NCAA First Day - 8 games in

As predicted, no upsets in the last 2 games, so we are still down to 8 perfect brackets.  That will change this afternoon, and I predict that we won't have any at the end of the day.  That's because we have a lot of "separation" games this afternoon.  Games that are 10/7 of 5/12 where the 12 is pretty popular (NC State, for instance).

The average pick so far has been 5.9 / 8.  That's pretty solid.  I'd be happy if I was in that range.  It doesn't knock you out.  As they say, you can't win it on day 1, but you can probably lose it.  3 people managed to lose their champion already, and 11 brackets have lost at least 1 Final 4 team.  That's not much, but it probably cripples those brackets.

Here are the picks for the next 4 games:

Connecticut: 174
St. Joseph's: 73

Michigan: 242
Wofford: 5

St. Louis: 148
NC State: 99

Oklahoma: 167
North Dakota State: 80

See what I mean about separation?  When a 1/3 of people are on one side, it tends to divide the field pretty well.

For those that are unfamiliar, with a pool this large, you really are only competing against the group of people that took the same Champion as you.  That means that if you took Florida or MSU, these games are much more important because they are essentially the tiebreakers.  Very often, based on how you do early, you can be eliminated even if you have a lot of points and your champion still alive because you will have a common path to someone that did better in these earlier rounds.  I'll have more on this when the sweet 16 is completed.

Good luck to everyone!!!!!