right?  Errr, maybe not.

If Kansas ends up winning the Championship we will still have one of our lowest winning totals ever, tied for third lowest.  

Here are the two scenarios for Championship Monday if you haven’t already found the report from the menu above.  If you are out of the running you should have or soon will be receiving information from one of your pool administrators on how to pay up.  For any questions, please contact us at hoopsmaster@eqemarchmadness.com

If Kansas wins:

If North Carolina wins:

We started with 101 entries in this year’s EQE March Madness Tournament and as we find ourselves with the Final Four left to play we are down to a mere seven entries with any chance at all of taking the title……or, for that matter, pocketing any money at all! Somehow every surviving entry has a chance to win the whole thing as well as collecting on one of the lower tier finishes. This is because all seven of the survivors have some two-way (or better) combination of the surviving Final Four teams.  Dang, if only St. Peters could have worked their way in there, we’d have total chaos on our hands (which we at headquarters would much prefer, really.)

To see the various outcomes, click on the “Final Four 2022” link under the Reports menu above and you will see who wins what in each of the various possible scenarios. Right now things are looking pretty good for Raleighgoodbracket with a top finish in three of the eight possible outcomes. If things don’t work out for that entry, well, Durhamgoodbracket will be there to pick up the slack. Seems there’s a certain fondness for the Research Triangle from a certain participant. Apparently the only thing barring a Chaplehillgoodbracket entry was the character limit on entry names – or maybe a distaste for that lighter shade of blue. Another entry that stands a pretty good chance of netting a profit is a pair of Shizcity entries. This is no anomaly as various shizcity entries have come away with a profit previously and even took the title once.

At the other end of the contest the Brandy Award has already been decided and while UCon All The Way got out to a spectacularly strong start with its champion pick getting eliminated on Day One, the title was snatched away by TRR1, whose slow and steady string of failures snagged the title with whiffs on 9 picks in the Sweet Sixteen and seven in the Elite Eight. This spectacular flameout will be rewarded with a free pick next season for long time participant, Tom Roche, who becomes our first three time Brandy Award winner. Note that Tom is not really trying to perform this badly and that in itself has the committee considering renaming the award.

OK, March Madness is a cute little nickname for a tournament that occupies three weeks of our lives, giving us a chance to test our knowledge of college basketball and brag about how well (or badly) our brackets are doing.  But whomever came up with the term “madness” probably did not expect how definitive that term would end up being in the year 2022.  With the Elite Eight still yet to be played, over three quarters of our entries have been eliminated from any possibility of winning anything at all.  Realizing that we pay out the top five spots, this is really quite extraordinary.  You might even say it’s total madness!  The remaining contenders are made up of a 15 seed, a 10 seed, and 8, and 5, a 4, pair of 2 seeds and just one top seed.  With only 24 entries having any chance of coming away with a payday, inexplicably the leading team is one whose Final Four picks have all been bounced.  That would be the resilient Quackquack2022.  Oh, wait, that’s Current Points.  Sorted by Possible Points, Quackquack2022 is solidly in last place.  With the “Possibilities” report now available we see that Quackquack2022 has zero chance of winning it all, but has a 28% chance of finishing in the money.  Madness indeed.

Actually only nine entries are eligible to win it all, the leader being Ssandro, with a 36% chance of taking the overall title and a 52% chance of finishing in the money.  The consensus among the leaders is generally Kansas or Duke to finish the tournament on top, with a Villanova or Arkansas sprinkled in here or there.  If St. Peters should continue to defy the odds, well, there’s no telling how screwed up things could get.

At the other end of the standings we see TRR1 leading the way no matter what sort you choose. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the Brandy Award is wrapped up, though.  If Villanova is able to survive and move on then early leader UCon All The Way is back in contention, having already missed on all Elite Eight selections.  The pressure on Villanova is immense.

The most endangered species in the tournament appears to be those teams with a little “1” next to their name. With Arizona joining Gonzaga in defeat in the Sweet Sixteen the only top seed remaining is Kansas, and they still have to prove themselves tomorrow night. The result of a shocking number of upsets is a rash of EQE March Madness entries that have 99 of the 101 entries with two or more Final Four picks that have fallen by the wayside. The plethora of early losses is rivaled only by those of the Russian army – and it’s not over yet……for either!

And this is the point where we see those pesky asterisks make their unwelcome appearance. And there are many of them…..with only half of the Sweet Sixteen games having been played. 46 entries sport that little symbol at this point, and more are certain to appear after the completion of tomorrow’s games.

Of those 55 entries still alive, the Current Points sort has Quackquack2022 alone in first place. But with all four Final Four picks having been eliminated Quackquack2022 falls to 51st in the Possible Score sort, only five slots away from tournament elimination. The more meaningful and realistic Possible Score sort shows RaleighGoodBracket with a commanding lead and three Final Four picks still alive. Not surprisingly RaleighGoodBracket has Duke taking it all, one of only three with such hopes. Most of the others at the top have either Kansas, UCLA or Purdue winning it all. Now watch Houston or North Carolina or Iowa State get in there and really screw things up.

Rivaling the fight for the lead in EQE March Madness is the exciting race for the Brandy Award, the ever evolving battle that has nine teams that have seen seven Elite Eight picks go down. At this point last place is held by the ironically named “THE BEST BRACKET,” which predictably is currently the worst overall bracket, having whiffed on all four Thursday Elite Eight games (not the only one to sport such a claim, by the way). Leading the way in Possible Score, however, is a much more appropriately labeled pick, Carson Wentz. Should Carson Wentz end up taking the Brandy Award, your EQE March Madness committee will lobby the Superdome to erect a statue of Carson outside of the rear entrance – an attempt at making up for the injustice suffered by Carson when the Philadelphia Eagles erected a statue of Nick Foles after their Super Bowl win.

Well, another number one seed has bitten the dust.  Gonzaga’s loss to Arkansas has turned just about everyone’s bracket into total disarray, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your entry is dead. Damaged?  Yes, but like Monty Python’s Black Knight, not dead.  That’s because of the 101 entries, 93 of them had Gonzaga proceeding to the Elite Eight.  Now, for the 41 entries that had the Bulldogs in the Championship Game, well, don’t look now, but the dreaded asterisks are about to appear in the standings.

So did anyone pick Arkansas to get this far?  Actually, four did, including one entry, Sssandro, who has the Razorbacks winning the whole thing!  Things just got VERY interesting!

We’ve seen a 1 seed, two 2 seeds, and two 3 seeds go down. As a result, all but nine entries have seen at least one Final Four pick get eliminated. Four of the top ten in current standings in fact have seen two of their Final Four teams go down. With a 15 seed, a 12 seed, and an 11 seed having made the Sweet Sixteen, just about everyone’s bracket has been thrown into a tizzy. And we love it!

Given all of the (pardon the term) madness, that pesky Newman2 entry refuses to go away and continues to lead in the Current Standings sort. This despite finalist pick Kentucky having bitten the dust in their very first game. Sorted by Possible Points, though, Newman2 tumbles down to a tie for 30th place. DurhamGoodBracket leads in the Possible Points category with six Elite Eight picks still alive and all four Final Four picks.

At the other end we have a couple of new contenders for the Brandy Award, both somehow displacing UCon All The Way, a Herculean effort if there ever was one. That’ll happen when all four of your Final Four picks go down, as was the case for the appropriately named Carson Wentz entry. It probably wasn’t a good idea to go all Big Ten either, given the conference’s dreadful Sunday record, but that’s what the entry named All B1G did, and as a result this unfortunate soul finds himself likewise with only two Elite Eights still alive. Hey, even UCon All The Way got seven of the sixteen round 2 games right.

On the bright side, as badly as the upsets have wrecked things in just about all brackets, those dreaded asterisks have not appeared next to anyone’s entry yet. And that means that even Carson Wentz has a chance of finishing in the money.

Ah, the vagaries of EQE March Madness. With half of the Round 2 games having been completed Newman2 continues to lead the overall current scores, having picked six of the eight games correctly. Only four other entries matched that efficiency, including……are you ready for this?……..malz11! If you need a reminder, when we last checked in on malz11, the Brandy Award loomed with Mal having seen three Final Four participants bowing out in Round One. An upset win by Michigan, Mal’s only remaining Final Four pick, resulted in a move from 99th place to a tie for sixth!! Now the reality check – when sorted by Possible Points, malz11 sits in 98th place overall. As for that domination by Newman2, that pesky little loss by what was supposed to be a Championship contender, Kentucky, mars an otherwise perfect looking bracket. It’s a bit like gazing at the beauty of Cindy Crawford, but then upon closer inspection finding a big ol’ hairy mole on her……oh, wait. Bad analogy.

The upset loss by Baylor and the surprising move by St. Peters into the Sweet Sixteen is throwing many brackets for a loop. Only one entry had St. Peters winning their first game and none had them going to the Sweet Sixteen, so fret not because you underestimated the Peacocks. And the Baylor loss affected fewer brackets than might have been expected for a number one seed. Only 24 entries had Baylor making the Final Four and only four had the Bears winning the title.

UCON All the Way remains the favorite for the Brandy Award, but with two correct Round 2 picks, a little breathing room was gained. At this point there is a two-way tie for last place between DD1 and TRR1 for a mere total of 43 points (by comparison UCON All the Way has 47), but in the Possible Points sort, our current favorite dominates with only three Elite Eight teams still alive and a best possible point total of 100.

Holy cow! So many entries did so well during the round of 32. With the many upsets and surprises, credit goes to Newman2 for being the “best guesser” with 27 total games having been picked correctly. In second place it’s a five-way tie between various entries that picked 26 contests correctly. It’s a runaway, right? Mmmmmm, not exactly. There’s one little problem among these top six – every one of them has either Kentucky or Iowa in the Final Four. You are hereby instructed to imagine the Price Is Right sad trombone fail sound effect at this point.

Sort the standings by Possible Score and it’s a totally different story. RaleighGoodBracket leads the way with a top potential score of 227 with all Elite Eight picks still alive, while the current top six are positioned deep in the standings. Still a long, long way to go though, and in truth the standings at this point mean little, except for us to have some fun with. Starting tomorrow the point values for proper picks go up and then we’ll begin to see some separation.

So you’re looking at your bracket and you believe all is lost because one of your Final Four picks is no longer alive. Well, do not despair, because you have plenty of company – 55 total entries, as a matter of fact share that same conundrum. And tournament history shows that rarely do the top finishers end up with more than two correct Final Four picks. If you’ve already suffered a Final Four loss, hey, you’re ust getting that errant pick out of the way……early. Yeah, that’s it.

Now if you have two or more Final Four picks gone already, well, that might be a little more of a challenge, but until those asterisks appear, you’re still in the running. Unless your entry is named UCon All The Way, or perhaps more impressively, malz11. The latter has the distinction of having seen three Final Four picks bowing out already and closing the gap with UCon All The Way quickly for Brandy Award notoriety.

At the halfway point of the second day of play we have no real eye popping upsets. Oh, sure Notre Dame, an eleven seed, topped Alabama, a six seed, and Miami, a ten, defeated USC, a seven, but nothing on the order of yesterday………yet. Several of our entries nailed all eight early games, most notably the stand-alone leader, Newman2, with a total of 20 of 24 correct picks. Genius picking, right? Ummm, maybe not. Sadly one of those whiffs was Kentucky, which Newman2 has in the Championship Game. If you look at the standings when sorted by possible score, sadly Newman2 sits in a tie for 70th while two shizcity entries occupy first and third place. Notable, because a shizcity entry finished second last year and won the whole thing back in 2014.

Brandy Award leader, UCon All The Way, with a best possible score of 115, gained a bit of respectability back, but saw a third Elite Eight entry fall by the wayside. Malz11, the only other entry to have UConn win it all, is closing the gap a bit and at this point is the strongest contender for the Brandy Award. A Duke loss later today could make things very interesting.

We’ll be back with observations and comments after the last eight opening games conclude later this evening.

As Day One draws to a close we have a four-way tie for first place among teams who correctly picked 13 of the 18 games. With upsets galore, even if you whiffed on five games you are considered to be elite…….sort of. It gets better. One of those in first place has two picks already eliminated from his Elite Eight while another picked Kentucky for the Championship game. This underscores the fallacy in looking at the rankings while only considering the current score. To get a more realistic feel for your chances, it would behoove you to look at the standings ranked by Possible Score. Doing so at this point results in MF2 standing alone in first place with a potential score of 238.

The disarray is a result of the many upsets that took place on Day 1, the most notable of which was the upset of the second seeded University of Kentucky along with the defeat of fourth seeded Iowa. 19 entries had one or the other in the Championship Game with six of those picking Kentucky to win the whole thing. And a total of 50 entries had one or both in their Final Four. There really is no reason to despair yet, though, because all indications are that the surprises and uncertainty will continue……..unless you happen to have an entry ominously named “UCON All the Way.” This unfortunate entry has both Kentucky AND Connecticut in the Championship Game. With both teams bowing out in their respective first games, UConn All the Way suddenly becomes a massive favorite as a Brandy Award contender.

With a healthy 101 entries this year, EQE March Madness is back with a vengeance! We here at headquarters are thrilled to see the enthusiastic response and participation. We’ll be even more thrilled if we can figure out how to collect the entry fees. Still working on that. Expect to see a personal mail in your mailbox early next week regarding a payment request to one of our designated collection agents.

At the halfway point of the first day, i.e., with eight games down, we have one lone leader. That would be Pad Rat, the only entry to have all correct picks so far. At this point it’s largely meaningless, because there are still many games yet to be played and certainly more upsets to come. But Pad Rat, enjoy your 15 minutes……uh, make that 130 minutes, of fame. Because that’s when the results for the next rounds for Day 1 will start rolling in.

So, the always reliable twelve over five has already occurred and shockingly only eight entries had the 12th seeded Richmond taking down 5th seeded Iowa. If you’re feeling a little down and out about picking Iowa to make a run or even get to the final game (seven of our entries did this), take heart. You are among 93 others whose bracket is similarly damaged. By the looks of things during the first half of the first day, plenty of upsets are yet to play out. And why not? With COVID resulting in sixth and seventh year seniors returning to play, there is experience like never before. Remember, until those deadly asterisks appear next to your entry, you’re never out of the competition!