At the completion of today’s games we’re down to the final four teams in the tourney, and 21 viable entries in the pool.  Both games today were exciting, with the Kansas victory over Duke being decided late in OT.  The excitement in the first game was much more short lived (mid first half?).

In our pool all of the possible remaining outcomes can be viewed in the Final Four report .  Of the 8 possible outcomes remaining, KirkWho comes in first in 3, DD1 and Petey2 come in first in two scenarios each, and hailphire wins it all only if Kansas beats Michigan in the final.  KirkWho is in the nice position of finishing in the money in 7 of 8 outcomes remaining.

In a shocking display of poor outcome picking, Gerald 1 has come out of anonymity (bad, but not bad enough to be mentioned before) to grab hold of the Brandy Award.  Gerald 1’s score of 60 is not historically horrible, but is considerably worse than last year’s winner (76).

Hey, if we can have the Elite Eight and Final Four, we might as well slap an appropriate name of the tweeners, and thus we christen those teams remaining as of Saturday night the Studly Six.

With Michigan and Loyola of Chicago moving on to the Final Four we are down to 36 entries that can finish in the money, only nine of which have a chance of finishing in first place.  At this point, KirkWho is looking pretty strong with a 69% chance of finishing in the money and a 28% chance of a first place finish.  Should Villanova and Duke win tomorrow, those odds go up even more.

Looking at the current points, Worst Nightmare leads the way with a score of 109.  Should Texas Tech slide by Villanova on Sunday, the Nightmare could become very real.  Speaking of Worst Nightmare, much will depend on this lovable soul.

Of course if he wasn’t already America’s most despised college basketball player, followed closely by Grayson Allen, he could become even more disliked if he ends up beating America’s favorite 98 year old sweetheart, Sister Jean.  That just ain’t right.

Some clarity is coming to the Brandy Award winner too.  If Villanova wins, New Name is almost a sure lock.  However, if Villanova loses, Big East Final will complete a clean sweep of no Final Four and only one Elite Eight picks.  That’s harder to do than you might realize.

Friday’s action followed the seeder’s expectations much more closely than Thursday’s games:  3/4 games went to the top seed, with the only seeding “upset” being (close your eyes, Ron) the marginally lower seeded #3 Texas Tech Red Raiders defeating the #2 seed Purdue Boilermakers.

Looking at the brackets, the East ended up relatively true to form (#1 vs. #3), the South is upset city (#9 vs. #11), the West is moderately upset (#3 vs. #9), while only the Midwest played true to form (#1 vs. #2).

What does that mean to YOU?  If you are among the 45 remaining entries with a chance, you’ve got more to root for than the rest of us.  The current leader is “Worst Nightmare” with 99 points, but picking UVA to win it all.  “Worst Nightmare” does finish in first place in 24 of the remaining 128 outcomes (check out the possibilities report).  Leading the odds for a first place finish is KirkWho who is first in possible score ranking, and 3rd in the current point ranking.

Things are still roiled at the bottom of the sediment heap, with the lowest current point total (“Big East Final”) currently with only 55 points, but with the potential for 105 points.  There are a number of entries who have already reached their potential, with the lowest scoring of those being “New name” at 66 points.

In what might be the worst title suggestion for a potentially HORRIBLE Agatha Christie rewrite there are now only 62 entries left in our pool without the dreaded “mark of the asterisk”.  Leading the charge are Soupy and DERPS tied with 83 points.  At the bottom end of those with still a shot (current score) is DD3.  The entry remaining with the highest possible score is KirkWho who has Villanova defeating Michigan in the finals (there are 3 entries with this championship matchup).  Playing a familiar tune, assuming that all remaining game outcomes are equally probable Soupy has the highest chance of coming in first (17% chance of landing in the money).  Because all outcomes AREN’T equally probable we put our best (only) guy on the case and determined that if Loyola Illinois wins out things are pretty tough to figure out.  Leave it to be said that no-one in our pool makes any further points on the backs of the fightin’ Ramblers as only 8 entries had them winning 3 games, none at 4.

We’ve had a big shakeup at the bottom of the pool (turbidity is high – google THAT you non-CEs) with JM now having the worst performing entry (49 points to date), but with both Kansas (winning it all) and Villanova (final four) still alive.  Keep in mind that Beau Blakey is the lowest in possible score 71 points.  So we know that the Brandy award will go to an entry scoring between 49 and 71 points (inclusive).  Spellbinding.

Speaking of spellbinding the tournament this year continues to produce thrilling games with unexpected outcomes.  Today’s action had the #11 Ramblers beating the #7 Runnin’ Rebels (Ramblers Wreck Running Rebels??), #9 KState defeating #5 Kentucky and #9 FSU beating the favorite #4 Zags.  In the non-upset bracket Michigan defeated TAMU.

We are hoping to have them up and running at the “quick reports” link above (NOW POSTED. -Admin), but should the torrential rain preclude the necessary work from occurring, please hop on over to hoopness.com to access all the latest and greatest.  The “Possibilities” report has Soupy in a good position finishing in first place in 22% of the remaining possible outcomes, followed by DERPS and “Rather be knitting”.  2 of those entries have a familiar ring to them…

There are a relatively few number of entries with the dreaded * by them – so you should all be well motivated to get your outstanding fees addressed before tomorrow…

“Beau Blakey”, with a current score of 51 and a possible score of 76, is the current favorite to bring home the Brandy award this year.  There ARE a number of entries with current scores in that range, though, so the action in the floculation basin should remain interesting until everything settles out.  (non-civil engineers are encouraged to google that)…

Two number one seeds are gone, two number eleven seeds are in, and the first four seeds in the South bracket are gone.  Just another weekend of March Madness living up to its name.

So three of your Final Four selections are gone?  Not a problem!  You’re in good company.  There isn’t a single entry among the 106 participants that hasn’t lost at least one Final Four choice and most have lost two.  Yet they’re all still alive…..well, except for those entries that are accompanied by those pesky asterisks.  Sadly, if there is a little star in front of your entry name, your pick is no longer among those in the running…..for anything.  Don’t feel too bad, as reportedly every one of the 17.3 million brackets submitted in ESPN’s perfection contest is out of the running after only two rounds.

If you are among the lucky 79 still in the running, the Status Reports now list your highest possible finish.  And it may be higher than you think – and we’re talking about you, Conjilmom.  Though three of your Final Four choices have been bounced and five of your Elite Eight choices are gone, you still have a chance of finishing as high as second.  Let that sink in.

As we enter the Sweet Sixteen, Soupy still leads the way with a five point lead as sorted by Current Points.  But KirkWho has the lead in Possible Points, having lost only two Elite Eight teams among the many upsets.

At the other end of things, Beau Blakely holds the current lead in the race for the Brandy Award, but special recognition goes to Big East Final with only four correct picks among the sixteen second round games.  Impressive!

If you had not submitted your fees by the end of Sunday’s games you should have received our friendly reminder to pay.  To those who promptly paid up subsequently, thank you very much.  Hopefully we’ll have all debts settled before the Sweet Sixteen begins this Thursday.

After the excitement of the Golden Retrievers upsetting Virginia last night today’s beginning of round 2 started in a fairly hum-drum fashion with higher seeds winning all games in relatively convincing fashion.  #3 Tennessee was not so lucky, running into the Ramblers of Loyola-Chicago.  In a game that had L-C seeming in control until the final few minutes the Volunteers mounted a furious comeback only to be foiled by a last seconds shot that bounced high off the rim only to drop in for the Ramblers.  Hopefully the remaining 3 games of the day maintain that excitement.

In the pool the current status is lead by two entries that picked only 2 of the 4 games completed to this point correctly.  The leader in the possible points status continues to be the formidable “quackquack2018” with 3/4 games completed in round two so far picked correctly, and with all 8 final 8 teams still alive.  If all falls qq’s way the ducky entry will finish with a score of 219, just a point higher than Gary Byers’ 2007 entry.  Which is another way of saying that the the record will likely hold for another year.

It’s early in the race for the Brandy award, but with the Eyebrian2 already at 40 points we know that a record WON’T be set.

With the completion of the UVA vs UMBC game Warren Buffett breathes easy, earlier than any prior year.  With a stunning 16 over 1 upset the Golden Retrievers (?!?) of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County has joined the following historical sports accomplishments of this “year”:

• The Cleveland Browns won a football game
• The Eagles won a Super Bowl
• North and South Korea together fielded an Olympic women’s hockey team
• The US won an Olympic gold in curling
• The Russians fielded a clean Olympic team

Yep – a 16 seed beating a 1 seed is so rare that it has actually NEVER happened before.  And with it the team with the 2nd most entries picking it to win it all in our pool has taken the never before seen 1st seed exits in the first round, likely deep sixing at least 14 entries.

With today’s action, and the first round games, complete, the top entry ranked by current points is “Soupy”, correctly picking 25 of the 32 outcomes in the round.  But Soupy is nowhere to be seen in the upper echelon of the possible score rankings having picked UVA to make it to the Final Four.  At the top of the Possible Score rankings is “quackquack2018” with an umblemished slate of Final 8 teams – a current status shared with #2 in the possible score rankings “Jumbo”.

At the other end of things JM and Eyebrian2 (both now 16/32) have out plummeted Gerald 2 who is now batting 1 game over .500.

At the three-quarter mark for the first round we are beginning to see some separation – and we’re not talking about the seams in Wolfpack coach Eric Musselman’s clothing – though we could be talking about the microphones that will probably be separated a little farther from the coach whose cursing reportedly caused longshoremen, and possibly the FCC, to be offended.

At the top of the standings in the Current Points category, two are tied for the lead as both Soupy and Sparty Is Angry have managed to pick all but three games correctly. However, when sorted by possible points, Sparty is both angry and sad as his pick for Arizona making in the Final Four drops the Possible Score ranking down to 75th. That leaves Soupy all alone in front with a slim one “Possible Points” lead over several picks that are stacked right up behind in the standings.

Meanwhile, it’s time to break out our statistical study based on Hoops Madness participants, the results of which were probably starkly predictable.

Vitale Raftery Bilas Research Institute of Madness Study

So the UofA Wildcats have a whole lot of ugly going on, from an ugly blowout 1st round loss to the 14 seed Buffalo Bulls to an FBI investigation of their basketball program.  But it’s hard to argue that the ugliest part of their season isn’t their uniforms.  Yikes.  Hearkening back to the origins of the Brandy award (the eponymous entry was based on the uniform colors) we feel comfortable in assuming that THAT Brandy would have picked the Wildcats to bow out early.  Which they did.

In pool news the Buffalo victory did knock all entries out of the land of perfection.  As of right now there are 16 entries with 12 of 14 outcomes picked correctly.  Perennial top-dwellers DWG2 and Eyebrian3 are tied with possible scores of 243.  Speaking of Brandy, Gerald 2 is solidly in last place at the moment, though with a record that would be good if it were a batting average (.500).

Enjoy the games.  And be happy that you will no longer be visually assaulted  by basketball fashion gone horribly awry.  Or at least the UofA version of said malady.

After the first half of the first day we have one mild upset, the 11 seed Loyola of Chicago taking down sixth seeded Miami, while also creating a new star, Sister Jean, the hippest 98 year old in the tournament. At this point we still have 11 entries with a perfect record, a full 27% of them entries belonging to your Hoops Madness Administrators. Hmmm.

We’ll have the shortcuts to the reports up soon, but in the meantime you can browse all of the reports generated by our magical Hoopness engine by clicking on the “Review / Print Entry” link under Quick Reports, which will provide you with a list of links. Choose “View Reports” to see any number of site generated reports. You can also click on “Find an Entry” to see how your entry, or that of any other person for that matter, is doing. The site automatically ID’s correct (blue) choices and incorrect (red) choices.  How cool is that?

Stay tuned for more updates later today/tonight!

It’s a good showing for the 2018 Hoops Madness Tournament, 106 total entries.  Indeed the economy has improved.  We’re trying to stay on top of the financial end of things so we remind you of our preferred method to settle your debts.  And sorry, but your response of “just take it out of my winnings” is not all that original.

You can go directly to our PayPal Collection point by clicking here.  It will appear that you are “purchasing” custom hoop rings, which is our slick method of sliding around the nasty paypal people who have tried to disrupt our tournament in the past.

If you have not paid up by the end of this Sunday’s games we will put you on the tardy list, issue you a strongly worded letter, and let Vlad Putin deal with you.  Don’t be late!

They don’t call them “play-in” games anymore, but that’s exactly what they are.  The loss by UCLA to St Bonaventure may have stunned some…..well, one maybe.  Will it alter your choice of a champion?  Probably not, but the more important news that might have you rethinking things is the University of Virginia’s loss of De’Andre Hunter, the highly regarded ACC Sixth Man of the Year.  Reports from talking heads (most of which are failed coaches turned “experts”) have Virginia falling from the ranks of most favored to no-longer-most-favored.

If you are suffering from “early picker’s remorse” and feel the need to make a change, we have just the solution for you – go back in and change your entry!  You can do this by clicking on “Create, Review, or Print Entry” on the banner above.  You’ll find the main menu there with several links.  Click on the “Update an Entry” link and you’ll be prompted to enter your entry name and password.  Remember to use your personal password, and not the DickieV password that you used to gain entry into the pick ’em site.  If you need a reminder as to what your entry name is, click on the Main Menu link, then “Find an Entry” and you’ll find a list of all entries.

Good luck and don’t forget to submit your payment via our convenient PayPal link.  If you haven’t done so already, you can pay here.

S-upset Sunday followed S-upset Saturday, leaving many brackets in shambles. The result of today’s carnage is most visible in the standings with the first appearance of the dreaded “asteriks of elimination” [AOE]. If you see an AOE next to your entry you can now relax and enjoy the tournament without being troubled by how the game will impact your retirement plan.

The opposite side of this coin is that if your entry isn’t tagged with an AOE there is a teaser indicating the highest finish possible for your entry. For example, DD2, currently ranked 104 in the status report, can still finish in first place. Given that DD2 was the only entry to pick Michigan to win it all I’m pretty sure that DD2’s fortunes ride solely on the backs of the Wolverines.

To get an idea of how tumultuous this weekends games were on our pool one only has to look at the Distribution report. Duke was the most favored team in our pool to win it all (22 entries) followed by Villanova (20). Doing some quick math these two losses represent over 1/3 of the pool having had their bracket champion lose in the 2nd round.

The Brandy award is still a conceptually wide open race – PadRat has a total possible score of only 105, and picked only 1/2 of the games correctly this round. 5 entries had a worse 2nd round, having picked 7 of the game winners. Ouch. Also at the bottom of the heap are “Boom Goes The Dynamite” and “BBJones”.

Among those entrants that had a slightly better weekend, the “Shizcity” series are looking particularly good in the possible points rankings (1, 3, and 5th place). “Big 10 Love” had the best weekend having picked 13/16 correct winners with Duke being the one blemish (picked to lose in the championship). “Team America” currently maintains a clean Final 8, impressive at this stage of the tournament.

If you are looking to get a probabilistic view of your chances, and your entry is still AOE free, the “Pool possibilities” report will give you the chances (assuming that each of the remaining possible 32,768 outcomes are equally probable. Which they’re not) of finishing in first or in the top 5. Based on this report, “Shizcity 4” and “Big 10 Love” (the top two most probable winners) together represent 21% of the winning game outcomes.

If the top seeded teams ALWAYS won their games you’d have saved a ton of time by clicking the “pick higher seeds to win” button and been done with it. As yesterday demonstrated this isn’t always a winning strategy. Without bemoaning the fact that Northwestern ALMOST won (almost happens all the time), the following significant upsets DID occur:
A) #8 Wisconsin defeated #1 and defending champ Villanova
B) #11 Xavier sent #3 FSU packing
C) #4 Purdue defeated #5 Iowa State (not technically an upset, but tell that to Purdue fans)

Looking at our distribution report, there were 7 entries that picked ‘Nova to bow out in the 2nd round, though 31 having them making it to the championship, 20 winning it all. You can guess who’s happier now!

Given the upsets the sorted by possible report is probably a better indicator than the standard status report- in the current point ranking 2 entries in the top 15 leaders have Villanova winning it all. That being said the leader, “Big 10 Love” DOES have a clean slate in the Great 8 (including Wisconsin). “Boiler Pete” was the beneficiary of two of the aforementioned upsets, but is going strongly against archetype picking Purdue to win it all (one of three such entries).

All 4 of the top entries in the status report sorted by possible points currently have clean G8s, 2 wistfully thinking of a Purdue victory, one Duke, and one UNC. Which is to say to the remaining 117 entries that there are many games left to play before you can give up on your entry.

Even current cellar dwellers “Starbucks Fan” and “rather be knitting” have respectable possible scores of 141 and 145 respectively. If you go to the hoopness site you can perform “Dynamic Status” reports to see what would happen if, for example, UCLA wins it all. Enjoy…

For many, it’s called disbelief. (This account hijacked by Admin…who is currently out and about…)

The Round of 64 is now complete and there is a five-way tie for first place, all of whom picked every contest but three of the 32 games correctly.  With no real notable upsets, perhaps this isn’t all that surprising.  We say “notable” because so many of the so-called upsets were actually somewhat predicted by Hoops Madness participants.  Indeed, 85 of 121 entries correctly picked number 10 Wichita State’s “upset” over Dayton, while 52 also went with number 12 Middle Tennessee State over number 5 Minnesota.  The inclusion of three “Kaos” entries among the five “Current” leaders appears to be somewhat suspicious in that there is a very close connection to control of the tournament.  The watchdogs that keep the administrators honest have been summoned.

If you rank the standings by Possible Score, you’ll see an ominous name among the four that are tied for first.  That TKC1 and TKC2 you see is none other than defending champion Tom Chan, also our only two time champion.  Fellow first place “possibles” J1 and BCG2 stand advised.  Evidently the secret to doing well is to ensure that your entry has a number in it.

As for the other end of the competition…….all we can say is poor Tom Crean.  Two crushing events, only 36 hours apart.  First he gets fired within the first hour of the commencement of the tournament, and after a special one-time late admission allowing him to get a Hoops Madness entry in, he goes and blows it when his championship pick, Marquette, gets blown out in their first game.  All of this and the embarrassment of being John Harbaugh’s brother-in-law.  How much misfortune can one person sustain?  Obviously Tom shoots to the bottom of the pile in possible points.  And we’ve made sure all forks and knives have been collected from his house.