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.

Hoopsmaster hasn’t chimed in yet, but the Current Score Report now lists your BEST POSSIBLE FINISH… So if you have a NUMBER after your name and NOT A * [BLANK], you are still in the running for a TOP FIVE finish. Congrats!

With Michigan State, No 2. Seed University of North Carolina, and now Cincinnati exiting the tournament rather early… your Admin felt that we all needed to step back and maybe take a much needed mental break. Back later with the final scoring update for tonight.

Lesson learned here: Make your free throws!

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